The 15 innocent victims killed in Sunday’s terrorist attack on a Hanukkah party at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia are being exploited by extreme Zionists in a bid to distract from Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Their memories are being used by the likes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli as well as Australian officials, sections of the media and members of the public.
Instead of putting the blame on the only known perpetrators police have identified so far — the father and son shooters Sajid and Naveed Akram — Zionist extremists are implicating innocent citizens who have dared protest Israeli atrocities.
They (OCCA) are scrubbing all evidence that the Oregon Coast Center for the Arts ever invited me to speak/give a master class. Yep, two days before I was going to give a short, intense master class, cancelled.
Read the flyer above that is posted all over the county, pinned up here and there.
Here, my letter to the board:
Dec. 2, 2025
RE: Censoring my talk at the Newport Performing Arts building as part of the Hear Here series
TO: Oregon Coast Council on the Arts; David Gomberg, Editor of the Leader
What a sham, really, as I received a call today, Dec. 2, two days before my scheduled talk, around media and news literacy, at the PAC.
Wayne Caputo called me from an airport around noon, and alas, he was the one who basically convinced me to do a talk, and he approved of the theme and subject matter.
He told me that “the board” decided to cancel my presentation “based on things you’ve written.” I pressed him further, and he stated that “some board members were upset with the comments I made in a Commentary in the Leader tied to David Gomberg’s trip to Israel.”
Then he stated something about OCCA’s stated values and mission which they/he said I do not represent.
Censorship, that is for sure, a value I do not stand for. Denying the community OCCA is supposedly in favor of supporting through this discussion/master class on journalism, digital media and the death of critical thinking? Not a value I ascribe.
Again, stopping a preplanned event, 48 hours before, that is a sign of small minds, odd pressure from one or several board members, and outright blatant censorship.
Lack of critical thinking and holding to unfair rules of debate? OCCA’s values, that’s for sure. Having a member of the community publicize the event for the greater community to attend and then reneging on that discussion is antithetical to free speech and educational honesty. Again, OCCA is quite a culprit in this regard.
I am not going to go over just all the issues your censorship covers. The unprofessional manner of contacting me so late in the game, well, that goes without explaining. My reputation being sullied by this? Hmm, what lies have you conjured up as to why the “Hear Here” talk for Dec. 4 has been cancelled. I see you scrubbed my talk from your website. Such efficient censors you all are!
Caputo, Eastman, Richardson, Gardner, Jones, Madnick, Burke, Klose, Shreiber, Llumiquinga Perez, Ledonne, Sinnamon, Pridgeon, Chadwick – what small minded, cloistered and strange people you are, involved in The Arts, no less.
It doesn’t take long to wash the stink away from my mouth after hearing about and cogitating around this cancellation. Yes, censorship. Podunk Newport, sure, but the land under Trump and before, Biden, well, well, what censorious fools both parties represent. You are welcomed into both camps, I am sure.
Just two months ago, Chris Hedges, a well-known journalist, who is listed in my PowerPoint talk, just faced the same sort of little Gestapo treatment in Australia:
Hedges’s scheduled address to the National Press Club of Australia was canceled. The speech, titled “The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists,” was intended to discuss the high number of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza and the media’s pro-Israel bias. The cancellation drew significant criticism, with Hedges and others stating it was due to pressure from the club’s sponsors, some of whom are embedded in the Israeli war machine. Hedges later delivered the full, uncensored speech online.
Oh, the list of how badly Americans of both parties treat truthtellers and so-called outside the mainstream news reporters, well well, it can fill books. Project Censored was also part and parcel included in my presentation. Your little action fits that great nonprofit’s work around just how badly Americans treat writers, thinkers and the Press.
What a failure of leadership and vision AND values to quash discussion. This talk is/was about media and the press and how quickly people in the West have been propagandized to the hilt, causing a mass collective misunderstanding of history, breaking news, contexts around news events, and just plain denuding of basic clear thinking.
You failed your own mission and soiled the value of debate, discourse and discussion on a super valuable and relevant topic for a small community, Newport. To add to this infamy, a few comments in the local newspaper attributed to me involving a public figure, a politician, no less, as being another basis for cancellation is both infantile and retrograde.
How dare you, Caputo, Eastman, Richardson, Gardner, Jones, Madnick, Burke, Klose, Shreiber, Llumiquinga Perez, Ledonne, Sinnamon, Pridgeon, Chadwick, that you individually and collectively even breathe a word about values. What a disgrace you are associating yourselves with “the arts,” an even more troubling reality surrounding your pedestrian and sad Board.
Shame on you.
Paul Haeder, writer, educator, photographer, journalist, teacher
Was it this?
“But make no mistake about it – the US, Britain and Germany are the major weapons suppliers to Israel. However, there are literally tens of billions of dollars going back and forth from and to that genocidal state.
Sort of like the good old days when Hitler and his regime had that back and forth commerce, with, hmm: German and international corporations like IG Farben, Ford, General Motors (GM), IBM, and Standard Oil. There were hundreds of smaller companies.
We have now in Lincoln County, thousands losing their Medicare Advantage plans through Samaritan Health. And what are the democrats up against the republican reprobates doing?
