Rights advocates who have expressed outrage in recent weeks over the Trump administration’s expulsion of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and other migrants have based their criticism on core tenets of the U.S. Constitution — particularly the right to due process — but President Donald Trump’s top counterterrorism adviser on Tuesday night suggested that defenders of basic constitutional rights are actually…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, financial technology startup Ramp published a pitch for how to tackle wasteful government spending. In a 4,000-word blog post titled “The Efficiency Formula,” Ramp’s CEO and one of its investors echoed ideas similar to those promoted by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk: Federal programs were overrun by fraud, and commonsense business techniques…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The state of California is suing President Donald Trump over tariffs he has imposed on scores of countries, alleging that he is abusing his authority by claiming there is a national emergency that warrants unilaterally imposing tariffs without congressional approval. The litigation makes California the first state in the country to sue Trump over his tariff plan. The U.S.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Homegrowns are next. The homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places [like the CECOT prison]. It’s not big enough.
— President Trump on his desire to send American citizens to a megaprison in El Salvador, beyond the reach of U.S. courts and the Constitution
It has begun, just as we predicted, justified in the name of national security.
Mass roundups. Raids. Indefinite detentions in concentration camps. Martial law. The erosion of habeas corpus protections. The suspension of the Constitution, at least for select segments of the population. A hierarchy of rights, contingent on whether you belong to a favored political class.
This is what it looks like when the government makes itself the arbiter of who is deserving of rights and who isn’t.
Here is what we know: one segment of the population at a time, the Trump Administration is systematically and without due process attempting to cleanse the country of what it perceives to be “undesirables” as part of its purported effort to make America great again.
This is how men, women and children are being made to disappear, snatched up off the streets by press-gangs of plainclothes, masked government agents impersonating street thugs.
Presently, these so-called “undesirables” include both undocumented and legal immigrants—many labeled terrorists despite having no criminal record, no court hearing, and no due process—before being extradited to a foreign concentration camp in an effort to sidestep judicial oversight.
By including a handful of known members of a vicious gang among those being rounded up, the government is attempting to whitewash the public into believing that everyone being targeted is, in fact, a terrorist.
In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints, characteristics and behaviors that could be considered “dangerous.”
Thus, without proof, a sheet metal worker has been labeled a terrorist. A musician has been labeled a terrorist. A makeup artist has been labeled a terrorist. A cellular biologist has been labeled a terrorist. A soccer player has been labeled a terrorist. A food delivery driver has been labeled a terrorist.
Unfortunately, the government’s attempts to dehumanize and strip individuals of their inalienable rights under the Constitution by labeling them criminals and “terrorists” is just the beginning of the dangerous game that is afoot.
It’s only a matter of time before American citizens who refuse to march in lockstep with the government’s dictates are classified as terrorists, denied basic rights, and extradited to a foreign prison.
That time is drawing closer.
Indeed, Trump has repeatedly spoken of his desire to be able to send American citizens—whom he refers to as “homegrowns,” as in homegrown terrorists—on a one-way trip to El Salvador’s mega-prison, where conditions are so brutal that officials brag the only way out is in a coffin. His administration is currently trying to find a way to accomplish that very objective.
We’re not quite there yet, but it’s coming.
What we are witnessing is history repeating itself in real-time: the widening net that ensnares us all. In other words, it’s only a matter of time before anyone who is not fully compliant gets labeled a terrorist.
A prime example of how the government casting its net in ever-widening circles can be seen in the government’s sudden decision to target academics in the U.S. on work and student visas who have been critical of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 people (nearly a third of them under the age of 18), as threats to national security.
Given Trump’s eagerness to take ownership of the Gaza strip in order to colonize it, build resorts and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East”—at taxpayer expense—it should come as no surprise that the Trump Administration is attempting to muzzle any activities that might stir up sympathy for the Palestinians.
Thus, the government is classifying any criticism of Israel as antisemitic and equating it with terrorism.
Under such a broad definition, Jesus himself would be considered antisemitic.
So you can add antisemitic to the list of viewpoints that could have one classified as a terrorist, rounded up by ICE, stripped of the fundamental rights to due process and a day in court, and made to disappear into a detention center.
Mind you, the government isn’t just targeting protest activities and expression that might have crossed over into civil disobedience. It’s also preemptively targeting individuals who have committed no crimes but whose views might at some point in the future run counter to the government’s self-serving interests.
This is precrime taken to a whole new level: targeting thoughts, i.e., thought crime.
The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American with an opinion about the government or who knows someone with an opinion about the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.
As German pastor Martin Niemöller lamented:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
You see how this works?
Let’s not mince words about what’s happening here: under the guise of fighting terrorism, the U.S. government is not just making people disappear—it is making the Constitution disappear.
When rights become privileges, the Constitution—and the rule of law—becomes optional.
We are almost at that point already.
Trump’s list of “the enemies from within” is growing in leaps and bounds.
The list of individuals and groups being classified as anti-American gets bigger by the day: Immigrants, both legal and undocumented. Immigration attorneys. Judges. Lawyers. Law firms. Doctors. Scientists. Students. Universities. Nonprofits.
Given what we know about the government and its expansive definition of what constitutes a threat to its power, any one of us who dare to speak truth to power could be targeted next as an enemy of the state.
Certainly, it is easy to remain silent in the face of evil.
What is harder—what we lack today and so desperately need—are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.
Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their era. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr.
And then there was Jesus Christ who not only died challenging the police state of his day but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.
Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.
It makes you wonder how Jesus—a Palestinian refugee, a radical, and a revolutionary—would have fared in the American police state under a Trump regime.
Would Jesus—who spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire—have been snatched up in the dead of night, stripped of any real due process, made to disappear into a detention center, and handed a death sentence when he was delivered into a prison where the only way out is in a wooden box?
Consider that the charges leveled against Jesus—that he was a threat to the stability of the nation, opposed paying Roman taxes and claimed to be the rightful King—were purely political, not religious.
Jesus was presented to Pontius Pilate “as a disturber of the political peace,” a leader of a rebellion, a political threat, and most gravely—a claimant to kingship, a “king of the revolutionary type.”
After Jesus was formally condemned by Pilate, he was sentenced to death by crucifixion, “the Roman means of executing criminals convicted of high treason.” The purpose of crucifixion was not so much to kill the criminal, as it was an immensely public statement intended to visually warn all those who would challenge the power of the Roman Empire. Hence, it was reserved solely for the most extreme political crimes: treason, rebellion, sedition, and banditry.
This radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, is not the politically mute, humble and obedient one whom Trump praised in his presidential proclamation.
Almost 2,000 years after Jesus was crucified by the police state of his era, we find ourselves confronted by a painful irony: that in the same week commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus, a Palestinian refugee who was killed by the police state for speaking truth to power, the U.S. government is prosecuting Palestinian refugees who are daring to challenge another modern-day police state’s injustices, while threatening to impose widespread martial law on the country to put down any future rebellions.
President Trump has hinted that he could invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow the president to use the military on American soil.
This would in effect be a declaration of martial law.
Trump has already authorized the military to take control of the southern border, which puts parts of the domestic United States under martial law.
What comes next?
