AOC wrote on BlueSky, a good summary of the Trump budget bill adopted in Congress.
"I don’t think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE.
This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined.
It is setting up to make what’s happening now look like child’s play. And people are disappearing."
#usa #budgetbill #aoc #fascism #geopolitics #ICE #trump @geopolitics
You no longer have to wonder whether some of the masked men with guns in unmarked cars taking people off the streets might not be real law enforcement officers. We now know that 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁.
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…
That includes a guy in NC who sexually assaulting a woman by threatening to deport her.
#ICE #Trump #USLaw #USPol #USPolitics
Experts say trend of agents detaining people while masking and wearing plainclothes increases riskJosé Olivares (The Guardian)
My question is: will Marco Rubio self-deport or will he wait for ICE to come and get him? The Supreme Court's ruling today certified that Rubio is not a US citizen, as neither of his parents were US citizens at the time of his birth in 1971.
BREAKING:
#Trump is monitoring the #Iranian attacks from the Situation Room in The #WhiteHouse and is about to make an important decision
Trump Administration Abandons Deal With Northwest Tribes to Restore Salmon
—
The Trump administration canceled a deal, signed under President Joe Biden, that would have enabled the removal of four hydroelectric dams along the Columbia River that are considered harmful to salmon.
propublica.org/article/trump-s…
#News #Trump #Native #Indigenous #Oregon #Environment #Sustainability #PNW
The Trump administration canceled a deal that would have enabled the removal of four hydroelectric dams along the Columbia River that are considered harmful to salmon.ProPublica
#Trump has posted on social media:
We now have complete & total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers & other defensive equipment, & plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, & manufactured “stuff.” Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA.
This statement is indicative of the #UnitedStates directly engaging in the #Israel #Iran #war. He has also NOT consulted US #allies—despite just being w/them—& is acting unilaterally.
NBC News:
Actors Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon among New York's protesters
Ruffalo told NBC News that he was marching "because democracy is in real trouble."
"We're not going away. We're not going to be quiet," he said. "We love each other, and ...we love this country..."
nbcnews.com/politics/trump-adm…
#News #Politics #Democracy #Democrats #Trump #NoKings
Follow live updates as the military parade in Washington, D.C., kicks off on Trump's birthday. 'No Kings' protests by opponents are planned across the country today.NBC News
Sticking with the Trumpenreich invasion of LA for just one more moment, I'd like to take a look at the intentional fascist intimidation tactics employed by Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, or at least her security team, against the US Senator from California, Alex Padilla. This event received extensive coverage in the mainstream media, but I believe it's important to take note of here for two reasons; one which was discussed in liberal media circles, and one that got far less coverage because our establishment is instinctively allergic to calling US cabinet officials "liars" even when everyone knows they're lying.
Let's get into the weeds:
truthout.org/articles/senator-…
Sen. Alex Padilla Tackled to the Ground, Handcuffed at Noem Press Conference
"Video of the incident that circulated on social media showed Padilla attempting to ask Noem a question when multiple men began grabbing and shoving him.
“I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla says, struggling to speak as he’s manhandled. He seemingly begins to make a comment about the “rotating” set of people supposedly convicted of crimes that the Trump administration is parading around in attempts to justify their brutal, sweeping anti-immigrant campaign.
As he’s speaking, the officers forcibly remove him from the room, with Padilla yelling “hands off.” Grabbing his arms, chest, and clothes, they shove the senator into a hallway, where they force him to the ground and handcuff him."
First of all, this is outrageous, intentional, fascist political intimidation and Senator Warren is absolutely right when she says the DHS Secretary should resign. Not that Noem will, because Trump purposely stacked his regime full of nazis who don't know the meaning of the word shame this time, and Kristi really fits that description; after all, this *is* a woman who bragged about murdering a puppy because she thought it would help her political career. The fact is however there are only 100 United States Senators, and while Capital Hill may be a city within a city, it's not a particularly large city. Every single person in that room, including Noem, her security detail, and the press corps, knew who Alex Padilla was the entire time. Furthermore, while Noam might have a TV star's face thanks to her surgeon, she's a very poor actor, and watching her during this widely-recorded moment makes it clear she's fully aware of what's going on the whole time. The assault, and it was an assault, by Noem's security detail on a Democrat sitting US Senator representing the community the Trumpenreich is currently invading, was completely intentional; Noem, and through her Trump, meant to send a message.
As the article goes on to detail, this fascist bullshit is firmly part of a larger Swine Emperor and GOP quest to criminalize their political opposition, specifically the Democratic Party. This is occurring not only in rhetoric, but in deed. The regime is investigating Act Blue, a Dem-aligned fundraising org, they've arrested both a Democrat Mayor, and a Democrat Congresswoman for attempting to conduct oversight on an ICE facility, federal agents burst into NY Democrat Jerry Nadler's office, cuffed an employee, and accused his staff of harboring "criminals." They're working hard to get Americans used to seeing Democrat officials aligned against Trump, in handcuffs on the six o'clock news, and I suspect that's not an accident.
All of which then brings us to Kristi Noem's bald-face lie, that Senator Padilla "burst into the room," "lunged at her,' and "did not identify himself." Let's roll the tape:
theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…
CBS video of Padilla interrupting Noem with a question appears to undermine her claim that he lunged at her
"Just three seconds into the incident, Padilla could be seen standing, with his left hand raised slightly in a rhetorical gesture, trying to continue with his question, as a security officer placed his hands on the senator’s chest and back and began pushing him away from the front of the room.
There is no visual evidence in the clip to suggest that Padilla was moving in Noem’s direction when he started speaking, or was ever within 10-15ft (3-3.5 metres) of her."
So, actually Padilla was already in the room, he never got within 12 feet of Noem and certainly didn't lunge, and he clearly identified himself in a room he didn't have to. I'm sorry for the Zapruder film treatment here, but I want to establish that Kristi Noem is unquestionably, and intentionally lying about something she knows is being recorded live, because that's the most important thing about this incident.
Noem knows she's lying, she knows you know she's lying, and she knows the camera knows she's lying, but in true fascist fashion she's claiming the power to force you to accept that lie as valid; and a media pretending she could just be stupid and mistaken, would make Orwell weep.
#Fascism #Trump #USPol #DHS #InvasionOfLA #KristiNoem #AlexPadilla #GOP
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator … imagine what they’re doing” to everyday Americans, he said.Sharon Zhang (Truthout)
Keeping with collecting facts to remember about the ongoing invasion of LA in a discourse actively trying to reimagine these events in real time, I'd like to talk about this June 10th article on Huffpost because I think it highlights three important points I've been writing about on this blog. First, state security forces, particularly federal Trumpenreich immigration forces are the ones committing violence and sewing disorder, not protestors. Second, the "nonlethal" weapons being deployed on nonviolent protestors in LA are still extremely dangerous, and represent an unacceptable application of force against people exercising their constitutionally-protected rights. And third, the class sympathies of corporate media organizations are so powerfully encoded that they supersede even basic self-preservation.
huffpost.com/entry/journalists…
Dozens Of Journalists Targeted, Shot, Detained While Covering LA Protests, Press Org Says
"Shocking video and photos taken amid the ongoing immigration protests in Los Angeles show journalists and news crews being shot, detained and forced off public property by law enforcement, raising concerns of excessive force and First Amendment rights violations.
There have been more than 30 incidents of police violence against journalists as of Tuesday, including 20 injuries, at least five of which required emergency room or urgent care visits, said Adam Rose, the press rights chair with the Los Angeles Press Club, which released a statement Monday urging an end to the targeting of journalists whose work is constitutionally protected."
Keep in mind that this story was published on June 10th, and it is now June 13th; I've watched enough livestreams from LA to guarantee you the more than 30 incidents of police violence against journalists catalogued by the LA Press Club is now a drastic undercount as we roll through day 7 of the fascist Trumpenreich invasion of LA. Furthermore, while everyone has seen the clip of the Australian 9 News reporter being purposely shot in the back of the leg by a murderpig, incidents of deliberate calculated violence against journalists by various state security forces are by no means isolated, and have resulted in far more serious injuries than Tomasi got in that clip. These violent assaults on journalists by federal immigration officers and local police forces are *not* accidental; check out this quote from the LA Press Club's letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem:
“In some cases, federal officers appear to have deliberately targeted journalists who were doing nothing more than their job covering the news,” a letter addressed to Noem by the organizations states."
Do you have any idea how sure a mainstream press body has to be before they accuse cops of purposely targeting journalists? Security forces, particularly Trump's federal Gestapo, have been intentionally attacking journalists to prevent them from covering their widespread civil rights abuses and fascist piggery towards migrants and protestors; full stop. Is this violence? Is this disorder? Cause if it is, I think it's safe to say the pigs are the one bringing those elements to the streets of LA.
Which brings us to nonlethal rounds, and the intentional application of excessive force against journalists, by security forces. Take this story from a veteran reporter shot through the leg with a "nonlethal" round by a cop aiming an area effect weapon directly at his midsection.
"Graphic photos shared with HuffPost show a gaping wound in Nick Stern’s right thigh that he said has left him unable to walk or move without assistance.
“Why this device was shot at human, kind of, waist high level, I do not know. The people around me at that time was doing nothing more than waving Mexican flags,” he told HuffPost."
Stern's story is by no means an outlier, and the article provides evidence of more injured journalists like him. All of which might make you ask how media muppets can continue to blame violence on protestors and hump murderpigs on live TV while their compatriots are being wounded in the streets by deliberate pig assaults? The answer is cold hard cash, and the class sympathies of people who own and run media corporations. These folks are so committed to the police state that protects their material interests, that the media they control will jump through absurd hoops to conflate victim with victimizer; a few days ago I watched a CNN reporter claim protestors were throwing exploding foam objects at the press while holding up a nonlethal munition that I know came from the cops because they're the only ones who had those types of weapons at the protest.
My friends, you're damn right there is violence and disorder on (some of) the streets of LA; and if all the murderpigs and soldiers committing that violence and causing that disorder would like to fuck off now, I'm sure Angelinos can handle the rest from here.
#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #Police #PoliceViolence #Media #Journalists #CivilRights #USPol
“I never thought for one moment that I’d actually have to be fearful of law enforcement during a public protest," said one photojournalist hospitalized after getting shot in the leg.Nina Golgowski (HuffPost)
In this thread I've written a lot about the importance of keeping track of what the regime says surrounding the fascist shitshow that is the Trumpenreich invasion of LA. Speaking frankly, I think everyone living in a capitalist police state should keep close track of what their "leaders" say at all times, but in this case it's important because the Trump regime uses propaganda to create space for action. In talking about and justifying their fascist activities, including the invasion of LA, regime officials frequently reveal a great deal about their methods of operation and future intentions.