Well, we have two senators, one who is Israel-First and who puts his Jewish background above America, for sure, in many people’s minds: The genocide campaign has killed more than 350,000 Palestinians, almost all civilians, and left the rest of the population of Gaza in plots of land that make concentration camps look livable.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) co-sponsored six bills in September 2024 to halt a $20 billion U.S. arms sale to Israel. Some of it: $675 million worth of bombs and a shipment of 20,000 assault rifles to Israel.
“We have a profound moral responsibility to end this collective punishment of innocent civilians,” Merkley said in a statement, adding that until the Israeli government makes critical international food and medical aid available to Palestinians in Gaza, the U.S. should not send any more weapons.
Yet, the other senator, Ron Wyden (D-OR), voted with all Republicans against stopping the military killing materiel to Israel.
Even non-Jewish Merkley drops caveats in his statement:
“Every moment the U.S. fails to demand a massive influx of food or to provide that massive influx of food ourselves, we are complicit in Netanyahu’s strategy of starving Palestinians. This breaks every moral code and every religious code. Until every child and every mother have sufficient nutrition, America should not send a single dollar or a single bomb to Netanyahu’s government. No more bombs. More aid.”
Some of us journalists go way back (since 1973) and we’ve even studied rhetoric and propaganda and taught college communications (since 1983).
Let it be known: Israel has been practicing genocide since 1948, and has been an apartheid state the same number of years. “Mowing of the grass” was a practice Israel used to murder peaceful protestors and medical workers going to the aid of wounded protestors. Before Oct 2023.
With no political resolution in sight, Palestinian hardliners continue their attacks, Israeli hardliners continue to build new settlements in the Occupied Territories, and Israeli security forces seek to keep the violence at an acceptable level by periodically mowing the grass.
“Israel is acting in accordance with a ‘mowing the grass” strategy.”
Many western commentators have questioned whether Israel was justified in killing so many innocent Palestinian civilians in its effort to root out Hamas. Some have gone much further:
Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor at Oxford University, stated that the war was “an act of state terrorism. Terrorism is the use of force against civilians for political ends.”
In the face of such criticism, Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, felt the need to justify to reporters why the attacks were not disproportionate.
The discussions of proportionality did not change Israel’s approach, and public opinion polls in Israel showed overwhelming support for Operation Protective Edge. However, international public opinion polls place Israel’s approval rating above only North Korea, Pakistan and Iraq, and indicate declining support for Israel’s action among Americans under age 49.
In July 2014, Israel dropped leaflets into Shujaiya, a densely populated residential neighborhood in Gaza City, warning that the IDF would be attacking soon and residents should evacuate. 11 artillery battalions—at least 258 artillery pieces—rained down over 7,000 explosive shells (nearly 5,000 were within seven hours), alongside a ground assault supported by armored cavalry, helicopters firing rockets, and F-16s firing bombs.
“The only possible reason for doing that is to kill a lot of people in as short of a period of time as possible,” said one senior U.S. military officer quoted by Al Jazeera America. “It’s not mowing the lawn. It’s removing the topsoil.”
On July 20, nearly one hundred people were killed in Israel’s attack. Eran Efrati, a former Israeli soldier, was arrested days later after sharing details gleaned from interviews with soldiers there who claimed the military was deliberately targeting civilians as “punishment” and “retribution” of the deaths of fellow Israeli soldiers.
The IDF took to Twitter that day. In one thread, it insisted the assault was necessary because Shuja’iya was a “neighborhood for civilians, fortress for Hamas terrorists.” Earlier, the IDF had tweeted “Days ago, we warned civilians in Shuja’iya to evacuate. Hamas ordered them to stay. Hamas put them in the line of fire.”
The phrase “mowing the lawn” has long been used as shorthand for Israel’s strategy towards Gaza: bursts of horrifying violence—collective punishment of Palestinians for Hamas operations—followed by periods of “calm” where survivors are left to clear the rubble and bury dead civilians, rebuilding increasingly less of their ailing infrastructure while Israel commits to deepening its occupation, expanding its settlements, and bolstering its apartheid regime.
This is not one man’s or one Israeli government’s genocide. Most Israeli Jews want Palestinians gone. Troubling, also, is these Americans supporting Israel with any sort of financial and military and non-military aid are complicit.
Just a month ago the world’s largest association of academic scholars studying genocide passed a resolution saying Israel’s “policies and actions” in Gaza “meet the legal definition of genocide,” established by the U.N. in 1948.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars states that Israel’s “policies and actions” in Gaza amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Aiding and abetting war crimes is a crime. The crime of genocide.
This American society is broken, and has been way before Ronald Reagan, for sure, but like exponential growth of a bacteria left to grow, each year there are more deaths by 1,000 cuts to social, health, education, economic, spiritual social safety nets.
Throwing money at the MIC – Military Industrial Complex – for seventy years, and throwing money at Israel for 77 years has done its work by lining the pockets of CEOs, bankers, billionaires in finance, and now the techno fascists. Names like Ellison, Altman, Ackman, Karp, Zuckerberg, Adelson, Brin may not be on readers’ tongues, but beware of these new titans of pain.