Trump has long speculated about using his presidential powers under the Insurrection Act to direct the military to deal with his perceived political opponents, whom he likens to “the enemy from within.”
As Austin Sarat writes for Salon: “The president alone gets to decide what constitutes an ‘insurrection,’ ‘rebellion,’ or ‘domestic violence.’ And once troops are deployed, it will not be easy to get them off the streets in any place that the president thinks is threatened by ‘radical left lunatics.’”
So where do we go from here?
History offers some clues.
Exactly 250 years ago, on April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began with a “shot heard round the world.” It wasn’t sparked by acts of terrorism or rebellion—it was triggered by a government that had grown deaf to the cries of its people.
What we don’t need is violence in any form—by the people or their government.
What we do need is a revival of moral courage.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are desperately overdue for a reminder to our government: this is still our country.
Or, as Thomas Paine so powerfully put it: “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
The post Refugee. Dissident. Enemy of the State. Would ICE Have Crucified Jesus? first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Australian scientists have hatched a plan to recruit and repatriate US-based counterparts fleeing President Trump’s multi-billion-dollar research purge with competitive relocation packages. The Australian Academy of Science on Thursday issued a call to funders for a new Global Talent Attraction Program, promising a chance to be part of a “nation building” moment. “Australia has an…
The post Aussie scientists plot US ‘brain gain’ as a Trump dividend appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
Christopher Krebs, whom President Donald Trump fired as head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in 2020, has announced he is leaving cybersecurity company SentinelOne following pressure from the White House. An email from Mr Krebs, posted to SentinelOne’s website, said he offered his resignation last week after the President singled out Mr…
The post Chris Krebs resigns from SentinelOne following Trump pressure appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
On April 14, Palestinian Columbia University student and leading pro-Palestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by immigration agents as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship in Colchester, Vermont.
Mahdawi is the second Palestinian Columbia University student activist to be kidnapped by immigration authorities, after Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest which has earned international attention as demands for his release grow.
With Mahdawi’s detention, pro-Palestine groups have renewed calls to end Trump’s attacks on students and free speech.
The post Protesters Denounce ICE ‘Abduction’ Of Mohsen Mahdawi appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly claimed in a memo that pro-Palestine activists protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza are undermining the U.S.’s supposed goal of a “peaceful” end to the violence, new reporting finds, providing a glimpse into the paradoxical reasoning being employed by the White House to justify its erosion of free speech rights. The memo was prepared to supposedly…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Trump administration maintains that it can send people to overseas concentration camps with impunity because “activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president’s authority to conduct foreign policy” (BBC, 4/11/25).
As the Trump administration openly defies court orders to return a man wrongfully deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, some American outlets are underplaying the significance of this constitutional crisis.
In a unanimous decision the Supreme Court “declined to block a lower court’s order to ‘facilitate’ bringing back Kilmar Ábrego García,” a Salvadoran who had legal protections in the United States and was wrongfully sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT (BBC, 4/11/25).
The White House is not complying (Democracy Docket, 4/14/25). “The federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” Trump’s Justice Department insists (CNN, 4/15/25). Fox News (4/16/25) said of Attorney General Pam Bondi: “Bondi Defiant, Says Ábrego García Will Stay in El Salvador ‘End of the Story.’”
In an X post (4/15/25) filled with unproven assertions that skirt the question of due process and extraordinary rendition, Vice President J.D. Vance said, “The entire American media and left-wing industrial complex has decided the most important issue today is that the Trump admin deported an MS-13 gang member (and illegal alien).” (Are we supposed to believe that the six conservatives on the Supreme Court, three of whom were appointed by Trump, are a part of the “left-wing industrial complex?”)
The complete disregard to constitutional protections of due process and to court orders should send alarm bells throughout American society. The MAGA movement condones sending unconvicted migrants to a foreign hellhole largely on grounds that they are not US citizens, and thus don’t have a right to constitutional due process. But the administration has floated the idea of doing the same thing to “homegrown” undesirables as well (Al Jazeera, 4/15/25).
The New York Times (4/15/25) goes out on a limb and declares that the president defying the Supreme Court is “a path with an uncertain end.”
The case is quite obviously not about the extremity or unpopularity of President Donald Trump’s policies, but a breaking point at which the executive branch has left the democratic confines of the Constitution, as many journalists and scholars have warned about. But the case is not necessarily being portrayed that way in the establishment press.
In an article about the Trump administration’s record of resisting court orders, a New York Times subhead (4/15/25) read, “Scholars say that the Trump administration is now flirting with lawless defiance of court orders, a path with an uncertain end.” In an article about “What to Know About the Mistaken Deportation of a Maryland Man to El Salvador” (4/14/25), reporter Alan Feuer described the Supreme Court’s upholding the order to “facilitate” the return of Ábrego García as “complicated and rather ambiguous” rather than a “clear victory for the administration.”
At the Washington Post (4/14/25), law professor Stuart Banner wrote an opinion piece saying that fears of a constitutional crisis were overblown, noting that while Trump is “famous for his contemptuous remarks about judges…tension between the president and the Supreme Court is centuries old.” Thus, he said, there are incentives in both branches to “not to let conflict ripen into public defiance.”
The Wall Street Journal (4/15/25) presents the prospect of the White House defying a Supreme Court order as a “showdown” that Trump might “win.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board (4/15/25) said:
Mr. Trump would be wise to settle all of this by quietly asking Mr. Bukele to return Mr. Ábrego García, who has a family in the US. But the president may be bloody-minded enough that he wants to show the judiciary who’s boss. If this case does become a judicial showdown, Mr. Trump may assert his Article II powers not to return Mr. Ábrego García, and the Supreme Court will be reluctant to disagree.
But Mr. Trump would be smarter to play the long game. He has many, much bigger issues than the fate of one man that will come before the Supreme Court. By taunting the judiciary in this manner, he is inviting a rebuke on cases that carry far greater stakes.
These articles display a naivete about the current moment. The Trump administration and its allies have flatly declared that they believe a judicial check on the executive authority wrongly places constitutional restraints on Trump’s desires (New York Times, 3/19/25; Guardian, 3/22/25).
House Speaker Mike Johnson, responding to court rulings that went against MAGA desires, “warned that Congress’ authority over the federal judiciary includes the power to eliminate entire district courts,” Reuters (3/25/25) reported. The House also approved legislation, along party lines, that “limits the authority of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders, as Republicans react to several court rulings against the Trump administration” (AP, 4/9/25).
In other words, Trump’s defiance of the courts is part of a broader campaign to assert that the Constitution simply should not be an impediment to his rule. That’s not a liberal versus conservative debate about national policy, but a declaration that the United States will no longer operate as a constitutional republic.
“Think long and hard about what it means to have a president who gleefully ignores the courts,” urges Rex Huppke (USA Today, 4/15/25). “It’s time to stand up and shout ‘Hell no!’ right freakin’ now, and not a moment later.”
Pieces like the ones at the Journal, Times and Post give readers the sense that this affair is just another quirk of the American system of checks and balances, when, in fact, history could look back and declare this the moment when the Constitution became a dead letter.