To go deeper into what I mean by this sort of tea leaf reading and how it pertains to the Trump regime's statements about Los Angeles, let's take a look at this June 10th Guardian article discussing a very similar issue with some help from NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat:
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…
‘The language of authoritarianism’: how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention
"As a pretext to this action, the Trump administration had characterized the protests as a broader threat to the nation. On X, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, called LA “occupied territory”. “We’ve been saying for years this is a fight to save civilization. Anyone with eyes can see that now.”
Trump posted on Truth Social: “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals. Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations – But these lawless riots only strengthen our resolve.”
FBI director, Kash Patel, wrote on X that LA was “under siege by marauding criminals”.
If I'm being honest, this entire article is basically one huge "They Said It" post, so you'll forgive me for centering Trumpenreich official's comments over Ben-Ghiat's analysis. If you read on however, she confirms that the regime's language is designed to create an 'existential sense of fear," paint LA as a warzone, and justify putting soldiers in the streets to enforce Trump's fascist rule. Ben-Ghiat also points to a statement made by Trump's crusader fascist Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for a perfect encapsulation of how this narrative building then translates to implied justification for very specific authoritarian regime actions.
"The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil,” Hegseth wrote. “A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.”
Ben-Ghiat said Hegseth employed “the classic authoritarian thing, of setting up an excuse, which is that the internal enemy, illegal criminal aliens, is working together with an external enemy, the cartels and foreign terrorists, and using that to go after a third party, of protesters, regular people, who came out to show solidarity”.
All of which brings us to the same, familiar, gnawing question that defines so much of the second Trump era; are these guys fucking serious? As I mentioned elsewhere, the fact is a fascist regime really only gets one shot at going for the full Third Reich dictatorship experience; if Trump and his minions go for it, but fail, everyone who doesn't have SCOTUS-granted immunity from prosecution is probably fucked. Is Downmarket Mussolini willing to risk the tremendous power and privilege he has now to make himself the true master of all he surveys? I'm not sure anyone, even Trump's unofficial minister of nazi shit Stephen Miller, actually knows the answer to that question.
What I can tell you however, is what I told you earlier on this blog today; at some point the idea that Trump is just accidentally falling into all the steps he'd need to take to install a permanent fascist dictatorship in America, ceases to hold water. This guy is either the world's luckiest accidental authoritarian, or the Trump regime is planning to go the full nine yards and what we're talking about now is a question of courage, not will. Take a look at what this article quotes Miller as saying, and then tell me you're sure I'm wrong.
“Simply put, the government of the State of California aided, abetted and conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States,” Stephen Miller wrote on X."
Folks, it's hard to say that the Trump regime is "preparing for war," when they've clearly already started one. But almost everything the regime does and says, especially in regards to the Los Angeles protests, strongly implies we haven't remotely hit rock bottom here. Trump is running out of shiny things to distract the public with and it's increasingly becoming clear the Trumpenreich is building a dictatorship brick by brick; you don't do that because you want to admire the shine on your Gestapo's riot helmets.
#Fascism #Trump #USPol #LA #InvasionOfLA #Propaganda #Dictatorship #StephenMiller
As a pretext to sending in the national guard, the White House marked the Ice protests as a broader threat to the USTess Owen (The Guardian)
Today in deeply not at all fun Trump facts; did you know the Swine Emperor has currently deployed more troops to LA than the US military officially maintains in Syria and Iraq, combined? No, seriously:
truthout.org/articles/trump-ha…
Trump Has Deployed More Troops in LA Than Syria and Iraq, Per US Counts
"President Donald Trump’s latest deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles means that there are now more troops carrying out Trump’s anti-protest crackdown in southern California than in both Iraq and Syria, regions where the U.S. has executed some of its most intense and inhumane military campaigns in recent decades, according to official counts.
Trump has dispatched roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to respond to L.A.’s protests of his immigration raids, for a total of roughly 4,700 troops. Meanwhile, according to publicly reported Pentagon figures, the U.S. has roughly 2,000 troops deployed in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq, for a total of 4,500."
As the article goes on to note, a Pentagon still operating under War on Terror logic while occupying Iraq and purportedly fighting terrorism in Syria, may well be undercounting the troop levels in those two countries; they've certainly done so in the past.
Regardless, if we consider the *official* deployment of military personnel to be a de facto statement of the regime's policing priorities, that still means the Trumpenreich is arguing that unarmed domestic protesters inside very small pockets of the Los Angeles area are a greater threat than militarized terrorist militias in two countries US intervention has helped transform into semi-perpetual warzones. Please keep in mind that the LA protests are happening on livestream, and there are hundreds of eye witness accounts in the public discourse from Angelinos saying there is no widespread disorder for the troops to quell. There is not a man, woman, nor child in America who can't verify for themselves that Trump is lying about a “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” going on in Los Angeles, if they want to.
All of which of course leads us directly back to our ongoing discussion about what the Trumpenreich is trying to use its militarized invasion of LA to sanctify in practice, if not in US Law. Trump wants the power to permanently occupy US cities, while engaging the military in both domestic policing and assisting the Gestapo in the regime's ethnonationalist mass deportation project; including apparently providing detention facilities for caged migrants. Furthermore, as Zhang ominously notes, there are clear signs the regime is exploring how to scale up what they're doing in LA, to a much more national project.
"According to a report by ABC News, the Pentagon is considering a plan crafted by the Department of Homeland Security to deploy more than 20,000 additional National Guard troops to aid with Trump’s immigration raids.
This would cost $3.6 billion over the course of a year, and would represent roughly half of the number of troops deployed across the entirety of the Middle East. It would also be an escalation of the Trump administration’s use of the U.S.’s colossal military capacity to attack and subdue the American public."
Folks, I'm just going to be real with you; you don't martial up 20,000+ troops from all across the country in advance because ICE is going to raid a bunch of cities one by one to hunt down brown people Stephen Miller's shriveled conscience cannot abide existing in his county. We're definitely going to talk more about the ABC report the author mentions at a later point in time, but what you're looking at here is the opening steps the regime would need to take if they intended to militarily occupy the parts of the United States that didn't vote for Trump without meeting organized, violent resistance.
Like a lot of the fascist bullshit the Klepto Kaiser is doing right now, it's hard to tell if he's going to go "all the way." At some point however, the idea that Donald Trump is just accidentally stumbling in to all the steps he would need to enshrine a militarized fascist dictatorship under a perpetual state of quasi-martial law, strains credulity. If Trump gets away with transforming protests into an insurrection and soldiers into policemen in LA, you should bet on the idea that the nazis will soon be coming for a town near you in that very same way.
#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #Imperialism #WarOnTerror #USPol #LosAngeles #Protests #MENA #Syria #Iraq #PoliceState
The figures are a show of the administration’s willingness to use extreme military force on its own population.Sharon Zhang (Truthout)
They Said It (June 8th, 2025)
"Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has said the protests in Los Angeles are “absolutely” organized by people being paid to instigate violence, without providing any evidence.
Asked by Sean Hannity on Fox News about pallets of bricks that he claimed had mysteriously appeared at the protests and whether she had found evidence of organisation and funding, Noem said:
"Absolutely. These are organized. These are people that are being paid to do this. You can follow how they behave, the signals they give to each other in these crowds and these protests to instigate violence. This is an operation, and it’s professionally done. They’ve done it before, and we’re going to stop it and make sure that we prosecute every single one of them."
She also called Karen Bass a “trainwreck of a mayor” and said Los Angeles was not “a city of immigrants they’re a city of criminals.”
Source - Guardian live feed, June 8th:
theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…
#Fascism #InvasionOfLA #KristiNoem #Trump #USPol
Mayor says ‘nothing warranted’ the intervention and that cannot ‘emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos right now’ due to Ice raidsKate Lamb (The Guardian)
In previous analysis, I wrote about my belief that the Trumpenreich's invasion of LA had established a repeatable legal, logistical, and political framework for transforming the National Guard and indeed the US military into the enforcement arm of a permanent fascist police state under at least the constant threat of martial law. Well, it turns out that I could have just waited a couple of days for the regime to say the quiet part out loud, because Pete Hegseth all but admitted that's precisely how this is going down in real time, during a Congressional oversight hearing on Capitol Hill.
commondreams.org/news/hegseth-…
Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in 'Any Jurisdiction in the Country'
"U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told members of Congress on Tuesday that he believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement "has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country."
Given that Hegseth and President Donald Trump have cast the National Guard and U.S. Marine deployments to Los Angeles as an effort to protect ICE personnel as they carry out the administration's mass deportation campaign, the Pentagon chief's testimony to lawmakers represented a justification for troop mobilizations to any part of the nation where protests against ICE are deemed a potential threat."
To completely understand what Trump's crusader Secretary of Defense is getting at here, you have to place it in the larger context of the regime's fascist mass deportation project, and the conditions which administration officials, including President Trump himself have outlined to "justify" escalation and additional military involvement. The rough process by which the regime is now actively conducting a fascist takeover of the broader American state at every level of government, looks a bit like this:
A) Send ICE Gestapo squads along with other federal agents to any city Trump regards as ideologically opposed to his fascist agenda, and begin kidnapping people and very publicly and aggressively violating civil rights.
B) Declare any protests or opposition to those nazi ICE raids and tactics, no matter how peaceful or lawful they may be, to be an insurrection and an attack on federal law enforcement. Use that attack, even if you have to make it up whole cloth, to justify commandeering a state's own National Guard to enforce Trump's rule militarily, while actively tasking them with protecting ICE Gestapo agents conducting raids; which conveniently gets around the legal restrictions that have previously prevented Trump from using the army to conduct ethno-nationalist immigration enforcement policies and mass deportations.
C) As Trump himself has proposed, respond to any "attack" (which again, we know they can just make up) on National Guard forces, by sending in the US Military and presumably invoking the Insurrection Act to place the targeted city under martial law and Trump's de facto command.
Please note that the only part of this outline that's still hypothetical is C; and while Trump hasn't actually done it yet, numerous powerful nazis in his administration have hinted that is the direction they're heading, including Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Hegseth himself, Tom Homan, Pam Bondi, and Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who at least in theory speaks for the president. How many times do I have to share the Maya Angelou quote "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" in regards to Trump's fascist movement before the reality sinks in that these guys might not be capable of grasping as much power as they desire, but they abso-fucking-lutely mean to try regardless?
What we are looking at here is an arbitrarily deployable framework for a fascist police state enforced by a US military that answers only to Trump, which can be conjured up out of thin air and portably deployed around the country at will. The Swine Emperor is effectively announcing his immanent takeover of the entire country, by demonstrating on the streets of LA that he can instantly take over any given part of that country and unless local officials are prepared to fight the fucking National Guard and or US Army, there's sweet fuck all they can do about it; or at least, so the regime openly says.