Former CIA analyst and now activist, Ray McGovern calls that military machine the MICIMATT: Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence- Media-Academia-Think-Tank Complex.
In reality, a society that has outrageously costly and failing medical care for all, let alone seniors, is a society that has been bought and sold down the river. For profit medicine? For profit electricity? Telecommunications? Hell, we can’t even run our own county’s school busses anymore without paying a for-profit outfit to transport our kiddos – Student First, owned by EQT Infrastructure, a Swedish private equity firm.
If you were to take one of my critical thinking writing courses from a few years ago, you’d be flummoxed with these sorts of stories. You’d be exposed to censored stories and memory-holed history. You would have learned about amazing facts that have been held back from the average American citizen.”
*****
Were these the offending words in a commentary I wrote?
“….I remember telling my daughter, who never got to meet my old man, her grandfather, that I was diametrically opposed to his 32 years in the US military. I told her that I even ended up in Vietnam two years before she was born to work with a science team from England.
I visited all parts of Viet Nam, after doing intensive biodiversity studies along the Laotian border.
She has some of my large prints of kiddos on motorcycles piled high with live chickens. She has a photo I took of a female Buddhist monk near where a more famous monk self-immolated in protest of the US and French backed repressive South Vietnamese president.
That is Ho Chi Minh City, called Saigon back then.
It was just before 10 in the morning on June 11, 1963, when 300 monks and nuns marched down a busy Saigon street. This 73-year-old monk named Thich Quang Duc emerged from a car at this crowded intersection and sat down in the lotus position on a cushion. Two fellow monks poured gasoline from a five-gallon can. As the fuel was emptied over his head, Duc chanted, “Nam mo amita Buddha,”
— “return to eternal Buddha.”
Sixty years later a similar event was repeated here in the USA, although in this intentionally amnesiac and superficial society, it seems like a distant memory. But my friend from Wisconsin talks of this hero much.
That distant memory occurred just over a year ago—February 25, 2024. Remember? Twenty-five-old Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington in an act of protest against the Gaza genocide.
Less than two years ago, and I have students who are afraid of calling “it” a genocide. I have fellow faculty in many parts of the country who are not just chastised for supporting innocent Palestinians but are fired.
Is this newspaper going to get the “hammer” or “ax” for republishing Aaron’s words before he set himself on fire?
“I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force. And I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers—it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
The last words of his life were ‘Free Palestine.’”
*****
I’m in good company with Chris Hedges, who I don’t always agree with, but sometimes it’s just words, man, discussion. In October 2025 (future date in search results, likely recent/current event), Hedges’s scheduled address to the National Press Club of Australia was canceled. The speech, titled “The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists,” was intended to discuss the high number of journalists killed by Israel in Gaza and the media’s pro-Israel bias. The cancellation drew significant criticism, with Hedges and others alleging it was due to pressure from the club’s sponsors, some of whom are embedded in the Israeli war machine. Hedges later delivered the full, uncensored speech online.
Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges, author of the book, War Is a Force That Gives us Meaning)
I want to speak to you today about war and empire. Killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq. Although blood will continue to spill—theirs and ours—be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige, power, and security. But this will come later as our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves.
Malcolm, Martin and Mahatma united in global protest, February 15, 2003 —photo Tanbou
Isolation always impairs judgment and we are very isolated now. We have forfeited the good will, the empathy the world felt for us after 9-11. We have folded in on ourselves, we have severely weakened the delicate international coalitions and alliances that are vital in maintaining and promoting peace and we are part now of a dubious troika in the war against terror with Vladimir Putin and Ariel Sharon, two leaders who do not shrink in Palestine or Chechnya from carrying out acts of gratuitous and senseless acts of violence. We have become the company we keep. The censure and perhaps the rage of much of the world, certainly one-fifth of the world’s population which is Muslim, most of whom I’ll remind you are not Arab, is upon us. Look today at the 14 people killed last night in several explosions in Casablanca. And this rage in a world where almost 50% of the planet struggles on less than two dollars a day will see us targeted. Terrorism will become a way of life, and when we are attacked we will, like our allies Putin and Sharon, lash out with greater fury. The circle of violence is a death spiral; no one escapes. We are spinning at a speed that we may not be able to hold. As we revel in our military prowess—the sophistication of our military hardware and technology, for this is what most of the press coverage consisted of in Iraq—we lose sight of the fact that just because we have the capacity to wage war it does not give us the right to wage war. This capacity has doomed empires in the past. “Modern western civilization may perish,” the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr warned, “because it falsely worshiped technology as a final good.” The real injustices, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the brutal and corrupt dictatorships we fund in the Middle East, will mean that we will not rid the extremists who hate us with bombs.