Other outlets, however, appeared to appreciate the gravity of the situation. “America Is Dangerously Close to Being Run by a King Who Answers to No One” was the headline of Rex Huppke column at USA Today (4/15/25). “The Constitutional Crisis Is Here” was the headline of a recent piece by Adam Serwer at the Atlantic (4/14/25).
This case will roil on, and both the judicial system (Reuters, 4/15/25) and congressmembers (NBC News, 4/16/25) are taking action. There’s still time for the papers to treat this case with the urgency that it deserves.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
As U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen headed to El Salvador on Wednesday morning to demand the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, some social media users urged him to find out more about the status of another young man who immigration agents reportedly wrongly sent to the Central American country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center — despite the fact that he had no criminal record.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that aims to delay Medicare negotiations for a broad category of prescription drugs, handing the deep-pocketed pharmaceutical industry a major win as it lobbies aggressively against efforts to rein in its pricing power. Trump’s order, titled “Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First,” instructs Health and Human…
Another Columbia student, Mohsen Mahdawi has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Mahdawi is a green card holder who, alongside Mahmoud Khalil, organised protests against Israel’s genocide in Palestine. Now, senators in Vermont, where Mahdawi was apprehended have released a blistering statement:
Earlier today, Mohsen Mahdawi of White River Junction, Vermont, walked into an immigration office for what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process. Instead, he was arrested and removed in handcuffs by plainclothes, armed, individuals with their faces covered.
Whilst such a form of detention is not unheard of, it is extremely rare. The senators continued:
These individuals refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him. This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.
The Trump administration is evidently carrying out a terrifying campaign of detainment and deportation for Palestine supporters of colour. The manner of Mahdawi’s detention reads more like a state abduction than any form of due process.
Footage of Mohsen Mahdawi’s arrest has been posted on social media:
U.S. immigration authorities summoned Columbia student leader Mohsen Mahdawi to a citizenship interview in Vermont – and then detained him without charge. He now faces deportation to the occupied West Bank. pic.twitter.com/PdM6LT2G7A
— AJ+ (@ajplus) April 16, 2025
Mohsen can be seen being led away by plain clothes officers wearing hoods. He flashes a peace sign at the camera as he’s brought to a waiting car. Mohsen’s lawyers have, alarmingly, said that they don’t know where he’s been taken. His attorney Luna Droubi said:
We have not received confirmation as to his whereabouts despite numerous attempts to locate him.
Droubi also explained that:
We have filed a habeas petition in the District of Vermont and have sought a temporary restraining order restraining the government from removing him from the jurisdiction or from the country.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions granted the request. Other students in similar situations have been moved to detention facilities in Louisiana or Texas. As CNN reported:
Such transfers underscore ICE’s power in deciding where to house detained migrants – a power that some immigration attorneys say the Trump administration is now using to move disfavored migrants far from their attorneys, families and support systems.
Droubi also made it clear exactly why Mohsen was arrested:
the Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.
She also said:
his detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.
Mohsen Mahdawi’s lawyers have also explained that the Columbia student was:
an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and an activist and organizer in student protests on Columbia’s campus until March of 2024, after which he took a step back and has not been involved in organizing.
Just as with Mahmoud Khalil, Mahdawi is facing deportation under a rarely used invocation. As the Canary previously reported:
Mahmoud has US residency via a green card which are rarely revoked without a criminal conviction. Khalil has no such criminal conviction and is instead facing deportation regardless because the US government:
has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.
Mahdawi was born in the West Bank, and has been a legal resident in the US for 10 years. He’s due to graduate from Columbia next month, and begin a Masters programme at the same university in the autumn semester. Just as with Khalil, Mahdawi’s detention is a punishment for advocating for Palestine, and condemning Israeli genocide.
Bizarrely, Trump’s administration has claimed that Mohsen Mahdawi, a student, could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process. However, as reported by The Verge, Mohsen is well known in the local activist community for reaching out to both Palestinian and Israeli individuals. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly clear that facts have nothing to do with the Trump administrations dogged pursual of a campaign of terror and intimidation against Palestine advocates.
Mohsen has built a life in the US after being born in a refugee camp. However, that life means nothing to the Trump administration and to border agents. It doesn’t matter to them that Mohsen built a life that featured family, loved ones, study, because Palestinians aren’t humans as far as the Trump administration is concerned. Mohsen has effectively been abducted during what was supposed to be an interview to secure his permanent residency.
The time is far past for pleas to care about Mohsen Mahdawi and Khalil in case it might happen to you. This is happening to Palestinians across the US, and either you believe in their rights, or you’re happy to have those rights trampled over by a fascistic government.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
The global trade war triggered by US President Donald Trump earlier this month shows no signs of ending anytime soon. In recent days, China suspended exports of a wide range of critical minerals that are vital ingredients in everything from electric cars and drones to the semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence servers. Around the…
The post Trump’s trade war puts America’s AI ambitions at risk appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
Donald Trump’s tariff policy has thrown markets into turmoil among his allies and enemies alike. This anarchy reflects the fact that his major aim was not really tariff policy, but simply to cut income taxes on the wealthy, by replacing them with tariffs as the main source of government revenue. Extracting economic concessions from other countries is part of his justification for this tax shift as offering a nationalistic benefit for the United States.
His cover story, and perhaps even his belief, is that tariffs by themselves can revive American industry. But he has no plans to deal with the problems that caused America’s deindustrialization in the first place.
The post Return Of The Robber Barons: Trump’s Distorted View Of US Tariff History appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China.
While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%.
The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s “lack of respect for global markets.” But the U.S. president may well have been smarting from Beijing’s apparent willingness to confront U.S. tariffs head on.
The post In Trade War With The US, China Holds More Cards Than Trump May Think appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
President Donald Trump unveiled a new barrage of executive orders last week aimed at revitalizing the nation’s “beautiful clean coal” industry. But in reality, it’s already clear that his empty words will do no such thing.
Flanked by burly white men outfitted in coal miners’ garb, the former reality TV star and failed real estate tycoon rhapsodized about his muddled plans to supercharge coal’s use and production, including scrapping environmental regulations that “undermine” its production and ensuring federal policy doesn’t “discriminate” against the fossil fuel industry.
The astonishing impracticality of this plan did not appear in any way to be a factor in Trump’s decision, which was still applauded by people who should know better
The post Trump Just Escalated His War On Coal Miners appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
A Maryland senator has vowed to travel to El Salvador in attempts to negotiate the release of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego García as El Salvador’s president and the Trump administration are seemingly working in tandem to defy court orders and continue his imprisonment. Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in a statement on Monday that he is planning to travel to El Salvador this week if the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A labor board worker received a threatening note after he became a whistleblower on the all-out raid of the agency by Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” during which Musk’s minions apparently stole a huge amount of sensitive information about workers and union organizers, a new bombshell NPR report finds. The whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, works in the IT department for the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Immigration officials abducted a Palestinian Columbia University student, Mohsen Mahdawi, in Vermont on Monday, after they summoned him for what was supposed to be his final test to obtain his American citizenship. Mahdawi, a green card holder, received an email this month from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notifying him of an interview that was supposed to be his…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
On April 15th, President Trump posted as “News” on his White House website, “These Sick Criminals Are Who Democrats and the Legacy Media Are Defending”, and opened:
Brutal killers and rapists — all taken off our streets in just the past week thanks to the tireless work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
If Democrats and the legacy media had their way, these sick criminals would still be roaming free.