Folks, I must confess that I am just as overwhelmed as you are trying to keep track of all the horrifying stories spewing out of the fascist Trumprenreich invasion of LA. But listening to the regime talk, watching Trump activate the California National guard to stop an insurrection we could all watch not happening on livestream, and seeing the LAPD gleefully join in with the nazis to argue stopping fascist ICE raids is a justification to revoke civil rights and engage in unconscionable security state violence, this doesn't sound like we're talking about a *hypothetical* fascist dictatorship anymore.
#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #LA #NationalGuard #InsurrectionAct #Dictatorship #PoliceState #ICE #LAPD
"The standoff on the streets of Los Angeles," warned critics, "shows how truly eager Trump and his administration are to turn America's vast warmaking powers inward on the president's domestic foes."jake-johnson (Common Dreams)
If, as many local officials in California have suggested, Trump's goal was to create a powder keg that justifies even more authoritarian repression in LA, it's abundantly clear the regime and its Gestapo were working to create that power keg long before Trump illegally deployed what is now 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 US Marines to the extremely diverse sanctuary city. Take for example the assault, arrest, and smearing of Service Employees International Union President David Huerta during the Friday ICE raids in densely populated portions of LA and the surrounding area.
Whether the Gestapo pigs who assaulted Huerta on camera while the extremely popular labor leader was merely observing the unlawful Gestapo raids targeting workers in his city knew it or not, their fascist piggery was almost certainly the inciting moment for widespread nonviolent protests that broke out across the greater LA area; a day and a half later, Trump would be illegally deploying National Guard troops on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.
commondreams.org/news/david-hu…
'This Is What Fascism Looks Like': Beloved Labor Leader David Huerta Arrested
"The union included remarks from Huertas, who said, "We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice."
"This is about something much bigger" than his own arrest, said Huertas. "This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice."
According to a statement released by the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 44 individuals were "administratively arrested" in a series of raids at retail stores in the Los Angeles area, while one individual, identified as Huertas, was arrested "for obstruction" of federal officers.
"This is what fascism looks like," said California State Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat. "Secret police raids. Injuring protesters. Arresting labor leaders."
As the article notes, Huertas is the president of a 750,000 member strong union in California that represents an absolutely massive number of Latinex workers in the state; if the feds were looking to avoid protests, this was the last guy they wanted to assault. Which makes the fact that they did so on camera, and then tried to lie about it later all the more revealing. This is from a Guardian update posted after Huertas was released on bond:
theguardian.com/us-news/live/2…
"In an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint against Huerta, an officer alleged that the union leader was arrested after another officer tried to push him out of the way of a law enforcement vehicle being blocked by protesters on a sidewalk. The officer who witnessed the incident claimed that he saw Huerta “push back, and in response, the officer pushed HUERTA to the ground. The officer and I then handcuffed HUERTA and arrested him.”
However, video of the arrest shared on social media by US attorney Bill Essayli seems to show that the officer shoved Huerta to the ground without being pushed by the labor leader. Huerta’s head was knocked into a concrete curb by the officers and he was hospitalized on Friday."
If you watch the video the government's own attorney shared, it is utterly impossible for the regime to credibly argue that Heurta is a violent protestor or criminal element, and even the regime's argument about "obstruction" seems to revolve around not stepping out the way for a truck full of kidnapped Angelino workers to be driven through; yet they're trying anyway. I believe that's because the facts don't matter to Trump, this arrest in particular merely provided him with the excuse he needed to declare war on LA and by extension, Governor Gavin Newsom.
If it seems like I'm laser focused on the Gestapo raids broadly targeting brown workers in LA on Friday, it's because this is unquestionably the inciting incident that lead to the Trump regime's ongoing fascist invasion of LA and contrary to Downmarket Mussolini and his minion's lies, the Trump administration was completely responsible for these inciting incidents. It was Kristi Noem who demanded vastly more migrant arrests, it was Stephen Miller who gave the order to target retail businesses and public districts, it was ICE officials who told the Gestapo to violate civil rights and start snatching people up for being brown, it was the Trump regime who targeted a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state run by the current 2028 Democrat nomination frontrunner for this spectacle, and it was Trumpenreich officials who responded to nonviolent protests by declaring a violent insurrection was occurring in LA to pave the way for Trump's deployment of US military forces to the city. They had the means, they created the opportunity, and the motives are transparently fascist; Trump snatched it up as an excuse to declare war on his perceived opposition immediately, as if it was planned that way, because it was.
#Fascism #LA #ICE #Trump #KristiNoem #StephenMiller #DHS #Invasion #USPol #Gestapo #Newsom #PoliceState #Nazis
Mayor says ‘nothing warranted’ the intervention and that cannot ‘emphasize enough the level of fear and terror that is in Angelenos right now’ due to Ice raidsKate Lamb (The Guardian)
In the thread above, I've made the argument that the entire Trump regime's invasion of LA, from the original Gestapo raids on Friday, all the way through to this very moment, is a carefully orchestrated authoritarian political project stapled to an engineered bit of fascist theater. To my eye, this conclusion seems pretty obvious, particularly given how quickly after protests broke out the entire Trump regime, including noted nazis Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, produced clearly-coordinated sound bites about a "violent insurrection" in LA that literally was not happening. Proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt however, is an evolving process that's going to take time and evidence; so I'm going to intersperse that evidence throughout this thread as we go along.
First up, did you know the regime brought noted anti-migrant, pro-Trump fascist propagandist Dr. Phil to LA for an exclusive "before and after" raid interview with border Czar Tom Homan?
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…
Talkshow host Dr Phil joined Ice agents for Los Angeles immigration raids
"Phil, whose full name is Phil McGraw, was with Ice before and after its agents conducted a series of raids on multiple locations across LA on Friday. Immigration advocates said at least 45 people were arrested, and the action was condemned by California’s governor and LA’s mayor.
It was the second time McGraw, a former practising psychologist who hosted a TV talkshow for two decades, has been embedded with Ice this year. In January, he joined the US border czar, Tom Homan, in a choreographed immigration raid in Chicago, in a stunt that was criticized at the time."
First of all The Guardian, I think describing Phil McGraw as a "talk show host" and "television personality" in this year of our discontent 2025, is a bold move; Dr. Phil is now a fascist propagandist trading on his personal relationships inside the Trump administration to push an aging conservative audience further into the Klepto Kaiser's cult of personality. He isn't on my TV anymore; he's on a fake TV network for fascists and bigot Boomers and he's actively working with the Trump regime to produce anti-migrant, pro-ICE propaganda because his career prospects at this point are virtually nonexistent otherwise.
Which is of course why I'm sharing this article at all. We already know that the regime brought in Dr. Phil to create highly-choreographed propaganda to support fascist ICE raids after he was embedded with Gestapo agents led by Tom Homan himself back in January; it's not like this is a hobby for McGraw or anything, it's his job now. What then does it say that Homan once against tapped McGraw to provide the theatrical component to fascist ICE raids, using new tactics officials knew would result in outrage and resistance, while clearly preparing to justify the deployment of US military forces to LA against then entirely peaceful protests?
It says the regime was putting on a show; and if there's one thing we know about Trump and putting on a show, it's that Downmarket Mussolini likes to go big, or go home.
#Fascism #Trump #USPol #LA #MartialLaw #Insurrection #Propaganda #Nazis #DrPhil #WhiteNationalism #ICE #Gestapo #InvasionOfLA #TomHoman #StephenMiller
Conservative channel MeritTV says psychologist and TV host was there to get ‘first-hand look at targeted operations’Adam Gabbatt (The Guardian)
In an American discourse where the events of the past 3 days are already being re-imagined before our eyes for reasons that obviously have nothing to do with latent white supremacy and cop-worship in our society, I cannot stress the importance of holding on to two widely-reported in the moment facts about the Trump regime's invasion of LA. First, the invasion started on Friday, not Saturday, with militarized ICE raids resulting in widespread civil rights violations being committed by the Gestapo, and entirely predictable anger from Angelino communities being targeted by those raids. Second, and I cannot stress this enough, the feds attacked the protestors first on Friday. Period.
To demonstrate how known these facts were only three days ago, let's turn to some in the moment reporting from the New York Times, a rag that has repeatedly drawn ire for presenting Trump and his administration in a far too favorable light, in service of a broader capitalist, conservative agenda at the paper.
Agents Use Military-Style Force Against Protesters at L.A. Immigration Raid
"Armed agents in tactical gear threw flash-bang grenades to disperse a crowd in Los Angeles’s Fashion District. Later, agents fired less-than-lethal ammunition at protesters outside a detention center."
"Federal agents in tactical gear armed with military-style rifles threw flash-bang grenades to disperse an angry crowd near downtown Los Angeles on Friday as they conducted an immigration raid on a clothing wholesaler, the latest sign of tensions between protesters and law enforcement over raids carried out at stores, restaurants and court buildings."
"It was an extraordinary show of force. Dozens of federal agents wearing helmets and green camouflage arrived in two hulking armored trucks and other unmarked vehicles, and were soon approached by a crowd of immigrant activists and supporters. Some agents carried riot shields and others held rifles, as well as shotguns that appeared to be loaded with less-than-lethal ammunition.
Agents cleared a path for two white passenger vans that exited the area. A short time later, as officers boarded their vehicles to leave, a few agents lobbed flash-bang grenades at groups of people who chased alongside the slow-moving convoy."
"Hours after the raid, a second clash between protesters and federal agents broke out outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where those who were detained were taken. At one of the entrances, protesters chanted and approached the building as officers fired less-than-lethal projectiles and squirted what appeared to be pepper spray."
“They started throwing flash-bangs and blew everybody up with it,” the man, David McDaniel, said as he held his bloody foot. “I got shrapnel all over my body,” he added.
Mr. McDaniel said he was not part of the protest and was just trying to get by."
I'm sorry for spam quoting the article, but I want to give readers a sense of what a news outlet with little sympathy for brown people or protestors, was reporting about the ICE raids on Friday that started the invasion of LA, and the language they were willing to use. The article also goes on to describe the tactics Gestapo agents used once they had "corralled" suspected migrants, which if reports from at least one US citizen targeted by those tactics are to be believed, are in fact clear civil rights violations.
"Omar Diaz, 26, was working inside when several agents entered the building and corralled the roughly 20 to 30 workers inside and lined them up against a wall.
“They interviewed us one by one,” Mr. Diaz said. “They would take us separately, ask us where we were born, and then they wanted our ID and our information.”
It may surprise the nazis running our immigration policy to learn this, but ICE needs grounds beyond "brown and working" to detain people; to say nothing of the fascist police state tactic of swarming businesses and "corralling" all the people who fit the description. So, the feds were all decked out for war in Los Angeles, California, a sanctuary city with a large nonwhite population, in a sanctuary state led by a Dem Governor Trump seems to regard as his chief political rival, terrorizing brown people, openly violating the civil rights of Angelinos, and dropping flash bang grenades and non-lethal rounds on the streets of LA to clear a path for migrant paddy-wagons; all before anyone in Trumpworld had even uttered the words "National Guard."