Indeed we will swell their ranks. Once you master people by force you depend on force for control. In your isolation you begin to make mistakes. Fear engenders cruelty; cruelty, fear, insanity, and then paralysis. In the center of Dante’s circle the damned remained motionless. We have blundered into a nation we know little about and are caught between bitter rivalries and competing ethnic groups and leaders we do not understand. We are trying to transplant a modern system of politics invented in Europe characterized, among other things, by the division of earth into independent secular states based on national citizenship in a land where the belief in a secular civil government is an alien creed. Iraq was a cesspool for the British when they occupied it in 1917; it will be a cesspool for us as well. The curfews, the armed clashes with angry crowds that leave scores of Iraqi dead, the military governor, the Christian Evangelical groups who are being allowed to follow on the heels of our occupying troops to try and teach Muslims about Jesus. (Hedges stops speaking because of a disturbance in the audience. Rockford College President Paul Pribbe now takes the microphone: “My friends, one of the wonders of a liberal arts college is its ability and its deeply held commitment to academic freedom and the decision to listen to each other’s opinions.” [Crowd Cheers]
If you wish to protest the speaker’s remarks, I ask that you do it in silence, as some of you are doing in the back. That is perfectly appropriate but he has the right to offer his opinion here and we would like him to continue his remarks. [fog horn blow, some cheer].
The occupation of the oil fields, the notion of the Kurds and the Shiites will listen to the demands of a centralized government in Baghdad, the same Kurds and Shiites who died by the tens of thousands in defiance of Sadaam Hussein, a man who happily butchered all of those who challenged him, and this ethnic rivalry has not gone away. The looting of Baghdad, or let me say the looting of Baghdad with the exception of the oil ministry and the interior ministry—the only two ministries we bothered protecting—is self immolation.
As someone who knows Iraq, speaks Arabic, and spent seven years in the Middle East, if the Iraqis believe rightly or wrongly that we come only for oil and occupation, that will begin a long bloody war of attrition; it is how they drove the British out and remember that, when the Israelis invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, they were greeted by the dispossessed Shiites as liberators. But within a few months, when the Shiites saw that the Israelis had come not as liberators but occupiers, they began to kill them. It was Israel who created Hezbollah and was Hezbollah that pushed Israel out of Southern Lebanon. As William Butler Yeats wrote in “Meditations in Times Of Civil War,” “We had fed the heart on fantasies / the hearts grown brutal from the fair.” This is a war of liberation in Iraq, but it is a war now of liberation by Iraqis from American occupation. And if you watch closely what is happening in Iraq, if you can see it through the abysmal coverage, you can see it in the lashing out of the terrorist death squads, the murder of Shiite leaders in mosques, and the assassination of our young soldiers in the streets. It is one that will soon be joined by Islamic radicals and we are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq. We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides’ history. Read how Athens’ expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy; Athens destroyed itself.
For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive. But if we do not understand the poison of war—if we do not understand how deadly that poison is—it can kill us just as surely as the disease. We have lost touch with the essence of war. Following our defeat in Vietnam we became a better nation. We were humbled, even humiliated. We asked questions about ourselves we had not asked before. We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us and the sight was not always a pretty one. We were forced to confront our own capacity for a atrocity—for evil—and in this we understood not only war but more about ourselves. But that humility is gone. War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press—remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem—have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence—death—is hidden from public view. There was no more candor in the Persian Gulf War or the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. But in the age of live feeds and satellite television, the state and the military have perfected the appearance of candor. Because we no longer understand war, we no longer understand that it can all go horribly wrong. We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction. The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true—it does create a feeling of comradeship which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong. War allows us to rise above our small stations in life; we find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War for those who enter into combat has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the lust of the eye and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning. [A man in the audience says: “Can I say a few words here?” Hedges: Yeah, when I finish.]
Once in war, the conflict obliterates the past and the future all is one heady intoxicating present. You feel every heartbeat in war, colors are brighter, your mind races ahead of itself. [Confusion, microphone problems, etc.]
We feel in wartime comradeship. [Boos] We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those who will insist that the comradeship of war is love—the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war’s intoxication. Think back on the days after the attacks on 9-11. Suddenly we no longer felt alone; we connected with strangers, even with people we did not like. We felt we belonged, that we were somehow wrapped in the embrace of the nation, the community; in short, we no longer felt alienated. As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship—that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime—is within our reach. We can all have comrades.
The danger of the external threat that comes when we have an enemy does not create friendship; it creates comradeship. And those in wartime are deceived about what they are undergoing. And this is why once the threat is over, once war ends, comrades again become strangers to us. This is why after war we fall into despair. In friendship there is a deepening of our sense of self. We become, through the friend, more aware of who we are and what we are about; we find ourselves in the eyes of the friend. Friends probe and question and challenge each other to make each of us more complete; with comradeship, the kind that comes to us in patriotic fervor, there is a suppression of self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-possession. Comrades lose their identities in wartime for the collective rush of a common cause—a common purpose. In comradeship there are no demands on the self. This is part of its appeal and one of the reasons we miss it and seek to recreate it. Comradeship allows us to escape the demands on the self that is part of friendship. In wartime when we feel threatened, we no longer face death alone but as a group, and this makes death easier to bear. We ennoble self-sacrifice for the other, for the comrade; in short we begin to worship death.
And this is what the god of war demands of us. Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war.
Thank you.