Here are just a few of the depraved criminal illegal immigrants ICE has arrested in the past several days:
1. Luis Olmedo Quishpi-Poalasin, a 35-year-old citizen of Ecuador, was arrested by ICE New York City. Quishpi has convictions for forcible rape, sexual abuse contact by forcible compulsion, rape and anal sexual contact with a person incapable of consent, unlawful imprisonment, forcible touching of intimate parts of another person, sexual misconduct by vaginal sexual contact without consent, and subjecting another person to sexual contact without consent in Brooklyn, New York.
2. Eduardo Garcia-Cortez, a 64-year-old, citizen of Honduras, was arrested by ICE Houston. Garcia has a conviction for murder in Los Angeles County, California.
…
There were 18 listed. Using two different web-browsers, I searched online to find those alleged convictions, because if that press release is authentic, then since the alleged crimes were sufficiently significant to have been covered at least by one local TV, radio, print, or other, news-medium, and there would also be a court-record of the case(s), at least one mention of the case(s) would almost certainly be somewhere else on the Web than merely that White House Press Release. But nothing came up on those two alleged criminals, other than this White House ‘news’-report.
If the President’s office were seriously reporting this alleged news, then they would have provided some means — links to each one of the alleged 18 “criminals,” or some other means — by which a reader of it can seek to find whether or not the White House is fabricating this ‘news’; and, since the White House did not do that, any intelligent reader would assume that it is fabricated instead of being any authentic news.
If the President did not authorize his office to post that alleged ‘news’-report, then he will announce this fact and fire whomever was responsible for it. Otherwise, he — and he alone — is entirely responsible for it.
In any case, however, the responsibility to examine further into this incident rests with each one of America’s national news-media. Only in a dictatorship can a head-of-state make a public statement (and a Press Release is a public statement) and no news-medium investigate to determine whether or not it was a total fabrication, and how it came to be produced if it was a fabrication.
The post Trump Posts Press Release with Fabrications first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Janine Jackson interviewed the American Immigration Council’s Dara Lind about the criminalization of immigrants for the April 11, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
ABC (4/6/25)
Janine Jackson: US legal resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia was swept up by ICE and sent to an infamously harsh prison in El Salvador. A judge declared that unlawful, and, we are to understand, the White House said, “Yes, actually, that was an administrative error, but we won’t return him to his family in Maryland because, well, he’s there now, and besides, they paid for him.” And in the latest, as we record on April 9, the Supreme Court says, “You know what? Let’s sit on that for a minute.”
What in the name of humanity is happening? Is it legal? Illegal? Does that matter? What can thinking, feeling human beings do now to protect fellow humans who are immigrants in this country?
Dara Lind is senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, and has been reporting on issues around immigrants’ rights for years now. She joins us now by phone from DC. Welcome to CounterSpin, Dara Lind.
Dara Lind: Thank you for having me on. Let’s try to figure this out.
Immigration Impact (3/20/25)
JJ: Yeah. Well, let’s start, if we could, with what some are calling “renditions,” because “deportation” doesn’t really seem to fit. The White House has invoked the Alien Enemies Act as justification for sending, in this case, Venezuelan people it has deemed to be members of a gang, Tren de Aragua, to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador.
They are no contact. We don’t know what’s happening to them, exactly. They haven’t been convicted of any crime. They’ve had no chance to challenge charges against them.
You’ve written recently about this rubric that’s being wafted over this, and that folks will have heard about: the Alien Enemies Act. Talk us through, if you would, what that is, and what we should make of this employment of it.
DL: Sure. So the Alien Enemies Act was enacted in 1798. It was part of a suite of laws, where every of the other laws that were passed around those issues—as America was very worried about war between Britain and France—all of the other acts passed around that were eventually rescinded, because everybody kind of looked at that moment and went: “Ooh, that was a little bit tyrannical. We may have gone too far there.” But the Alien Enemies Act stayed on the books, and has been used very infrequently since then, most recently in World War II, to remove Japanese and German nationals.
What the Trump administration has done is say, “One, we’re using it again. Two, we’re using it not against a government, but against a criminal group, the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” which they argue is so enmeshed with the government of Venezuela that it constitutes a hybrid criminal state. And three, saying that any Venezuelan man over the age of 14 who they deem to be a member of Tren de Aragua can be removed under the Alien Enemies Act, without any of the process that is set out in actual immigration law.
New Republic (4/11/25)
Under immigration law, you have the ability to make your case before a judge, to demonstrate that you qualify for some form of relief, such as asylum if that applies to you, and the government has to prove that you can be removed. They say, “No, no, no, no, no, because this law existed before any of that, we don’t have to go through any of that process.” That is their interpretation of the law, under which they put people on planes and sent them to El Salvador.
What has been litigated, and with a Supreme Court order on Monday night, where we are right now, is that the courts have said, “No, it is illegal to use the Alien Enemies Act to remove people with no process whatsoever.” But the Supreme Court says, if people want to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act, they need to do it through what are called habeas claims, which is not the way that the initial court case was brought.
So in theory right now, we’re in a world where someone hypothetically could be removed under the Alien Enemies Act, but how that’s going to work in practice is a little bit unclear, because it would have to be a different process than the one the Trump administration used in mid-March. And what we’re actually seeing is, even in the hours before you and I are speaking, that judges have started to receive lawsuits filed under these habeas claims, and have started saying, “Yeah, you can’t remove people under this act through this either.” So it’s really changing very quickly on the ground, and part of that’s the result of this 200+-year-old law being used in a manner in which it’s never been used before, and with very little transparency as to what the administration wants to do with it.
JJ: It seems important to say, as you do in the piece that you wrote, that the Alien Enemies Act sidesteps immigration law, because it’s being presented as kind of part of immigration law, but one of the key things about it is that it takes us outside of laws that have been instituted to deal with immigration, yeah?
CounterSpin (1/6/23)
DL: I compare this to when the Trump administration, after the beginning of the Covid pandemic, used Title 42, which is a public health law, to essentially seal the US/Mexico border from asylum seekers. In that case, they were taking a law from outside of immigration, that had been enacted before the modern immigration system, and saying, because this law doesn’t explicitly say immigration law is in effect, we can create this separate pathway that we can use, that we can treat immigrants under this law without having to give them any of the rights guaranteed under immigration law.
They’re doing the same thing with this, saying, because this law that is on the books doesn’t refer to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which was passed a century and a half later, we don’t need to adhere to anything that was since put in to, say, comply with the Refugee Convention, to comply with the International Convention Against Torture, all of these structures that have come into place as people have started to care about human rights, and not sending people to torture or persecution—they’re now saying they don’t have to bother with, because they weren’t thinking about them in 1798.
JJ: Right. And it brings us to, folks for many years on many issues have been saying, Well, it’s not legal, so it’s all going to be fixed, because the law’s going to step in and fix it, because it’s not legal. And I think you’re referring to the fluidity and the importance of the invocation of law. It’s not like it just exists, and you bring it down to bear. It’s fought terrain.