I want you to ask yourself how you would feel, how you would respond, if this was happening in your community. Do you think you might protest? Spray a little graffiti? Might you even consider throwing an egg at the Gestapo? Folks this entire story hinges on the idea that the greater crime here is obstructing fascist mass deportations, and not the mass deportations themselves. Don't let a cop-hugging white supremacist establishment convince you to take your eye off the ball.
While we're still in the "before ICE starts snatching up brown people at work in perhaps the most diverse city in America" portion of our story, I'd like to take a look at a curious exchange between California Governor Gavin Newsom and the Trump regime, that occurred right before the fascist theater shitshow in LA touched off. While the federal government's invasion of LA is inherently a story about labor class and marginalized resistance against fascist oppression, I do think there is a clear political angle at work here that we're going to have to talk about sooner or later, so I'd like to lay the groundwork for that discussion now before this fascinating tidbit of information fades out of the discourse.
Did you know that literally hours before the Gestapo raids in LA that touched off what would become Trump's invasion, California was threatening to without federal tax payments and the Pork Reich responded by threatening to jail the Governor of California while making arguments that Trump or at least Trump policies should control the state, not Governor Gavin Newsom?
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…
Newsom is warned of ‘criminal tax evasion’ if he withholds federal taxes
"The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has warned California governor Gavin Newsom that he would be guilty of “criminal tax evasion” if he withholds his state’s tax payments to the federal government amid threats of a funding cut by Donald Trump.
Newsom had threatened to cut tax payments to the federal government two days ago after reports that Trump was preparing huge federal funding cuts targeting Democrat-dominated California, including its state university system."
There's a lot going on here and the Guardian's reporting is a little bit of a flippant but juicy political story because, presumably, they did not know ICE and then the US military were about to invade LA. The two larger background stories here are that Gavin Newsome is the 2028 frontrunner for the Democratic Party nomination, and that Trump has been threatening California with drastic cuts to its federal funding unless Newsom adopts fascist political policies, particularly in relation to climate legislation and trans rights. The latter dispute, which has become quite heated, has been raging for months and was recently thrust into the spotlight because the Klepto Kaiser saw some moral panic anti-trans news stories about a girl's high school long jump meet and responded by threatening to defund the California University system; which is to some degree, the pride and joy of California (neo)liberalism.
So our backdrop here is that before a single federal boot hits the ground in LA and the surrounding area, Trump is already trying to broadly control policy in California, and become locked into a highly political battle of wills with Newsom, who the broader right seems to regard as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party given his status as the 2028 nomination frontrunner right now. That battle over the sovereignty of the California government had already escalated to a point just below the surface of open conflict in a way we haven't seen since the Civil Rights Act was passed; at the point the Governor of California is saying he's not gonna to pay the state's taxes unless Trump let's him govern his own state, and US government representatives are threatening to charge Newsom with criminal tax evasion, you are in fact already on the verge of something akin to a Civil War, or at least secession. Which in turn makes regime comments about Newsom's governance, delivered on Friday by White House spokesperson Kush Desai, extremely revealing.
"In a statement on Friday, the White House spokesperson Kush Desai criticized California’s energy, immigration and other positions as “lunatic anti-energy, soft-on-crime, pro-child mutilation, and pro-sanctuary policies”.
“No taxpayer should be forced to fund the demise of our country,” Desai said, but he added that “No final decisions, however, on any potential future action by the Administration have been made, and any discussion suggesting otherwise should be considered pure speculation.”
Now look, I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if you look past the blatantly obvious lies being uttered by the Trump regime, this all sort of looks like the opening stages of a 2028 election battle with the Kelpto Kaiser upping the anti by making that battle highly literal and kinetic. The media isn't picking up on it because A) they're interested in selling Newsom as the next president and B) they're not taking Trump's threats to run for an (unconstitutional) third term seriously, but all the hallmarks of Trump building Newsom and "decadent" California up to be his new Clinton dynasty, or Biden regime style foil are there. This isn't about public safety, it's about power; the power to punish your political opposition and rule like an emperor across every state in America.
That's why they picked LA.
#Fascism #LA #Trump #Newsom #USPol #Funding
California governor made threat amid reports Trump is weighing huge federal funding cuts targeting stateEdward Helmore (The Guardian)
In order to understand the true story of the Trump regime's invasion of LA, and broad resistance to the regime's white nationalist agenda by labor class Angelinos, you have to start with a story I briefly touched on last week about a change in ICE enforcement strategy mandated right from the top of the Trump administration. In response to direct pressure from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to massively increase the number of migrants arrested per day, and instructions from unofficial director of nazi shit Stephen Miller to target commercial businesses and public locations, ICE officials ordered agents to engage in acts that all but ensured widespread racial profiling, a massive number of civil rights violations, and militarized abductions in American communities; including, crucially, no warrant arrests that aren't strictly illegal, but immigration officials know aren't allowed to be used the way they're instructing Gestapo goons to use them right now, either.
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…
US immigration officers ordered to arrest more people even without warrants
"If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing,” another message said.
The instructions not only mark a further harshening of attitude and language by the Trump administration in its efforts to fulfill election promises of “mass deportation” but also indicate another escalation in efforts, by being on the lookout for undocumented people whom officials may happen to encounter – here termed “collaterals” – while serving arrest warrants for others.
The emails, sent by two top Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials this past Saturday, instructed officers around the country to increase arrest numbers over the weekend. This followed the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, pressing immigration officials last month to jack up immigration-related arrests to at least 3,000 people a day."
Okay so please keep in mind that this article was published on June 4th, which is two days before fascist ICE raids touched off what will then eventually become the Trumpenreich invasion of LA. A significant portion of this article is devoted to talking about ICE's hypothetical but still quite illegal sounding efforts to meet the regime's Nazi-esque migrant arrest quotas, and the circumstantial legality of collateral immigration arrests. It's an illuminating discussion for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that every legal observer quoted in the article warns that warrantless arrests can be abused in precisely the unlawful ways ICE would use them in LA later that week; it is however irrelevant to our larger discussion except in to note that ICE swarming businesses and arresting all the brown people because they might be "illegals" is not how this power is supposed to be used, and doing so is a clear violation of civil rights.
What's important here is that the article provides a comprehensive picture of an agency desperate to meet a fascist mass deportation quota, whose leadership then directly instructs its Gestapo agents to engage in activities they know will result in unlawful arrests and civil rights violations; because the agency was already sanctioned for doing these same things which surprise, resulted in unlawful arrests and civil rights violations. This, when combined with the increased migrant arrest quotas, and Miller's instructions to stop focusing on actual criminals and get directly into communities to snatch up foreign-looking people, inevitably resulted in the fascist outrages that touched off the battle for LA, with heavily armed and armored Gestapo goons storming businesses in the fashion district of Downtown LA and other high traffic urban areas to round up anyone brown enough to fit the description, in broad daylight. Indeed, the combination of instructions given to both ICE officials and Gestapo foot soldiers could not have resulted in any other outcome and the regime was prepared to capitalize on the outrage it would cause; that's why they were so quick to respond to completely justified popular pushback with cries of insurrection and orders to send in the national guard. Furthermore, given the national scope of DHS and ICE's authority what we just saw happen in LA is clearly an outcome they intend to replicate all across the country; seemingly targeting sanctuary cities in blue states in particular out of political reasoning and ideological spite.
The invasion of LA wasn't spontaneous, it was engineered; and that engineering started at the very top of the Trump regime. This shitshow wasn't ever about public safety; it's a reproduceable battleplan for a war the regime just chose to start at a time, and in a place of its choosing - and they chose LA.
#Fascism #DHS #ICE #Gestapo #Trump #MassDeporatations #CivilRights #Migrants #HumanRights #LA #WhiteNationalism #EthnoState #StephenMiller #KristiNoem #ArrestQuotas #Racism
Exclusive: Ice officers told to get ‘creative’ with arrests, including of undocumented people encountered by chanceJosé Olivares (The Guardian)
"Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If L.A. falls, the country falls." – Ice T
Yesterday I told readers I was waiting to write about the fascist federal invasion conducted by the Trump regime, on the city of Los Angeles because I didn't think we were yet at a point where the whole story, which remains ongoing, could be properly contextualized. Yesterday, by illegally commandeering 2,000 California National Guardsmen, and deploying them to suppress protests that were at that time entirely peaceful, the Trumpenreich provided that context on livestream. The regime staged a miniature invasion of LA and its surrounding communities; partly as a form of reprisal for Angelinos disrupting Trump's fascist mass deportations, partly to provoke a conflict that would allow the government to at least threaten to invoke the Insurrection Act, and partly to further criminalize Trump's political opposition as he drives America towards a one-party fascist dictatorship.
A cursory examination of the Trump regime's statements and behavior over the weekend make it abundantly clear that this violent fascist political theater was not spontaneous, and Stephen Miller, Trump's hate goblin deputy chief of staff who is clearly running this nazi shitshow, is fully aware of the size of the game he and the Trump regime are now playing. No matter what happens from here, this is a huge story, with ramifications that are going to be felt for the rest of the Swine Emperor's time in office at a minimum; much in the way that DHS human trafficking flights to El Salvador, or the regime's quest to deport Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others for anti-genocide speech, defined the opening 100 days of Trump's clearly fascist presidency, the invasion of LA is going to define the next phase of the fight against US fascism.
Unfortunately, we live in a capitalist society that values property over people, and embraces violent murderpigs and soldiers, while demonizing marginalized people and protestors. Already the broader story of what we all just watched on livestreams and newsfeeds, is being massaged into a victim-blaming narrative that simultaneously absolves both the Trump regime's fascist provocations, and the excessive violence of local police forces against almost entirely peaceful protestors who had every right, if not a civic responsibility to try and stop illegal fascist abductions and open civil rights violations in their communities. Statements are being memory-holed, timelines are being distorted, and a million (mostly) white talking heads are starting to "just ask questions" about whether the horrifying security state violence on your screen was justified because some of the protestors had bottle rockets and someone set robo-taxis on fire; as if "violence" against property is a thing that exists, and mere vandalism is morally equivalent to stomping protestors with police horses and firing "nonlethal" rounds at journalists.
In order to combat that phenomenon, I'd like to establish in extremely broad strokes, a rough outline of what I personally just watched unfold over three days in L.A.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration ordered ICE to drastically scale up migrant detainment numbers, including instructions to raid community businesses, make arrests without judicial orders, and grab bystanders agents merely think might be undocumented.
On Friday, militarized ICE units start conducting raids across the LA area using these new tactics, which are civil rights violations; Angelinos, who receive no protection from these violations from local authorities, understandably become angry and begin nonviolently protesting and working to disrupt these fascist mass deportations. At this point, the protests are peaceful and the only crimes being committed are vandalism, and obstructing ICE; who again are violating civil rights, and conducting militarized raids as part of a fascist mass deportation scheme.