[Boos cheers, shouts, fog horns and the like]
*****
Did this worthless board scan-seek on the Internet “Paul Haeder and David Gomberg” in their AI search?
Oregon is in shambles from the spineless democrats and the fascist Trump, but this fucking doughboy David Gomberg goes to the 51st State, Israel, or in the words of a great scholar, the USA is the Jewish State of Murder and Starvation’s BITCH:
Finally, as a legislator required to file an annual Statement of Economic Interest (SEI), you will be required to report the aggregate value of any paid expenses provided under ORS 244.020(7)(b)(H) on your 2025 SEI. As the source of the paid travel expenses, the Consulate General of Israel should provide you with a notice or a summary of the expenses paid.
Before David Gomberg and the other state legislators left Israel, each state was encouraged to plant a tree. Gomberg said he responded to a reporter’s question about what the tree planting meant to him.
“People who plant trees think of the future,” Gomberg replied. “I plant it today and think of a time in the future when Arab and Jewish children can sit in the shade of this tree in peace and friendship.”
Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis and Rep. Emily McIntire, R-Eagle Point joined a bipartisan delegation of 250 legislators from across the U.S. for the trip.
The visit comes as the Israeli military begins its ground invasion of Gaza City this past week, pushing troops into the war-torn city after nearly two years of raids and bombardment. It also coincides with Oregon’s junior U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley introducing legislation calling for the U.S. to formally recognize a Palestinian state, according to an Oregon Capital Chronicle report filed before the trip.
Source: Two Oregon lawmakers are among 250 state legislators across the U.S. visiting Israel this week on a trip sponsored by the Israeli government.
Israel hosted Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis and Rep. Emily McIntire, R-Eagle Point, on a trip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as the largest-ever bipartisan delegation of American lawmakers to visit. The Consulate General of Israel, calling the trip “50 States, One Israel,” is covering the lawmakers’ cost of air travel, lodging, ground transportation and meals between Sept. 13 and Sept. 18.
The visit comes as the Israeli military begins its ground invasion of Gaza City this week, pushing troops into the war-torn city after nearly two years of raids and bombardment. It also coincides with Oregon’s junior U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley introducing legislation Thursday calling for the U.S. to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
Gomberg, answering a phone call from the Oregon Capital Chronicle at 1 a.m. in Israel, said the week has been emotional, full of sleepless nights and that he’s still processing what he’s seen.
Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, works on the House floor at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo by Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
He said the group of lawmakers had the opportunity to ask Netanyahu and Israeli President Izaac Herzog questions and visit the music festival site where Hamas militants raided an Israeli community near the Gaza Strip, killing and kidnapping dozens in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
At the same time, he said he heard bombs going off in Gaza a mile and a half away.
“I’m not here to support what’s going on,” he said. “I’m here to better understand what’s going on. I know Oregonians have strong opinions about this, so they deserve to have legislators who care about the facts and care about the people. Getting an opportunity to go to the places where this sad conflict began is very distressing.”
Gomberg, who is Jewish, said he understands if constituents and legislative colleagues are upset by his visit to Israel. Outside of the itinerary organized by the Israeli government, he said he and other lawmakers have met with local Israelis who believe the country is guilty of genocide in Gaza.
“Certainly the government of Israel has an agenda, but that doesn’t mean it’s my agenda or the agenda of all the legislators that are here,” he said. “I think it’s time for this conflict to end, and I’m trying to better understand why it’s continuing.”
Before the trip concludes Thursday, Gomberg said he and other lawmakers will meet with the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Rep. Emily McIntire, R-Eagle Point, works on the House floor at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (Photo by Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
McIntire said in an email from Israel that traveling to the country has always been a dream for her, and the trip has only solidified her support for Israel.
“To see what the Israelites endure, bomb shelters in every home or village, on the streets, the bus stops, and in hotel basements, knowing their children grow up with the sound of war, like thunder in the background, sirens at all hours of the day and night — and for what?” she said.
The trip will forever change her perspective, she said.
“These people fight to defend their country, their families, their freedoms, as would we — and we did — when terrorists attacked our country 24 years ago. Israel wants and desires peace, but for them, there is no peace if Hamas exists,” McIntire said.
UK, EU and Australia say guilty verdict against 78-year-old is further blow to democracy and press freedom in territory
Governments, institutions and rights groups across the world have condemned the conviction of the former pro-democracy media tycoon and British citizen Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong on national security charges.
The 78-year-old was found guilty in West Kowloon district court on Monday of one count of conspiracy to publish seditious publications and two counts of conspiracy to foreign collusion. The charges were brought under the city’s punitive national security law , introduced in 2020, and a British colonial-era sedition law that has been used in recent years by authorities.
The lives of eight political prisoners in the UK are on a knife-edge and no one is talking about it. What the actual fuck is going on. Qesser Zuhrah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Jon Cink, Teuta Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed, Lewie Chiaramello, Muhammed Umer Khalid. Eight human beings, held without trial for over a year, are on hunger strike across the UK, some of them for 39 days now. This week there have been protests across the country demanding that the government finally listen to their demands. On Wednesday 10th December I was outside the BBC at the Leeds demo.