DL: Right. Yes, exactly. It’s contested, and when we say “contested,” it really is being fought out in the courts as we speak. Because the administration is using its authority, the fact that it is the federal government, and litigators are saying, “Please point to us in the law where you can do that, or demonstrate to us that you are adhering at all to what we think of as fairly basic constitutional protections, like due process, like the right to know what you’re being detained for.”
What is legal is ultimately what the courts decide, but how they rule on this is very unclear, and, to be fully honest, the government’s insistence on giving very little information, and in conceding very little—even in cases like Mr. Abrego Garcia’s, where, as you say, they’ve said there was a mistake made—makes it a little bit harder to understand what it would even look like to say a government that’s been so truculent and so resistant is in fact operating under the law.
JJ: Let me just pivot a little bit. The talking point of, If they just come here the right way, like my grandparents did—that’s ahistorical garbage, we understand, but it’s still potent. And we have seen for years an effort to cleave “bad immigrants” from “good immigrants,” and to suggest, even now, that the good ones have nothing to fear.
Your work places this “bad hombre” rhetoric within a broader context of immigration policy and enforcement, because you don’t have to throw people in the back of a van to stir up enough fear and uncertainty to upend lives. You can do it with a quietly announced rule change.
And so I just want to ask you to talk about some of the maybe less visible fronts—you know, the ending of the CHNV program, the demand for registration. Talk about some other things that are going on that are still, in their own way, violent and disruptive.
Dara Lind: “They’re taking far more sweeping, categorical actions toward people with fewer protections under current law, and it’s harder to talk about those.”
DL: I love this question so much, because something that I personally have been thinking about a lot over the last several weeks is that the administration has gotten a lot of attention for the unprecedented ways in which it’s treated people with legal permission to be here, especially student visas.
But we’re hearing about those in terms of individual cases of visas being stripped. And meanwhile, they’re taking far more sweeping, categorical actions toward people with fewer protections under current law, and it’s harder to talk about those, because they don’t look like individual cases. They look like policy changes.
So, for example, thousands of people have gotten letters over the last couple of weeks, saying that their permission to live in the United States and work, which was extended under a presidential authority known as humanitarian parole, has been revoked, or will be revoked as of later this month, and that they’re supposed to return to their home countries as soon as possible.
Now, some of those people received those letters in error. Some of them were Ukrainians who were let in under the United for Ukraine program, and the government said later, the day that it sent them, “Oops, you guys, we didn’t mean to send that to you guys, so hopefully you didn’t see that and pack up and leave already.”
Immigration Impact (4/8/25)
But many of them are being told they need to leave immediately, or within seven days, and it’s absolutely upending their lives, because they were told they had two years, or that they didn’t have to think about this until the next time their parole was up for renewal.
What you’re alluding to with registration is this bind that they’re trying to place immigrants in. People may very well not know that while we talk about “unauthorized” or “illegal” immigrants in the US, millions of those, at this point, are known to the government in some form or another: They have pending immigration court hearings, or they have some form of temporary permission to be in the United States.
While the Trump administration is, on the one hand, talking about this “invasion” of people who we don’t know who they are, on the other hand, they’re trying to use yet another obscure pre-1960s law to force anyone who isn’t already on the books with the federal government to register.
Now, are they going to be protected by registering? Are they being given legal status? Are they being given the right to work? No, not at all. And, in fact, the government has said nothing—the implication is that they’re using that information to go find people and deport them. But if you don’t register, then you risk being prosecuted as a federal criminal.
So they’re doing their best to, instead of actually going after the criminals who they promised were lurking around every corner on the campaign trail, to turn people who have not committed any crime into criminals, simply by engaging in what previously was a civil violation of immigration law.
JJ: To put the pin on it, this would make the United States a place where you can be stopped and told to show your papers.
DL: Yeah, this law that was passed in 1940 says that if you do not produce evidence that you’ve registered if asked by an immigration official, then that also constitutes a federal crime. It’s absolutely one of those where, we say all the time, we’re not a country that asks people to show their papers, and actually, according to this obscure law, that is a thing we can do.
But as with so many things in immigration law, there are powers the federal government in theory has but doesn’t use. And the Trump administration is trying to use them for the first time, and reminding a lot of people just how much power we’ve given the government and trusted them to use correctly.
JJ: Absolutely. Well, we understand, if we’re paying attention, that the Trump administration is not just interested in so-called criminals when we read that they are tracking anyone—immigrant, citizen, no matter—who expresses criticism of the deportation agenda on social media. So it seems clear that this is ideologically based on its face, or at least pieces of it is. Is that not a legal front to fight on?
Just Security (3/12/25)
DL: A lot of things that would be entirely illegal, if the government went after a US citizen for them, are in fact historically considered OK for the government to do in the context of immigration law. For example, the grounds that are being used for many of these student visa revocations are this obscure regulation that the State Department can revoke the visa of anyone it deems to be a foreign policy problem for the United States, which does open itself up to deporting people for speech, for protected political activity, for, again, the sort of thing that would be a core constitutional right for US citizens, but that, in the context in which US immigration law has developed, which was a lot of people being very concerned about Communist infiltration, immigrants have been carved out.
I think in general, it’s really important for people to understand that while the Trump administration loves to imply that it’s going to use all of its powers maximally, that no one is safe and that everyone should be afraid, in fact citizens do have more protections than Green Card holders, Green Card holders do have more protections than others.
For example, the one Green Card holder who they’ve tried to use this State Department thing on, the judge in that case, as of when we’re talking, has told the government, give me some evidence in 24 hours or I’m ordering this guy released. Because it does take more to deport somebody on a Green Card.
So how scared people should be, this isn’t just a function of what the government is saying—although what it’s doing is more relevant—but it should also be a function of how many layers of protection the government would have to cut through in order to subject you to its will.
Washington Post (4/10/25)
JJ: And that gives us points of intervention, and I appreciate the idea that while we absolutely have to be concerned about what’s being said, it’s helpful to keep a clear eye on what is actually happening, so that we see where the fronts of the fight are. But I then have to ask you, when you hear analysts say, well, this person had a disputed status, this person had a Green Card, and make those distinctions, but then you hear Trump say, well, heck yeah, I’d love to send US citizens to prison in El Salvador.
He’s making clear he doesn’t think it’s about immigration status. He says, if I decide you’re a criminal, and you bop people on the head, or whatever the hell he said, you’re a dangerous person. “Well, I would love the law to let me send US citizens to El Salvador also.” So you can understand why folks feel the slipperiness of it, even as we know that laws have different layers of protection.
DL: I do. The thing that strikes me about these US citizens–to–El Salvador comments is that I was reporting on Trump back when the first time he was a presidential candidate, so I’ve been following what he says for a minute. It’s really, really rare for Donald Trump to say “if it’s legal,” “we’re not sure it’s legal.”
But he said that about this, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt has also said that about this, and that caveat is just so rare that it does make me think that this is different from some of the other things where Trump says it and then the government tries to make it happen, that they are a little bit aware that there’s a bright line, and even they are a little bit wary of stepping over it.