Despite this, the Trump regime repeatedly declares that there's a violent insurrection going on in LA, illegally commandeers 2,000 California National Guardsmen, and deploys them to the LA area; these soldiers are then used on Sunday to threaten protestors and clear roads for the feds conducting mass migrant arrests. At *this* point, realizing they're being invaded, Angelinos start fighting back, and numerous violent police reprisals against protestors are filmed till we arrive at this moment, with Trump and Newsom in a political standoff and the whole US establishment trying to pretend vandalism is violence and that "breaking the law" to stop fascist murderpigs from rounding up your neighbors is a greater crime than the fascist mass deportations Angelinos were obstructing.
That's the story I saw this weekend, and the story I'm going to keep talking about going forward; no matter how many Very Serious People TM in our discourse try to make lies the truth, and fascist police repression the moral option.
In some #awesome news, Trump's #AI plans have been leaked on #github, which others have now backed up for themselves.
First reported yesterday by 404 Media, the #tech is to launch on July 4th. Besides a #chatbot, there are APIs to connect to other models, and some other agency tech.
Despite Trump's rush to deploy widespread AI, many experts have valid #security and #privacy concerns regarding access to #confidential #data.
theregister.com/2025/06/10/tru…
#news #technews #trump #unitedstates #uspol
Updated: The AI.gov repository and staging site vanished when we asked questions, but don't worry – we captured backupsBrandon Vigliarolo (The Register)
I think we should be asking:
"Did #Trump have sex with an #Epstein minor?"
Would it matter to #Republicans if he did?
#election2026
#2026election
Do we need to say more?
#Trump #Musk #TrumpVMusk #BigTech #X #Twitter #SocialMedia #Fediverse #Mastodon
Despite what appears to be a broad, albeit primarily rhetorical, shift in mainstream establishment opinion about Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza across most of the Pig Empire, Very Serious People TM in the US remain inside a disturbingly bipartisan, pro-genocide unreality bubble. Inside that bubble it seems far more reasonable to discuss Trump's personal relationships with Israel's fascist PM Benjamin Netanyahu than it would be to talk about all the ways his regime has actively expanded on the Biden administration's open facilitation of that genocide, even as it continues to this very moment. Yet outside that bubble, across the broader planet and even in the US discourse that exists beyond corporate media and in pocket political actors, the reality that this is America's genocide too is inescapable.
Take for example the absurd "humanitarian aid" scheme the Trump regime and Netanyahu cooked up to pretend Israel wasn't trying engineer a famine as part of its broader, openly stated project to ethnically cleanse, occupy, and colonize Gaza, that was nevertheless treated as a plausible sign Trump was reigning Israel in by a credulous, pro-genocide US establishment and media complex. The moment the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" and the plan to distribute aid under the watchful eye of the IOF and U.S. mercenary contractors was revealed, everyone living in the real world, including UN aid officials and humanitarian relief experts immediately said this wasn't going to stop the intentional starvation and the whole thing smelled fishy. Folks who truly understood the nature of Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza however, spoke of a far darker possibility; that the reason to march Palestinians halfway across the Gaza strip and herd them like cattle into a heavily-surveilled area surrounded by soldiers, was to directly facilitated and further the genocide and mass displacement of Gazans itself.
Well, now that IOF forces have engaged in a massacre at one of these sham food distribution sites, actively engineered, supported, and protected by the Trump administration and our hired military contractors, I think we can chalk this one up as yet another L for team genocide and the US establishment unreality bubble. As Israel sprints towards pariah state status, and the international community is searching for an off ramp before public opinion drowns their formerly pro-genocide leaders, the Trump regime has responded by actively facilitating and even participating in a settler colonial massacre that's part of a larger ongoing genocide. Yet somehow, despite plenty of corporate media coverage of the incident, this reality largely escapes Very Serious People TM in the American discourse.
commondreams.org/news/witkoff-…
'The Witkoff Massacre': Hundreds Killed or Wounded as Israeli Forces Open Fire on Gaza Food Aid Site
"Health officials in Gaza and multiple witnesses at the site near the southern city of Rafah reported that "Israeli forces fired on crowds around a kilometer (1,000 yards) away from an aid site run by an Israeli-backed foundation," according to the Associated Press.
"The international community must act immediately and decisively to compel Israel to end its inhumane aid distribution mechanism in Gaza, following today’s massacre near a U.S.-backed aid centre south of Rafah, where Israeli forces killed or injured over 220 starving civilians," said the Switzerland-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med), in a Sunday morning statement, which had personnel on the ground near the aid station."
Folks, we are literally luring starving Gazans out of hiding with the promise of food, concentrating them in pens, and then letting IOF soldiers shoot at them while calling that "humanitarian aid" and pretending we're doing something about an ongoing genocide. There are no words I'm comfortable uttering in this political climate that can adequately cover the outrage, revulsion, and loathing I feel towards a Trump regime, US corporate media, and a broader bipartisan American establishment that contains plenty of rich Democrats, that has brought this livestreamed genocide into being. Even now, even among those who at this late an hour have finally decided that TikTok videos of starving toddlers means this really is a genocide, are trying to couch this in terms of "Netanyahu's genocidal war" despite the fact that literally none of this would be possible with direct American material support, and a US corporate media complex devoted to manufacturing consent for murdering babies and bombing hospitals. Infuriating.
The truth however is that 19 months into an ongoing genocide, the propaganda bubble is starting to burst; you can't stop reality from being real, forever. We, the United States of America, own this genocide, and the whole world is watching while we pretend our government isn't an active participant.
#Trump #Fascism #Media #Gaza #Propaganda #Genocide #Israel #Massacre #Palestinians #Witkoff
"The new U.S.-Israeli genocide strategy: starve the population, lure them with promises of aid, then kill them."jon-queally (Common Dreams)
I'm not about to turn this account into US political drama posting full time, but I'd like to take a moment to talk about the Linsdey Graham tweet about the Gaza flotilla and anti-genocide activist Greta Thunberg. If you haven't seen it, there's a screenshot in the Zeteo article below, but the short story is that Graham posted or quoted an image of Thunberg on the deck of a flotilla vessel, and wrote over top "hope Greta and her friends can swim."
Graham's behavior is of course disgusting and condemnable on its face. I want to talk about it today however because I think if you take the Senator from South Carolina's post in the proper context, it reveals quite a lot about where the US government, buttressed by a pro-genocide corporate media, stands in contrast to the rest of the world on the subject of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Lindsey Graham's Disgusting Tweet About Greta Thunberg Is 'Brain Rot' in Its Truest, Most Vulgar Sense
zeteo.com/p/lindsey-grahams-di…
"The warped logic, wildly insulting to the intelligence or basic morals of the Americans he serves, is one thing. As with their comical hypocrisy, the refrain about the modern Republican Party that “the cruelty is the point” is baked into US politics. But the extent to which these threads undergirding American conservatism are put into total overdrive when it comes to Israel is jarring to any observer.
Because, to be clear: Graham, a US senator, paid by our taxes, is apparently calling for a government that’s killed at least 54,000 (and likely, far more) Palestinians to bomb a boat carrying food to a starving population (or, if I’m being incredibly generous, he is just hoping the ship sinks). It’d be one thing if Graham was operating in the already-broken framework of the draconianism we’re used to: egging on the detaining of protesters and cheering for the bombing of Gaza under the auspices of “eliminating Hamas.”
Think how far we’ve come: pointing out Israel’s bombing of humanitarians was a “blood libel.” Now, it’s a punchline.
Here, we reach the endpoint of it all: a Republican, sealed off in his grotesque, hermetically-sealed bubble, finding it not only appropriate, but actively helpful in his (and his Israeli friends’) PR crusade to buoyantly rejoice at the idea of 12 volunteers – including a young college-aged person – being bombed, and left to tread in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea."
There's honestly so much going on here that you could write a whole book about this tweet, and the political moment in America that produced it. There are literal layers of grotesque inhumanity behind a US Senator cheerfully wishing death on a world famous activist and her friends for the high crime of trying to feed people we're helping to starve out of existence. Graham's callous, if not gleeful disregard for human life speaks to a modern, cultishly-devoted to Trump Republican Party whose broader motto might as well be "we're for killing and starving people" at this point; a sentiment their voters seem to embrace so long as the leopards aren't eating *their* faces.
If you know that the previous flotilla food aid attempt involving Thunberg was unable to reach Gaza after being struck by weaponized drones widely-believed to be Israeli in origin, then Graham's tweet reads like an open threat by a US Senator on behalf of a foreign government conducting a genocide we're paying for; which at almost any other point in American history would be earth-shaking news, but passes more or less for business as usual in the American pro-genocide reality bubble. This would be appalling under any circumstances, but for Graham to post this at the very same time the US government under Trump is pretending it is forcing Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, while openly concentrating starving Palestinians into corrals for the IOF to shoot at, is next-level Third Reich-type shit; and the whole world knows it.
Which then brings us back to the larger point about Israel's genocide in Gaza, and failing international support for the Netanyahu regime and an IOF committing open war crimes and mass murder. At the precise time that the entire international order except the United States is running away from their prior support for Israel's genocidal actions because starving children to death on livestream is extremely unpopular, the United States is accelerating the body count and a US Senator is openly threatening a European peace activist on behalf of our openly eliminationist ally, for the high crime of attempting to feed starving people our govt would clearly prefer dead. The Trump regime and the broader pro-genocide establishment in America are out of step with the rest of the Pig Empire, and out of touch with reality; Israel isn't the only country flirting with pariah state status as the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza continues to unfold.
#USPol #Gaza #Israel #UN #LindseyGraham #GazaFlotilla #GretaThunberg #Genocide #Starvation #WarCrimes #Palestinians #GOP #Trump
As the Zeteo contributor set sail on the Gaza aid flotilla, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted: "Hope Greta and her friends can swim!"Prem Thakker (Zeteo)
I don't want to keep harping on the point, but I think it's important to understand just how disconnected from reality a lot of foreign policy analysts in mainstream US media are right now; particularly when reporting on anything remotely related to the Trump regime's continued support for Israel's ongoing, and indeed accelerating, genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. In this instance, while a number of "centrist" (both left, and right leaning) pundits were theorizing that Trump's corrupt bribery tour of the MENA region (that notably did not feature a visit to Israel), signaled a shift in US Gaza policy, word was oozing out of a Trump regime with more leaks than a colander about a blatantly genocidal scheme to "move" over 1 million Palestinians to Libya. As this Truthout summary notes, that means the Trump regime is planning an ethnic cleansing operation; which as we've discussed before, is essentially a more polite way to say "genocide."
truthout.org/articles/trump-ad…
Trump Administration Reportedly Considering Plan to Move Palestinians to Libya
"A plan reportedly under consideration by the Trump administration to send up to one million Gazans to the divided country of Libya was met with criticism on Friday and Saturday, with several observers calling it part of a plan to carry out ethnic cleansing.