This won’t come as a surprise to union activists, but the mainstream press doesn’t always fairly represent the labor movement. That was true in 1919, the year the Federated Press (FP) was founded, and it remains true today.
Embattled Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis has filed her formal defense against the charge by the Zionist Federation of Australia that she is an anti-semite, telling a federal judge the allegation of racial vilification is really intended to smear legitimate criticism of Israel and stifle free speech.
In her 29-page filing, Kostakidis argues that her reporting on Israel’s actions in Gaza did not target Jewish people but the Israeli government. Her posts on X had nothing to do with the “race or national or ethnic origin of Jewish Australians and/or Israeli Australians,” she says.
Administrators at the University of Alabama shut down two student-led publications and claimed that a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi required them to censor journalism.
On July 29, Bondi issued “non-binding suggestions” for “federal funding recipients to comply with antidiscrimination law.” The intent was to discourage diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, and Bondi specifically stated that “unlawful proxies” could jeopardize funding.
Bondi also insisted that universities may not direct funds and other resources to organizations “primarily because of their racial or ethnic composition rather than other legitimate factors.”
Press freedom advocates on Thursday welcomed the New York Times’ lawsuit over the US Department of Defense’s “flatly unconstitutional” press policy, filed on the heels of the first briefing for what critics call the “Pentagon Propaganda Corps.”
The newspaper and Times reporter Julian E. Barnes, one of several journalists who refused to sign the policy earlier this year, are suing the DOD—which President Donald Trump has dubbed the Department of War—as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, in the US District Court in Washington, D.C.
Consistent with the United States’ continued slide into an economy powered almost entirely by LLM slop, financialization, and ever-pervasive exploitative gambling, “prediction market app” Kalshi “entered into an official partnership” with CNN this week to bring their “data to CNN’s journalism across its television, digital and social channels.” Soon, CNN will run live odds on world events where…
President Donald Trump, having campaigned heavily on anti-trans fear mongering, issued an executive order within days of taking office that banned federal support for gender-affirming care. That same order commanded the secretary of Health and Human Services to produce a report on “best practices” for the care of trans youth.
When the report was released in May, exactly zero people were surprised that its conclusions echoed the executive order’s anti-trans stance—condemning gender-affirming care and instead recommending “exploratory” therapy—and were grounded in ideology, not science or medical expertise.
New York, December 2, 2025 — Since what human rights groups and UN experts agree is a genocide in Gaza began in October 2023, the Committee to Protect Journalists has worked relentlessly to sustain the journalists documenting the deadliest war for the press ever recorded. CPJ has spent more than $500,000 to provide both humanitarian and professional assistance to Gaza’s press corps — reaching 2,195 Palestinian journalists despite the extreme constraints of siege, famine, and mass displacement.
Balancing humanitarian survival and journalistic duty
Members of the press work at the Gaza Journalists Hub. (Photo: Courtesy of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ))
Gaza’s media landscape has been devastated over the course of two years of war. Journalists have lost colleagues, homes, and equipment, yet continue to report under bombardment and blackout. CPJ’s support—split between large-scale projects (costing more than $400,000) and individual grants (over $100,000)—has aimed to meet both urgent survival needs and the core requirements of journalism itself.
“Given the fluidity of the situation on the ground,” said CPJ Chief Emergencies Officer Lucy Westcott, “we’ve had to strike a balance between humanitarian needs—food, cash, clothing, hygiene kits—and journalistic ones such as equipment, safe workspaces, and psychosocial support.” While CPJ typically focuses on safety, advocacy, and emergency assistance, the organization’s response to crises is “adaptable to evolving circumstances and guided by the specific needs of journalists in crisis situations,” Westcott explained.
2024: Emergency response amid escalation
In 2024, CPJ disbursed nearly $400,000 through grants to local partners to reach journalists throughout Gaza. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) received $120,000 to deliver humanitarian relief—food, blankets, hygiene kits, winter clothing, and power banks—to reporters and their families. The Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) was granted $105,000 to replace essential journalistic equipment destroyed in airstrikes, while Filastiniyat, a women-led media group, received $102,350 to distribute direct cash support to journalists.
Through these projects, at least 1,844 Palestinian journalists and their families received assistance.
In addition, CPJ issued more than $40,000 in individual emergency grants to 12 journalists in Gaza and the West Bank, primarily for medical care and legal assistance.
Despite the destruction of infrastructure in Gaza and the persistent airstrikes that made direct assistance increasingly difficult, CPJ reached journalists who suffered serious injuries in Israeli attacks, had to defend themselves in court after being arrested for their reporting, or needed help rebuilding their lives after prolonged detention.
“Medical support was the most covered need,” said CPJ Chief Emergencies Officer Lucy Westcott, “followed by legal aid for those detained or targeted for their reporting both in Gaza and the West Bank.”
2025: Supporting recovery and resilience
As the ceasefire took hold in 2025, CPJ shifted its focus toward recovery, rebuilding, and mental health. The organization distributed more than $100,000, before the October ceasefire, in grants to partners that prioritized safe workspaces and psychosocial support.