And I’m kind of insistent about that, mostly because I worry a lot about people being afraid to stand up for more vulnerable people in their communities, because they’re focused on the ways in which they’re vulnerable. And so what I don’t want to see is a world where noncitizens can be arrested and detained with no due process, and citizens are afraid to speak out because they heard something about citizens being sent to El Salvador, and they worry they will be next.
New York Times (11/21/24)
JJ: I hear that. And following from that, I want to just quote from the piece that you wrote for the New York Times last November, about focusing on what is actually really happening, and you said:
The details matter not only because every deportation represents a life disrupted (and usually more than one, since no immigrant is an island). They matter precisely because the Trump administration will not round up millions of immigrants on January 20. Millions of people will wake up on January 21 not knowing exactly what comes next for them—and the more accurate the press and the public can be about the scope and scale of deportation efforts, the better able immigrants and their communities will be to prepare for what might be coming and try to find ways to throw sand in the gears.
What I hear in that is that there is a real history-making moment for a press corps that’s worth its salt.
DL: Absolutely, and to be honest, in the weeks since the flights were sent to El Salvador, we’ve seen some tremendous reporting from national and local reporters about the human lives that were on those planes. We know so much more about these people than we would have. But what that means is that these people who, arguably, the administration would love to see disappear, Nayib Bukele would love to see disappear, they’re very, very visible to us.
And that’s so important in making it clear that things like due process aren’t just a hypothetical “nice to have.” Due process is the protection that prevents, in general, gay makeup artists from getting sent to a country that they’ve never been to because of their tattoos, that it’s an essential way to make sure that we’re not visiting harm on people who have done nothing to deserve it.
JJ: Finally, I do understand that we have to fight wherever there’s a fight, but I do have a fear of small amendments or reforms as a big-picture response. We can amend this here or we can return that person. It feels a little bit like a restraining wall against a flood.
And I just feel that it helps to show that we are for something. We’re not just against hatefulness and bigotry and the law being used to arbitrarily throw people out. We have a vision of a shared future that doesn’t involve deputizing people to snitch on their neighbors who they think look different. We have a vision about immigration that is a positive vision that we’ve had in this country, and I guess I wish I’d see more of that right now, in media and elsewhere.
DL: What makes it particularly hard, from my perspective, is that most Americans know very little about immigration law. It’s extremely complicated, and most people have never had firsthand experience with it. So in order to get people to even understand what is going on now, you need to do more work than you do for areas where people are more intuitively familiar with what the government does, and that takes up space that otherwise could go to imagining different futures.
The other problem here is that, frankly, it’s not that new and radical ideas on immigration are needed. It’s a matter of political will, to a certain extent, right?
FAIR.org (5/24/21)
The reason that the Trump administration’s use of this registration provision is such a sick irony to some of us is that there was a way, that Congress proposed, to allow people to register with the US government. It was called comprehensive immigration reform. There have been proposals to regularize people, to put people on the books, to bring people out of the shadows.
And the absence of that, and the absence of a federal government that was in any way equipped to actually process people, rather than figuring out the most draconian crackdown and hoping that everybody got the message, is where we’ve gotten to a point where everyone agrees that the system is broken, and the only solutions appear to be these radical crackdowns on basic rights.
JJ: Yeah. We’ve established that the ground is shifting under our feet, but anything you’d like reporters to do more of or less of, or things to keep in mind?
DL: I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the amount of attention, and duration of attention, on the Salvadoran removals. It’s been something where I could easily have seen things falling out of the headlines, just because there weren’t any new facts being developed.
I do worry a little bit that now that the court cases—with a couple of exceptions, we’re unlikely to see really big developments in the next several days—that that’s going to maybe quiet the drumbeat. And I’m hoping that people are continuing to push, continuing to try to find new information, to hold the government accountable to the things that it’s already said, especially if they’re going to start removals back up again.
Because it’s often the case that in the absence of new facts, important things don’t get treated as news stories anymore, and it would be really a shame if that were to happen for this, when our only recourse, unless the courts are going to end up ruling that the Trump administration has to send the plane back and put everybody on them and bring them back to the US, is going to be some measure of public pressure on the administration—on the government of El Salvador, even—to do the right thing.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Dara Lind. She’s senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. Thank you so much, Dara Lind, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
DL: Thank you.
This post was originally published on FAIR.
Sen. Bernie Sanders warned late Monday that President Donald Trump’s open refusal to comply with court orders requiring him to bring home a Maryland resident his administration wrongly deported represents “just another step forward” in his “move toward authoritarianism.” “Just a few weeks ago, the Trump administration admitted that the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
I didn’t meet a Republican until I was 18 years old, my freshman year at university. I grew up in working class suburbs of Detroit. Everyone was union. Everyone was a Democrat. This was the party of the New Deal, FDR, JFK.
That political party, that institution which understood and worked for everyday people – the blue collars of the lower class and the white collars of the middle class – that political force which invested its energy to foster an America for all, to serve the citizenry equally regardless of class status, the party which took seriously the constitutional mandate “to promote the general welfare”, no longer exists.
The transition took place during the 90s under the saxophone president, Bill Clinton, and was complete by the turn of the century. No longer was the Democratic Party a party of the people. It ended up serving the same monied class as the Republicans. As Ralph Nader puts it, choice at the polls now was deciding between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Democrats currently wonder why party loyalty has been diminishing, why Hillary Clinton lost to a glib reality show host/gambling casino magnate in 2016, a manifestly dishonest, terminally shallow, narcissistic, manipulative, self-serving, completely unqualified candidate in Donald Trump. It’s not difficult to explain: The new Democratic Party is the party which railroaded one of the most popular candidates in recent history, Bernie Sanders, out of the race, stranding the largest populous uprising in decades.
As if that weren’t insulting enough, Hillary made no secret of her disdain for the “deplorables” of America, the unwashed masses who didn’t benefit from pedigree educations, bulging stock portfolios, and natty wardrobes from Prada and Armani. Her elitist predilection was then reinforced by the leak of a speech she gave to top banking executives, where she claimed she had “both a public and private position” on Wall Street reform. The execs got the real story and the voting public was served up the usual campaign blather. Is it any wonder that her bid for the presidency was crippled by plummeting trust?
The feel-good campaign mounted by the Democrats for Kamala Harris is likewise revealing. It completely lacked substance, saturated with word salad and puerile rhetoric. Openly on display was how cynical Democratic Party leaders are and just how disconnected the party is from doing anything to improve the lives of everyday citizens living real lives in real time.
To his credit in both 2016 and 2024, Trump said many of the right things which resonated with the masses of voters alienated by the new corporate trimmings of the DNC and its penchant for supporting centrist establishment-friendly candidates. To his discredit, in 2016 Trump apparently didn’t mean what he said and managed to avoid fulfilling most of the promises he made in his campaign. But it was too late. And it’s still too late. Huge numbers of frustrated and angry voters are so fed up with the tone-deaf Democratic Party, they seem to be willing to forgive Trump for just about anything. We shouldn’t do what the Dems did in 2016 and underestimate the Orange Oligarch. Because he is perhaps the most gifted smooth talker to come down the pike since ‘Slick Willy’. Fool me twice.