On Friday, NBC News reported that the Trump administration has broached the plan with Libya’s leadership, though no final agreement has been reached. NBC News’ reporting relied on several unnamed sources “with knowledge of the effort.”
“This is absolutely categorically an ethnic cleansing and sending people to Libya of all places is unconscionable,” wrote investigative journalist James Stout on Bluesky on Friday, in response to the reporting."
As the article notes, the Trump administration has denied that any such plans are in the works, but given the quantity of details NBC was able to report on, and the fact that it lines up with literally every single other thing Downmarket Mussolini and his minions have said about his plans or positions on Gaza, I see no particular reason to believe the fascist US government on this one. So, as he has at various times indicated he would do, Trump is working towards ethnically cleansing Gaza of Palestinians on behalf of his ally and ideological soulmate Benjamin Netanyahu, in what would absolutely be an act of genocide. This is pretty cut and dry; and by no means does it indicate a *positive* change in the Trump regime's Gaza policy.
So, how has pro-genocide, corporate American media reported on these alarming developments? Well, let's just say it hasn't been great. To demonstrate my point, let's look at the actual NBC reporting that the Truthout story was built around.
nbcnews.com/politics/national-…
Trump administration working on plan to move 1 million Palestinians to Libya
"The Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate up to 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, five people with knowledge of the effort told NBC News.
The plan is under serious enough consideration that the administration has discussed it with Libya’s leadership, two people with direct knowledge of the plans and a former U.S. official said.
In exchange for the resettling of Palestinians, the administration would potentially release to Libya billions of dollars of funds that the U.S. froze more than a decade ago, those three people said.
No final agreement has been reached, and Israel has been kept informed of the administration’s discussions, the same three sources said."
Okay, so you can see why I think the regime's denials are bullshit right? NBC knows way too much for this to be a fabrication; and so do we as observers who've been following Trump's actions and statements on Gaza. All is not well however, because NBC insists on framing even this obvious story about Trump and Israel teaming up to do ethnic cleansing, in a blatantly pro-genocide context. For example, you won't find the term "ethnic cleansing" in this story, even though that's what it's literally about. NBC also works hard to lend credibility to Trump and Israel's narrative that the Palestinians would leave for Libya willingly; a preposterous proposition when you consider all the violations they've already suffered to keep their home in Gaza, as a Hamas spokesman indicated.
So, at the same time Israel is accelerating its genocidal project in Gaza, and Trump is working on a plan for ethnic cleansing, dipshit foreign policy writers want you to believe he's turning against Israel's genocide because he made one comment about starving children and accepted a plane from Qatar? I think it's obvious Trump traded Gaza to Israel to smooth over his MENA grift vacation and he's muddying the waters to deflect blame now.
These hacks should be working at Foot Locker, not writing opinion pieces that deny a genocide.
#Trump #Gaza #Israel #Genocide #Libya #Media #EthnicCleansing #MENA #Palestinians #EngineeredFamine
Details are murky, but the plan is under serious enough consideration that the administration has discussed it with Libyan leadership.Courtney Kube (NBC News)
I don't know if most people realize the overall quality of foreign policy reporting in American media is generally pretty horrible. Part of this is because structurally under capitalism for profit media tends to align with US imperial objectives at the expense of the truth, part of it is that reading audiences aren't diplomacy wonks so the complex details of international relationships have to be shoehorned into some form of narrative, and part of it is that most state level negotiations are conducted in secret so you can print pretty much any bullshit you want and call it "reading the tea leaves" because nobody is going to hold you to account for being wrong later. Which isn't to say it's impossible to do good foreign policy reporting, just that it usually involves interrogating primary sources who aren't going to want to talk to you if you're critical of their decisions and (often false) arguments. In a modern, eviscerated media age that places profit and cultural relevance much higher than journalistic accuracy in their hierarchy of priorities, pretty much every corporate media news outlet employs at least one name-brand foreign policy analyst who writes opinion columns based on vibes.
I mention this because over the past week I've read at least a dozen "front page" opinion pieces, primarily from "centrist" analysts, arguing that Trump's recent MENA mutual hand-job tour indicates that Downmarket Mussolini has "abandoned" Israel, or at least "put Benjamin Netanyahu on notice." Typically, the evidence to support this conclusion will revolve around Trump's cozy relationship with Qatar, sealed by an open bribe in the form of a $400M dollar luxury jet, and the fact that Der Leader's top diplomat Steve Witkoff negotiated with Hamas to secure the release of U.S. citizen and Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, apparently without consulting Israel. The implication, which is sometimes even stated openly, is that this "deteriorating" relationship and one throwaway statement about starving Palestinians, means the Trump regime may be about to break with Israel's US-backed genocide in Gaza.
This is of course, absolute bullshit for one extremely obvious reason; namely that the Trump administration continues to openly greenlight Israel's genocide in Gaza. This is not supposition; between Trump's statements, the US government's actions, and the Netanyahu regime's responses it is abundantly clear that the project to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into riverfront property is still on, and Der Leader is happy to trade tacit US approval for the genocide or removal of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel, to simply smooth over a MENA foreign policy initiative designed to increase Trump's global influence while enriching him and his family.
To demonstrate why I know this let's look at this detailed report by Jeremy Scahill who actually *did* contact a source for his foreign policy analysis; specifically a senior Hamas official.
dropsitenews.com/p/witkoff-ham…
Hamas Says Witkoff Personally Promised to Lift Gaza Blockade in Exchange for Edan Alexander
“It was a deal,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau who has previously engaged in direct talks with U.S. officials. He said the pledge was made by “Witkoff, himself.” In an interview with Drop Site, Naim said the agreement was: “If we release [Alexander], Trump will speak out thanking Hamas for its gesture, obliging Israel on the second day to open the borders and allow aid to come into Gaza, and [Trump would] call for an immediate ceasefire and to go for negotiations to end the war.”
“He did nothing of this,” Naim added. “They didn't violate the deal. They threw it in the trash.”
This is a detailed, granular piece of journalism that explores the genocidal behavior Israel is engaging in as it attempts to starve Palestinians to death while continually bombing hospitals and refugee camps, as well as why the things Trump claims he's actually doing to mitigate engineered starvation in Gaza are mostly bullshit. What's important for our purposes here is the knowledge that the Trump regime pretty much just straight up lied to Hamas in order to secure the release of Edan Alexander and some flattery for Der Leader, and the reality that both Israeli leadership and the President are *still* openly talking about ethnically cleansing Gaza!
Look, I have no problem believing that Netanyahu is irked at Trump for his embarrassing love affair with the Qataris, but the idea that the Klepto Kaiser is "abandoning" Israel even as his regime continues to ship Israel billions of dollars in weapons while mapping out a post-Palestinian future for Gaza, is either embarrassingly naïve, or an open admission that Palestinian lives have so little value to you that their extermination or exile doesn't rise to the level of discussion. In this media environment, it could be both.
#Trump #Fascism #Gaza #Israel #Genocide #Netanyahu #Qatar #ForeignPolicy #WarCrimes #EthnicCleansing #Media #Hamas
The U.S. immediately broke the deal, senior Hamas official Basem Naim tells Drop Site. “They threw it in the trash” and there has been “zero” progress on a Gaza ceasefire.Jeremy Scahill (Drop Site News)
Well, I guess members of the Isareli government have repeated their intentions to permanently occupy and ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians enough times that even American corporate media has to care; the Guardian however is doing a much better job of honestly acknowledging what Israel's latest plan for Gaza ultimately means.
On the heels of the Netanyahu government's plan to displace the population of Gaza and consolidate territorial control over the occupied region, Finance Minister Smotrich said the quiet part out loud - Gaza will be completely destroyed, and Palestinians will (be forced to, presumably) "leave in great numbers for other countries" - essentially as refugees from a genocide the colonizer world refuses to acknowledge; but we can't expect Smotrich to admit that part too.
Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich
theguardian.com/world/2025/may…
Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says
"An Israeli government minister has vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory.
The declaration on Tuesday by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, came a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.
The Israeli threats to seize control of the territory permanently has stirred global outrage.
“We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s operations,” the UK’s Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said. “Any attempt to annex land in Gaza would be unacceptable.”
The disturbing part here is that Smotrich's horrifying, genocidal statement is really only "news" because Pig Empire media is objectively pro-genocide and has caught a case of intentional amnesia about Israel's now-nineteen month long campaign to wipe out the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israeli ministers have been talking about emptying Gaza of Palestinians for months, the goddamn President of the United States has openly mused about turning the entire area into beachfront condos built by American companies, and as we speak Israel is actively engineering a famine in Gaza by blockading food and medical supplies into the occupied region.
Ethnic cleansing is just a more polite term for genocide, and even if you're too ignorant to understand that, International Courts have already ruled that Israel is plausibly committing a genocide in Gaza, and warrants have been issued for the arrest of Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Taken as a whole, the actions and statements of the Israeli government, both before and after it broke the ceasefire, have always indicated that their plan was to permanently occupy and "ethnically cleanse" Gaza; it is only through willfully complicit ignorance that clearly pro-genocide mainstream media outlets have refused to properly contextualize news from Gaza through the lens of Israel's obvious and openly articulated intentions to complete the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
Unfortunately for the cowards, collaborators, and profiteers in our mainstream establishment however, the combination of Israel's announced Operation Gideon’s Chariots offensive, and Smotrich's crude, gleeful bluntness, have made it more or less impossible to pretend we don't know what the Netanyahu government is doing; even if that same mainstream establishment is still struggling to admit there can't be any good reasons to conduct "ethnic cleansing" regardless of their political alliances and personal racisms.
#Facism #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #EthnicCleansing #Palestinians #Smotrich #ICC #ICJ #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #Media #Collaboration #MassMurder #EngineeredFamine #WarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity
Bezalel Smotrich says Palestinians will ‘leave in great numbers to third countries’, raising fears of ethnic cleansingJason Burke (The Guardian)
Speaking before the International Court of Justice, the Palestinian ambassador to the Netherlands articulated what everyone who isn't openly lying to obscure a genocide already knows; Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war and its blockade of Gaza is an international crime.
commondreams.org/news/icj-hear…
Palestinian Envoy to ICJ: Israel Using Starvation as 'Weapon of War' in 'Genocidal Campaign'
"The siege has created conditions that are "incompatible with sustaining life or the continued existence of Palestinians in Gaza," Hijazi said.
The ambassador noted that the ICJ hearing was taking place to consider whether Israel is violating international law.
"It is not about the number of aid trucks Israel is or is not allowing into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially Gaza," said Hijazi. "It is about Israel destroying the fundamentals of life in Palestine while it blocks U.N. and other humanitarians from providing lifesaving aid to the population. It is about Israel unraveling fundamental principles of international law, including their obligations under the U.N. Charter."