Journalists take part in an exercise during a psychosocial support session implemented by Press House – Palestine. (Photo: Courtesy of Press House -Palestine)
CPJ provided targeted support to local and regional organizations, including $25,000 to Press House Palestine for mental health sessions for women journalists; $45,000 to ARIJ to maintain shared workspaces in northern Gaza; and $30,700 to Filastiniyat to operate two combined work-and-rest hubs in central and southern Gaza. Together, these initiatives reached at least 307 journalists.
Gazan journalists who took part in the psychosocial support sessions organized by Press House Palestine described the program having a significant positive impact on their wellbeing. “The war in Gaza deeply affected me as a woman journalist in Gaza. I was overwhelmed and needed someone who understood what I was going through. The psychosocial support sessions at Press House helped me express myself and regain a sense of who I am,” said a Gazan journalist from Rafah.
The brother of Mohammad al-Khaldi, who was murdered in a targeted Israeli strike on a tent housing journalists outside the main gate of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital on August 10, 2025, said the ARIJ workspace in northern Gaza was a rare safe space for the press.
“I used to speak to my brother and could tell how much that place meant to him,” he said, noting journalists could rely on the workspace for access to internet, electricity, and water. “He was at his best — mentally at ease, surrounded by his colleagues who shared his struggles. ”
CPJ also issued more than $60,000 in direct grants to 32 journalists in 2025, covering medical and post-detention recovery needs.
Partnering with trusted local organizations
CPJ has supported several work-rest hubs across the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Courtesy of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ))
Since 2023, CPJ has relied on local and regional partners—ARIJ, PJS, Filastiniyat, and Press House Palestine—to deliver aid where international access remains restricted. These organizations are deeply embedded in Gaza’s journalist community, allowing for efficient aid distribution, accurate vetting, and trusted communication.
CPJ employs rigorous monitoring to ensure grants are used for their intended purposes. Partners provide regular updates and written reports on implementation and impact. Final approval for any partnership is contingent on extensive due diligence, including background checks against relevant U.S. government’s sanctions list and verification of legal registration.
“Amid the blockade and communication blackouts, we’ve maintained strict reporting requirements and continuous dialogue with our partners,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “Transparency is vital to ensure that journalists in Gaza receive the support they need.”
Standing with Gaza’s journalists
While the ceasefire in October has slowed large-scale fighting, Gaza’s journalists remain on the frontlines of a humanitarian catastrophe. Many continue to live in displacement, struggling to rebuild their lives while documenting the aftermath of destruction.
While relocation from Gaza remains extremely difficult due to ongoing restrictions, border closures, and limited international visa options, CPJ provides letters of support for journalists’ visa and asylum applications, as well as limited assistance once they reach another country. CPJ continues to urge governments to expand safe refuge and visa pathways for Gaza’s press workers.
“Even as relative calm sets in after over two years of genocide, journalists in Gaza still need support,” Qudah added. “They remain the world’s eyes and ears on a story they are living and documenting themselves.”
Washington, D.C., December 1, 2025—A White House website purporting to tackle “media bias” in fact creates a skewed representation of the work of journalists and creates an environment that seems to deliberately undermine independent reporting in the United States, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday.
The page, published on November 28 and accessed via whitehouse.gov/mediabias, posts a “Media Offender of the Week,” accusing outlets of unfair coverage against the administration’s policies and statements made by President Trump, according to multiplereports.
In its first update, the page accused outlets CBS News, The Boston Globe, and The Independent of being media that “misrepresents and exaggerates,” and listed the names of four reporters employed by those outlets.
“This latest move from the Trump administration should be a wakeup call to Americans that their tax dollars are being used to suppress, rather than encourage freedom of speech,” said CPJ U.S., Canada, and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The Trump administration’s landing page creates a dangerous permission structure for attacks on journalists and an attempt to undermine newsrooms across the country. This type of behavior is more in line with an authoritarian regime, and has no place in a democracy.”
The White House did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment.
The origin of the expression “tuckered out” goes back to the east of the United States around the 1830s.
After New Englanders began to compare the wrinkled and drawn appearance of overworked and undernourished horses and dogs to the appearance of tucked cloth, it became associated with people being exhausted.
Expressions such as this can be adapted, sometimes with a little generosity, to apply to other circumstances.
This adaptation includes when a prominent far right propagandist and activist who, in a level of frustration that resembles mental exhaustion, lashes out against far right leaders and governments that he has been strongly supportive of.
Tariq Ali . . . reposts revealing far right lament. Image: politicalbytes.blog
This came to my attention when reading a frustrated far right lament reposted on Facebook (27 November) by British-Pakistani socialist Tariq Ali.
If anything meets the threshold for a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, this one did.
The lament was from Tucker Carlson, an American far right political commentator who hosted a nightly political talk show on Fox News from 2016 to 2023 when his contract was terminated.
Since then he has hosted his own show under his name on fellow extremist Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). Arguably Carlson is the most influential far right host in the United States (perhaps also more influential than the mainstream rightwing).
He is someone who the far right government of Israel considered to be an unshakable ally.