Of course, the Democrats couldn’t leave it at just being disconnected from flesh-and-blood entities – the voting public, real life people. They made the existential leap of disconnecting from reality itself. I refer to Russiagate.
I’m not going to get into the messy details of this scam. As there are still folks out there who believe the Earth is flat, there are a frightening number of individuals who believe that Russia, in collusion with KGB mole Drumpf – code name Agent Orange – stole the election from the universally-adored Hillary and dropped it off at the Mar-a-Lago clubhouse. Many of these folks also think that Saddam Hussein attacked the Twin Towers, Iraq had nuclear bombs ready to lob at the Lincoln Memorial and on Disney World, and the space shuttle tiles are oven-crisp taco shells.
Suffice it to say, the ham-fisted subterfuge created to cover Hillary’s embarrassing electoral failure has, to put it mildly, created extensive collateral damage. Granted, the project to disappear Russia as a nation, dismember it, and parcel it into manageable chunks for maximum exploitation, already had legs, thanks to the PNAC neoconiacs. However, Russiagate went the extra mile in convincing most of the U.S. population that Vladimir Putin is a Hitlerian monster, and Russia a backward, malevolent, evil, ruthless, genocidal gas station masquerading as a country, bent on destroying America and forcing us all to listen to balalaika music 24 hours a day. Subsequent loathing lasting right up to the present for both Putin and everything Russian – now at warp speed with the Ukraine meatgrinder in full swing – has been meticulously built on the sludgerock foundation of the DNC/Hillary Russiagate propaganda. Even today, slanderous attacks, whole-cloth fabrications about the sinister Putin and revanchist Russian war machine continue to spew out 24/7. Questioning this baseless vitriol is equated with treason. Both sides of the congressional aisle scream for blood – Russian blood – and the prospects for WWIII are real and terrifying!
Not that such mass psychosis is anything new. Manufactured crisis is one product line we haven’t offshored to China. It’s a nefarious web of deceptions at which our own Deep State excels. Which is why the U.S. never runs out of enemies and why it’s always at war. Our Nobel Peace Prize president was actively engaged in military conflict with seven countries. Obama dropped 26,171 bombs on foreign soil, just his final year in office. A “peace time” record?
Assuring the public that we’re not wasting tax dollars, that as global policeman, we’re killing people who really deserve it, that we’re eliminating serious threats to the security of America, that we’re “fighting them over there so we don’t end up fighting them here,” is a lot of work and not always as easy as it looks. Nothing reflecting favorably on the “enemy” can be allowed. America’s vile nemesis must be marginalized, dehumanized, demonized. Their leaders must be portrayed as devils, Hitlers, evil incarnate. The evil country, its citizens, its leadership, its democracy-hating government must be blamed for every mishap, no matter how unrelated. Experts must offer ever more outrageous prognostications about what nefarious plans said enemy is conjuring in order to inflict more horrors on the U.S. and its loyal allies.
With a lot of practice, the U.S. propaganda machine has gotten very good at all of this. For example, the day after Russia started its special military operation to eliminate the growing military threat NATO was creating in Ukraine, we were instructed – and dutifully did our patriotic duty by enthusiastically complying – to hate Russian music, dance, art, literature, sports figures. Even Russian cats and dogs were barred from appearing in pet shows in the West. Western businesses based in Russia packed up and left, losing billions of dollars, rather than be around those despicable, foul, savage Russians. Air space was closed to any aircraft or carrier that had any affiliation with Russia. Offices of Russian media outlets in the West were shut down. It was truly the most viciously thorough campaign of cultural genocide in recent history. And yes, U.S. citizens have in hordes stepped up to the plate and carried their weight. Saying anything even moderately nice about Russia in America – especially Vladimir Putin – risks at minimum a barrage of expletives, a possible beating, even gunshot wounds. Order a White Russian from a bartender at your own risk.
‘Hate’ like ‘love’ is a four-letter word. But apparently the former is a much easier sell. Or perhaps, considering the frustrations and anger which seem to be mounting as chaos and dysfunction in everyday life become more the norm, people were and are uniquely primed for some heavy-duty animus.
It’s a truly disheartening comment on human nature.
One final point.
Like Anthrax spores, hatred is almost impossible to put back in the bottle. It’s contagious and grows exponentially. We hate Russia, we hate North Korea, we hate Assad of Syria, we hate the Ayatollah of Iran, we hate Cuba, we hate Venezuela. We need to hate China much more. Yes, we’re lagging a little in that department. After all … Covid-19, communism, TikTok.
The problem is, hate knows no borders. Inevitably, it comes back home. Now we see the acid-drip is corroding the vital fabric of American society. The Democrats hate Trump. Republicans hate Biden. MSNBC viewers hate Fox viewers. The vaccinated hate the unvaccinated. Of course, all enlightened people are derelict if they don’t hate haters. Haters would be anyone who is a transphobe, homophobe, racist, a racism denier, anti-Semite, an anti-Semitism denier, anyone who questions the positive impact of BLM and mRNA vaccines or the necessity of internet censorship, puberty blockers for children, 5G, 3-D printed meat, or 80+ genders. No reason to talk to any of these people. Just hate them.
By the way, as haters of all that should be hated, we should be proud we live in the most democratic, wealthiest, most powerful, most just and free nation in history! We are exceptional and indispensable, God is on our side, and we are chosen by destiny to rule the entire known universe. Thus, everything we do is good and wonderful. That even includes hating!
Yes, this is how disconnect works. It operates by its own rules, has no time for mind-muddling distractions like facts, logic, reason, objectivity, respectful debate, historical perspective, common sense, common decency, love of truth.
D is for disconnect.
D is for deception.
D is for dystopia.
[This is an excerpt from my book, Electing A Kennedy Congress, a thoroughly misunderstood and mindlessly maligned attempt at restoring our country to a recognizable version of itself, one which aligns with the grossly misleading, totally fabricated image it peddles to its citizens and the world. That would be an America I am proud of!]
The post D is for Disconnect first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Asia Pacific Report
Former US President Barack Obama has taken to social media to praise Harvard’s decision to stand up for academic freedom by rebuffing the Trump administration’s demands.
“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect,” Obama wrote in a post on X.
He called on other universities to follow the lead.
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and… https://t.co/gAu9UUqgjF
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 15, 2025
Harvard will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to dismantle its diversity programming, limit student protests over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, and submit to far-reaching federal audits in exchange for its federal funding, university president Alan M. Garber ’76 announced yesterday afternoon.
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he wrote, reports the university’s Harvard Crimson news team.
The announcement comes two weeks after three federal agencies announced a review into roughly $9 billion in Harvard’s federal funding and days after the Trump administration sent its initial demands, which included dismantling diversity programming, banning masks, and committing to “full cooperation” with the Department of Homeland Security.
Within hours of the announcement to reject the White House demands, the Trump administration paused $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard in a dramatic escalation in its crusade against the university.
More focused demands
On Friday, the Trump administration had delivered a longer and more focused set of demands than the ones they had shared two weeks earlier.
It asked Harvard to “derecognise” pro-Palestine student groups, audit its academic programmes for viewpoint diversity, and expel students involved in an altercation at a 2023 pro-Palestine protest on the Harvard Business School campus.