"Starvation is here," Hijazi added. "Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war."
My friends, I honestly don't know what more I can say here when the facts speak for themselves. Israel has totally blockaded Gaza, they're bombing the shit out of the people inside, and the military isn't allowing enough food, or seemingly any medical supplies or other lifesaving humanitarian aid through to the Palestinian people its bombing. As this clearly genocidal shit is going on, a US media is largely ignoring the crisis while apparently hoping all the Palestinians will be dead before their audience notices we're helping Israel exterminate or ethnically cleanse an entire people in Gaza.
And all the while a Pig Empire establishment continues to manufacture consent for the slaughter by pretending the Netanyahu government's motives are unknowable in the fog of war, despite the fact that cabinet ministers keep blurting out their intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza and we're watching what can only be an attempted genocide unfold on Tik Tok videos day, after horrifying day. History is going to be written about the cowardice, complicity, and depraved indifference to human life on display in the Pig Empire establishment here; the only question is will we as Americans survive our own fascist chickens coming home to roost long enough to help write it.
#Fascism #Trump #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #ICJ #Imperialism #Famine #SettlerColonialism #WarCrimes #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Starvation #AmmarHijazi #Blockade #Netanyahu #Palestine #Palestinians #WhiteSupremacy
"Israel is starving, killing and displacing Palestinians while also targeting and blocking humanitarian organizations trying to save their lives," said Palestinian envoy Ammar Hijazi.julia-conley (Common Dreams)
After seven weeks of bombing and a genocidal blockade of all humanitarian and food aid going into Gaza, the UN's World Food Program is now announcing that it has run out of food inside the strip; which will further exacerbate a humanitarian crisis engineered by the government off Israel as part of the genocide it's conducting against Palestinians in the enclave.
commondreams.org/news/gaza-foo…
UN Program Out of Food in Gaza as Israel Maintains Blockade
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed," WFP said Friday. "This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems. Food prices have skyrocketed up to 1,400% compared to during the cease-fire, and essential food commodities are in short supply, raising serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under 5, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly."
Over 18 months into a U.S.-backed military assault for which Israel faces a genocide case at the Interenational Court of Justice, WFP said that "the situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: People are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP's critical assistance may be forced to end."
While conditions are dire, WFP is prepared to keep feeding people, if Israel will allow aid into the besieged Palestinian enclave. The program highlighted that "more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance—enough to feed 1 million people for up to four months—is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be brought into Gaza by WFP and food security partners as soon as borders reopen."
The program called on "all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law."
I need to stress here that this isn't an activist organization, or political representatives from Gaza talking here; this is a UN program that feeds refugees, the exploited, and folks in crisis situations. There is absolutely no reason to believe they're exaggerating the situation, which in turn means we're watching Israel commit a crime against humanity in real time. If this were anyone other than a US client state in the MENA, the entire American establishment would be able to see that there is no reason to continuously bomb Gaza while enforcing a nearly two month long blockade on food, supplies, and humanitarian aid, unless you're actively trying to kill innocent people. Which of course Israel is; they're committing a genocide, the Trump administration is happily paying for it, and a bipartisan US establishment awash in PAC and donor money, is quietly ignoring that genocide for political, financial, and ideological reasons.
#Israel #Genocide #Gaza #Palestinians #Blockadge #UN #WorldFoodProgram #Starvation #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Fascism #Trump #Media #Blackout #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism
"No humanitarian or commercial supplies have entered Gaza for more than seven weeks as all main border crossing points remain closed. This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced," said the World Food Program.jessica-corbett (Common Dreams)
I think folks who argue with me when I point out that stories which don't align with the interests of the investor class of rich people who own media companies are suppressed in corporate media, somehow forget that I simply consume so much "news" that I can literally feel a shift in coverage. Which is why this short blog by media critic Adam Johnson, which mathematically confirms, more or less, everything I've been saying about how Gaza has been driven from the mainstream discourse even as Israel's genocide ramps back up and US public opinion shifts against our client state, did not surprise me at all.
columnblog.com/p/as-trump-and-…
As Trump and Israel Escalate Genocide in Gaza, Popular Media Continues to Ignore It
"Nowhere is the absence of urgency any more glaring than the total erasure of Gaza from the “agenda setting” Sunday morning news shows that both reflect and curate Washington political priorities for the week. In the 5 episodes each for the four Sunday News Shows—ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union—for the weeks of March 23, March 30, April 6, April 13 and April 20, Israeli’s assault on Gaza, and the Trump administration’s full-throated support for it, has not been discussed or mentioned once. That’s 880 minutes of “agenda setting” debate, discussing, and reporting that did not see fit to mention the US support for what Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both call an ongoing genocide."
So, just let that set in for a minute. In the time frame listed, Israel has committed a confirmed war crime by murdering 15 medics in cold blood, bombed the last functioning hospital in Gaza, instituted a total blockade on aid designed to starve Gazans to death, and its ministers have on multiple occasions bragged about Trump's support being instrumental for their plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians; and those are just the stories *I* covered but the vaunted "Sunday Shows" couldn't spare a minute for. An ongoing genocide in Gaza being aided an abetted by the US President who is also black bagging anti-genocide protestors in American cities and citing foreign policy concerns to justify it, simply did not come up.
If you're wondering why the "Sunday Shows" matter, it's because while very few people reading this watch them, pretty much everyone with power and influence in American politics does. With that having been noted however, it really doesn't matter because Gaza was barely covered in the mainstream nightly news either.
"Despite Israel killing almost 2,000 Palestinians since they broke the ceasefire on March 18, the subject of Gaza has barely registered a blip in the nightly news coverage as well. In the 78 episodes the three major network nightly news shows have aired, there’s only been two segments about Gaza: one 4 minute 17 second segment I noted in The Real News from March 26 on CBS Evening News, and another 1 minute and 44 second segment about the IDF killing 15 medics that aired on ABC’s World News This Week on April 3. In over 1,500 minutes of evening news from the three major networks since March 19 only 6 minutes, or less 0.4 percent, has been reporting on Gaza. NBC Nightly News has not covered the suffering in Gaza at all since March 20, but it did take time out on April 13 to do a 1 minute 46 second profile on an Israeli captive still being held in Gaza."
Surely, the newspapers were better, right? Well, if we're talking about America's paper of record, the New York Times - I wouldn't get your hopes up folks:
"Since March 20, The New York Times has run a total of three front page stories about Gaza out of roughly 220 total front page stories (two on April 6/April 8 about the IDF killing of medics in Gaza and one April 3 about Israel “Initiating Tactics to Hold Gaza Territory”) By way of comparison the Times has run 12 front page stories about Ukraine. “For Ukraine’s Sick Children, a War Within the War,” read one sympathetic front page headline from March 26. “Attack Devastates Ukrainian City,” read another on April 14. Front page coverage of Gaza, when it does exist, does not lead with Palestinian suffering or humanity but instead Israeli denials or sterile coverage of IDF “tactics.”
And finally, while this is just personal analysis, Johnson also thinks the shift has taken us back to pre-2024 media conditions when it comes to the genocide in Gaza; specifically citing the bipartisan support for the US-backed genocide in the American political establishment as the factor that allows the media to simply ignore the situation.
I'm not gonna bother saying I told you so; but I did.
#Fascism #Gaza #Genocide #Media #Imperialism #Trump #Netanyahu #SettlerColonialism #Censorship #Israel #Palestine
Under Biden, Gaza was excused, downplayed and natural disaster-rized. Under Trump it’s simply not a priority at all.Adam Johnson (The Column)
As an add on to the post above, if you don't think speaking out against Israel's genocide in Gaza and on behalf of the people being slaughtered there matters, then why is the Netanyahu government working so hard with multi-billion dollar social media companies like Meta to suppress pro-Palestinian speech online?
dropsitenews.com/p/leaked-data…
Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram
"A sweeping crackdown on posts on Instagram and Facebook that are critical of Israel—or even vaguely supportive of Palestinians—was directly orchestrated by the government of Israel, according to internal Meta data obtained by Drop Site News. The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023. Israel is the biggest originator of takedown requests globally by far, and Meta has followed suit—widening the net of posts it automatically removes, and creating what can be called the largest mass censorship operation in modern history.
Government requests for takedowns generally focus on posts made by citizens inside that government’s borders, Meta insiders said. What makes Israel’s campaign unique is its success in censoring speech in many countries outside of Israel. What’s more, Israel's censorship project will echo well into the future, insiders said, as the AI program Meta is currently training how to moderate content will base future decisions on the successful takedown of content critical of Israel’s genocide."
As I've noted elsewhere, it's very clear that the pro-genocide Pig Empire establishment used the sham ceasefire Trump supposedly brokered in Gaza as an excuse to reset the discourse and resume the genocide at pace. We've returned to a pre-2024 media environment of silence and minimization of crimes against humanity, particularly in America, and these folks are working overtime to keep you from talking about, and hopefully (for genocidal monsters) thinking about Gaza while Israel attempts to wipe out the Palestinians there before we wake up and realize what's going on.
The only way to fight this, is to keep talking about it, and resisting both the genocide and the US government's support for it. We've been here before and broke through the cone of silence; in fact that's the whole reason the ruling class establishment is trying to rewind the discourse around the genocide in Gaza to a pre-2024 state. We must not let them get away with it by contributing to that cone of silence.
#Fascism #Israel #Gaza #Genocide #Trump #Meta #Facebook #Instagram #Censorship #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Propaganda #Mark Zuckerberg #OnlineCensorship #Zionism #Netanyahu
In writing about the Trump regime's fascist assault on foreign student anti-genocide protestors, a lot of what we talk about is the domestic social costs these authoritarian actions and a failure to oppose them produce. I don't mean to be callous, because injustice and repression against any part of the opposition to fascism, is injustice and repression that harms us all; to say nothing of the personal costs to the students targeted for having the audacity to think conducting an ongoing genocide in an open air concentration camp is morally wrong. If you want to know why the regime is pursuing these fascist, repressive policies however, and why the administration before them was happy to lay the groundwork that is today enabling Trump to target anti-genocide protests under the false banner of "fighting antisemitism," I must unfortunately conclude that the answer is "probably, because it's working."
How else can you explain political and military leaders in Israel all but admitting they intend to finish off the genocide they've been conducting against Palestinians in Gaza, without much notice in the American media environment, and amid a collapse in popular resistance to the genocide, even as polling indicates a strong shift in American sympathies away from Israel and its crimes against humanity in Gaza?
commondreams.org/news/israel-t…
'Only Hellfire': Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza
"Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.
"Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid."