It also asked Harvard to reform its admissions process for international students to screen for students “supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism” — and immediately report international students to federal authorities if they break university conduct policies.
It called for “reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship” and installing leaders committed to carrying out the administration’s demands.
And it asked the university to submit quarterly updates, beginning in June 2025, certifying its compliance.
Garber condemned the demands, calling them a “political ploy” disguised as an effort to address antisemitism on campus.
“It makes clear that the intention is not to work with us to address antisemitism in a cooperative and constructive manner,” he wrote.
“Although some of the demands outlined by the government are aimed at combating antisemitism, the majority represent direct governmental regulation of the ‘intellectual conditions’ at Harvard.”
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Another case in in point: An image of and quote from Harriet Tubman was removed from a National Parks Service webpage about the Underground Railroad. The Washington Post was early in reporting that Tubman’s photograph was disappeared. “In its place,” the Post noted, “are images of Postal Service stamps that highlight ‘Black/White cooperation’ in the secret network and that feature Tubman among abolitionists of both races.”
CNN reported that “The National Parks Service webpage for the ‘Underground Railroad’ used to lead with a quote from Tubman, the railroad’s most famous ‘conductor,’ a comparison on the Wayback Machine between the webpage on January 21 and March 19 shows. Both the quote and an image of Tubman have since been removed, along with several references to “enslaved” people and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.”
While an outcry caused the restoration of Tubman’s image and quote, its removal was one amongst many Trump-ordered website deletions. Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical Government DEI Programs,” led federal agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security to remove documents and guidance related to diversity, equity, and inclusion from their websites.
Environmental information? Removed! Scientific information? Removed! Health-related information? Removed! Who really knows how much information has already been erased?
Info-cleansing is not a new weapon for Republican presidential administrations. In April 2003, I wrote a piece titled “Operation Info-scrub: Team Bush reviews, rewrites and/or removes information it doesn’t like.” The story detailed ways the George W. Bush administration was tinkering with history, and with the truth. My lede graph read “While Americans are focusing on a looming war with Iraq, increasing threats to privacy, a depressed economy and the permanent war on terrorism, the Bush Administration has been removing information from government Web sites for what appears to be strictly political reasons. Information conflicting with administration policy, the image of government officials, or is just plain objectionable to the president’s conservative constituents has been reviewed and revised or removed altogether.”
A March 2002 memo by President Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card titled “Guidance on Homeland Security Information Issued,” was sent to the heads of all federal departments and agencies. OMB Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group, reported that the “guidance” suggested that agencies review “its classified, reclassified and declassified information,” and to be aware of a new type of information called “sensitive but unclassified.” The “guidance” stated that “the need o protect such sensitive information from inappropriate disclosure should be carefully considered, on a case-by-case basis,” and that Freedom of Information Act requests should also be considered under these guidelines.
OMB Watch pointed out that a substantial amount of information was removed from the Web sites of a number of agencies including: the Agency for Toxics and Disease Registry, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Internal Revenue Service, National Archives and Records Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey. (For examples of what was cleansed, see the OMB’s “Access to Government Information Post September 11th” ).
It is clear that the Trump administration wants to erase the public’s knowledge of the darker parts of our history. It has no interest in the public’s right-to-know. Not only is the administration messing with American history by deleting factual information sources, it is putting up huge barriers preventing journalists from investigating its actions.
The post Trump’s Info-Scrubbing Threatens the Public’s Right-to-Know Our History first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The South Korea government has increased its support package for the country’s semiconductor industry to ₩33 trillion (US$23.25 billion), up about 25 per cent from a ₩26 trillion package unveiled last year. The measures come in response to calls on the government to expand support at a time of growing policy uncertainty under the current…
The post South Korea unveils US$23b support package for semiconductors appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
President Trump and Elon Musk will tell you they’re saving money for the US government and thereby the US taxpayer. The DOGE team have claimed that they have already cut out $65 billion of waste and fraud – equaling savings for the American people. Incredible! (I’m going to invest my cut of that money in an up-and-coming fad called “fidget spinners”.)
Oh, I forgot to mention – Everything Musk has said is utterly false. “…some of the biggest errors in savings [announced by DOGE] are, as CBS first reported, a USAID contract for $650 million that was listed three times, as The Intercept first reported, a Social Security contract listed as $232 million, instead of $560,000, and an ICE contract that DOGE listed as $8 billion, when, in reality, it was $8 million.”
The post Why Trump And Musk Ignore The Largest Money Laundering Scheme In Human History appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
By Grace Tinetali-Fiavaai, RNZ Pacific journalist in Hawai’i
New Zealand’s Pacific connection with the United States is “more important than ever”, says Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters after rounding up the Hawai’i leg of his Pacific trip.
Peters said common strategic interests of the US and New Zealand were underlined while in the state.
“Our Pacific links with the United States are more important than ever,” Peters said.
“New Zealand’s partnership with the United States remains one of our most long standing and important, particularly when seen in the light of our joint interests in the Pacific and the evolving security environment.”
The Deputy Prime Minister has led a delegation made up of cross-party MPs, who are heading to Fiji for a brief overnight stop, before heading to Vanuatu.
Peters said the stop in Honolulu allowed for an exchange of ideas and the role New Zealand can play in working with regional partners in the region.
“We have long advocated for the importance of an active and engaged United States in the Indo-Pacific, and this time in Honolulu allowed us to continue to make that case.”
Approaching Trump ‘right way’
The delegation met with Hawai’i’s Governor Josh Green, who confirmed with him that New Zealand was approaching US President Donald Trump in the “right way”.
“The fact is, this is a massively Democrat state. But nevertheless, they deal with Washington very, very well, and privately, we have got an inside confirmation that our approach is right.
“Be very careful, these things are very important, words matter and be ultra-cautious. All those things were confirmed by the governor.”
Governor Green told reporters he had spent time with Trump and talked to the US administration all the time.
“I can’t guarantee that they will bend their policies, but I try to be very rational for the good of our state, in our region, and it seems to be so far working,” he said.
He said the US and New Zealand were close allies.
“So having these additional connections with the political leadership and people from the community and business leaders, it helps us, because as we move forward in somewhat uncertain times, having more friends helps.”
At the East-West Center in Honolulu, Peters said New Zealand and the United States had not always seen eye-to-eye and “US Presidents have not always been popular back home”.
“My view of the strategic partnership between New Zealand and the United States is this: we each have the right, indeed the imperative, to pursue our own foreign policies, driven by our own sense of national interest.”
The delegation also met the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Samuel Paparo, the interim president of the East-West Center Dr James Scott, and Hawai’i-based representatives for Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
On Thursday President Trump pulled back on tariffs because a sell-off in treasuries threatened to develop into a serious economic catastrophe.
Tariffs were reduced to 10% for most countries but China. (10% is still a lot higher than they were before Trump started his tariff onslaught.) The tariffs on products from China were raised to a total of 145%.
The high China tariffs would inevitably lead to a steep raise of U.S. prices for consumer electronics which, at least partially, are nowadays coming from China. For big U.S. companies, foremost Apple, this would have entailed large losses.
So Trump blinked again.
The post Tariffs – Trump Blinks Again appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.