I want to be clear, I'm not saying there's no active resistance to the genocide going on in America, only that the regime's fascist repression is contributing to a climate of fear that's suppression discussion about and resistance to Israel's crimes against humanity in the broader culture. And let's be fair here, the still quite bipartisan nature of support of *this* particular application of fascist terrorism in the American ruling establishment makes opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza perhaps one of the most dangerous acts of anti-fascism a person can undertake in this political moment. When Trump kidnaps a Maryland father and traffics him to a torture prison in El Salvador, the oppositional political and media apparatus in this country are quick to condemn him and demand action. When Trump starts black bagging student protest leaders and shipping them to nightmare jails in politically favorable court districts, that same establishment equivocates, says nothing at all, or sometimes outright supports that repression. Take for example former Biden antisemitism Envoy Deborah Lipstadt:
forward.com/news/712297/studen…
Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
"I’m not opposed to the administration rescinding the student visas of some of the people that they’re rescinding the student visas of,” she said. “But I just think it should be done properly, according to the laws of the country.”
So uh, you got that? The fascism is fine, but god-damnit there are *rules* people! Please keep in mind that this woman is one of the foremost authorities in the world on The Holocaust, so we can presume she knows she's protecting fascists to support a genocide. I assume, but don't know, that she holds no special place in her heart for the Klepto Kaiser, so I can only surmise that she's just a hardcore Zionist and a big fan of bombing children and hospitals.
Look friends, I know that this is a really bad time to ask people to stick their necks out to oppose a genocide, but Israel just bombed literally the last hospital in Gaza and it barely made the evening news. The regime, and indeed much of the larger ruling class establishment that supports settler colonialism, and profits from the genocide by various means, wants to create an environment where speaking out against the genocide in Gaza and Israel's settler colonial massacres is just criminal and subversive enough to stop most of us from doing it. This will then allow them to easily pick off a much smaller number of people who are brave enough and otherwise able to resist the genocide directly. It is vital that we counteract that by keeping the genocide on our lips, and our outrage about crimes against humanity in the discourse; they can't arrest us all - and Gaza, is running out time.
#Fascism #Israel #Gaza #Genocide #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #Media #Trump #Palestine #ICE #CrimesAgainstHumanity #DHS #Propaganda #Protest
"Israel's defense ministers can't stop publicly confessing to war crimes," said one U.S. journalist.brett-wilkins (Common Dreams)
At this point I'm starting to believe the primary purpose of the sham ceasefire in Gaza, broken by Israel to continue a US-backed genocide of Palestinian people, was to allow US corporate media to catch its breath and reset to a position of trying very hard to ignore blatant war crimes against clearly innocent Palestinians. A United Nations investigation has revealed that the IDF executed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including a UN employee, in March 23rd; then tried to bury the evidence, including crushed ambulances, to hide this crime against humanity. Details of the murders make it clear that this activity was deliberate, and yet the portions of the mainstream western media that remain firmly pro-genocide have hardly registered any sort of outcry or calls for action.
1) theguardian.com/world/2025/mar…
Israel killed 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers one by one, says UN
“Seven days ago, civil defence and PRCS ambulances arrived at the scene,” the head of Ocha in Palestine, Jonathan Whittall, said in a video statement. “One by one, [the paramedics and civil defense workers] were hit, they were struck. Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave.
“We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on. They were here to save lives. Instead, they ended up in a mass grave,” Whittall said. “These ambulances have been buried in the sand. There’s a UN vehicle here, buried in the sand. A bulldozer – Israeli forces bulldozer – has buried them.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said that one of its employees was among the dead found in Rafah."
As an American, please let me once again remind you that none of these atrocities would be happening without US financial, material, and diplomatic support. We're subsidizing the Israeli government, we're shipping the IDF the bombs and weapons being used to exterminate Palestinians in Gaza, and it is by US diplomatic force that Western support for Israel even as it commits a genocide, remains strong, if somewhat less overt than it was at the start of this genocide. Trump (and Biden before him) could end this inhuman slaughter today if he wanted to; he just doesn't want to because killing brown people and taking their resources (beachfront property and natural gas, in this case) is a important business activity for the entire Pig Empire.
In an environment where the media is actively cultivating a numb complicity, and western states are either ignoring the massacres, or as in the Trump regime's case, openly celebrating them, it behooves all of us in the so-called West to reject these attempts to rewind time and protect the genocide. In the months leading up to the ceasefire, Western political leaders and media were on the backfoot as independent media, folks with Tik Tok accounts, protestors, and even everyday people refused to accept the complicity of silence and demanded action. This "reset" must not be allowed to continue while Palestinians in Gaza are murdered with impunity and the complicity of the larger Pig Empire; as noted by Ahmed Moor writing in the Guardian - which is sadly where I have to get my mainstream news about a US-enabled and supported genocide the Trump administration is happily paying for, because US media outlets are still trying to pretend none of this is real:
2) theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Israel executes unarmed Red Crescent paramedics with the west’s blessing
"Nor will global leaders intervene to end the mass murder which has been punctuated by this latest obscenity. Some of them – such as Emmanuel Macron, who called for a ceasefire, might appear to want to end the slaughter. After all, dead babies in incubators and paramedics in a mass grave are unpleasant garlands to wear. But 18 months in, they are too deeply implicated. Who can forget Ursula von der Leyen’s embrace of Netanyahu? Or Keir Starmer’s affirmation of Israel’s “right” to starve Palestinians in Gaza?
Today, those who are tasked with upholding international law have been co-opted by the Israeli leadership, whether they like it or not. The logic of gangland drug dealers and criminals – new members commit crimes to join, and are locked in – prevails.
So far from being complicit, US and European leaders are the authors of this latest atrocity by their Israeli colleagues in Gaza."
#Gaza #Genocide #Israel #Trump #CrimesAgainstHumanity #USA #WarCrimes #Netanyahu #IDF #Media #EthnicCleansing #UN #Imperialism #Netanyahu #UNRWA #SettlerColonialism #RedCrescent
Workers on a mission to help colleagues were buried in mass grave in southern Gaza, says humanitarian officeLorenzo Tondo (The Guardian)
To the surprise of precisely no one who isn't a credulous rube high on imperialism, settler colonialism, and weapons contractor bribes, Israel has started bombing children and houses again in Gaza. Naturally of course a Trump regime that wants to pave over Gaza and build luxury hotels and casinos for an obscenely wealthy, globetrotting ruling class if it can just find a way to get rid of all those pesky Palestinians, stands fully in support of resuming the US armed, funded, and politically protected genocide.
commondreams.org/news/israel-v…
Backed by Trump, Israel Shreds Cease-Fire Deal and Kills Over 400 Across Gaza
"A barrage of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday killed more than 400 people and left a fragile cease-fire agreement in tatters just over two months after it was reached, with Israel's prime minister pledging "increasing military strength" in an enclave already decimated by more than a year of bombing.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Netanyahu government consulted with the Trump administration ahead of the latest Gaza bombardment. Leavitt expressed the White House's total support for Israel's attacks.
While Israel had been carrying out more limited deadly attacks on Gaza despite the cease-fire deal—including strikes over the weekend that killed at least nine—Tuesday's bombings were described as the "heaviest assault on the territory since the cease-fire took effect in January."
Speaking frankly, there are more detailed articles featuring a lot more atrocity porn available online, but I chose to highlight this short piece because the headline writer understood the importance of centering the Trump regime's full support for this monstrous, objectively illegal bullshit. The US government is supplying the bombs, funding the Netanyahu government, and actively praising Israel for resuming crimes against humanity; that makes the atrocities in Gaza Trump's genocide, the same as it made them Biden's genocide before him. None of this is lost on most media observers outside of the United States, but an American corporate media complex that has always supported the mass murder of Palestinians remains reluctant to center that knowledge, even if it hurts the fascist assclown currently calling their work "illegal" and threatening to come after them with the full force of the U.S. government.
Of course everyone in the media, American or international, is claiming to be "shocked" that Israel has willfully imploded the ceasefire, and telling you that you should be shocked too. Naturally however, that position too is a grotesque farce that ignores available evidence and reality itself. This may be the first large-scale bombing since Netanyahu agreed to pretend he cared about a cease-fire for a while, but Israel already resumed the genocide when it tightened the blockade of, and cut electricity to Gaza; a region that is more or less constantly in a state of humanitarian crisis because Israel has been conducting a war of extermination there and purposely starving the population inside for seventeen months and counting. Furthermore, all of this is pretty consistent with statements made by various high ranking officials in the Netanyahu government, who have openly flouted their intentions to break the cease fire and ethnically cleanse (by whatever means are necessary) the Palestinian people in Gaza. The fact that American corporate media rarely reports on these stated intentions, and is foundationally committed to credulously taking Netanyahu's word for it when he claims to be seeking peace while bombing hospitals and murdering babies, does not mean the larger US establishment is unware of these facts - just that they're hoping you are.
The fact is, Trump, his administration, and American arms manufacturers should be on trial for crimes against humanity as we speak, and the reality that he is not alone in that because committing genocide in Gaza is a largely bipartisan position in the American establishment does absolutely nothing to alter the situation.
#Gaza #Genocide #Trump #Fascism #SettlerColonialism #Israel #Netanyahu #Imperialism #EthnicCleansing #Media #CrimesAgainstHumanity
"This return to violence does not come as a surprise," said one advocacy group. "Netanyahu has, from the beginning, signaled his intention to abandon the cease-fire process before it could become a lasting peace."jake-johnson (Common Dreams)
We have two cats in the shelter where I volunteer because the owner was deported.
Fuck Trump, and everyone who chose to not vote for Kamala, for whatever "reason" (misogynoir).
And fuck the Democrats for being conservatives rather than pushing progressive policies and candidates.
I hate it here (#Earth).
#SavingSageAnimalRescueFoundation #cats #AnimalShelter #Trump #ICE #deportation #KamalaHarris #GOP #Republicans #conservatives #Democrats #progressive #misogynoir #misogyny #racism
Incredible (but predictable) : #Microsoft has blocked the International Criminal Court's access (#ICC) to its services on the orders of the #Trump mafia.
Read that carefully : an international organisation that has no presence in the United States and no US legal rights has had its work tools blocked simply because it disagrees with the Trump administration. 🚩
Get the hell out of it right now.
For weeks I have been telling reporters that #Trump could have the power to switch off our tech in #Europe. It felt a bit alarmist until I just read that #Microsoft, on the behest of the #US gov, has suspended the email account of Karim Khan, the #ICC chief prosecutor.
One of the most important international courts and a legal bulwark against #genocide, crimes against humanity, and #warcrimes is threatened by #BigTech dependency.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of Trump Media stock the same day Trump unveiled new tariffs that caused the stock market to plummet, according to records obtained by ProPublica.
propublica.org/article/pam-bon…
#News #Trump #StockMarket #Stocks #Tariffs #Economy #USPolitics
Disclosure forms show that Bondi sold between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares on April 2. That day, after the market closed, Trump’s “Liberation Day” press conference sent the market tumbling.ProPublica