Carlson’s lament
The lament is brief but cuts to the chase:
There is no such thing as “God’s chosen people”.
God does not choose child-killers.
This is heresy — these are criminals and thieves.
350 million Americans are struggling to survive,
and we send $26 billion to a country most Americans can’t even name the capital of.
His lament doubled as a “declaration of war” on the entire narrative Israel uses to justify its genocide in Gaza. But Carlson didn’t stop there. He went on to expose the anger boiling inside the United States.
President Donald Trump . . . also the target of Carlson’s lament. Image: politicalbytes.blog
The clip hit the US media big time including 48 million views in the first nine hours. Subsequently a CNN poll showed that 62 percent of Americans agree with Carlson and that support for Israel among Americans is collapsing.
But Carlson went much further directly focussing on fellow far right Donald Trump who he had “supported”.
By focussing the US’s money, energy, and foreign policy on Israel, Trump was betraying his promises to Americans.
This signifies a major falling out including a massive public shift against Israel (which is also losing its media shield), the far right breaking ranks, and panic within the political establishment.
Marjorie Taylor Greene . . . another prominent far right leader who has fallen out with Trump. Image: politicalbytes.blog
It should also be seen in the context of the extraordinary public falling out with President Trump of another leading far right extremist (and conspiracy theorist) Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. In addition to the issues raised by Carlson she also focussed on Trump’s handling of the Epstein files controversy.
Far right in New Zealand politics
The far right publicly fighting among itself over its core issues is very significant for the US given its powerful influence.
This influence includes not just the presidency but also both Congress and the Senate, one of the two dominant political parties, and the Supreme Court (and a fair chunk of the rest of the judiciary).
Does this development offer insights for politics in New Zealand? To begin with the far right here has nowhere near the same influence as in the United States.
The parties that make up the coalition government are hard right rather than far right (that is, hardline but still largely respectful of the formal democratic institutions).
It is arguably the most hard right government since the early 1950s at least. But this doesn’t make it far right. I discussed this difference in an earlier Political Bytes post (November 3): Distinguishing far right from hard right.
Specifically:
…”hard right” for me means being very firm (immoderate) near the extremity of rightwing politics but still respect the functional institutions that make formal democracy work.
In contrast the “far right” are at the extremity of rightwing politics and don’t respect these functional institutions. There is an overlapping blur between the “hard right” and “far right”.
Both the NZ First and ACT parties certainly have far right influences. The former’s deputy leader Shane Jones does a copy-cat imitation of Trumpian bravado.
Far right Brian Tamaki has some influence but is a small bit player compared to Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Image: politicalbytes.blog
Meanwhile, there is an uncomfortable rapport between ACT (particularly its leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour) and the far right Destiny Church (particularly its leader Brian Tamaki).
But this doesn’t come close to meeting the far right threshold for both NZ First and ACT.
The far right itself also has its internal conflicts. The most prominent group within this relatively small extremist group is the Destiny Church. However, its relationship with other sects can be adversarial.
Insights for New Zealand politics nevertheless Nevertheless, the internal far right fallout in the United States does provide some insights for public fall-outs within the hard right in New Zealand.
This is already becoming evident in the three rightwing parties making up the coalition government.
NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon . . . coalition arrangement starting to get tuckered out and heading towards lamenting? Image: politicalbytes.blog
For example:
NZ First has said that it would support repealing ACT’s recent parliamentary success with the Regulatory Standards Act, which was part of the coalition agreement, should it be part of the next government following the 2026 election;
National subsequently suggested that they might do likewise;
ACT has lashed out against NZ First for its above-mentioned position;
NZ First leader Winston Peters has declined to express public confidence in Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s leadership;
NZ First has publicly criticised the Government’s economic management performance; and
while National and ACT support the sale of public assets, NZ First is publicly opposed.
These tensions are well short of the magnitude of Tucker Carlson’s public attack on Israel over Gaza and President Trump’s leadership.
However, there are signs with the hard right in New Zealand of at least starting to feel “tuckered out” of collaborating collegially in their coalition government arrangement and showing signs of pending laments.
Too early to tell yet but we shall see.
Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.
Note: In the Local Newspaper, Newport News Times, now called, The Leader.
These are unprecedented times for human intelligence and collective memory. We are seeing turbo charged the scarfing up of the American and Western collective consciousness through the illicit actions of billionaires and their hoarding henchmen millionaires.
So much common sense and clear thinking have been virtually memory holed by the advancing armies of information and data controllers. Larry Ellison isn’t just hoarding all the data of the world through his many operations tied to Oracle. He’s Big Brother of another Mother.
This isn’t your grandparents’ world: Ellison believes governments need to consolidate data about citizens for the sake of AI. He said AI models can help improve government services while also saving money and cutting down on fraud.
Imagine the power of this one fellow and his henchmen demanding the U.S. and other countries converting to a world of AI, after governments (corporations) unify the data they collect into one easily digestible database.
His son David has become the current “hostile takeover honcho” with acquiring Paramount studios, CBS, CNN and with an eye for more media outfits.
Imagine if “we the people” demanded a takeover of all Fortune 500 corporations’ data, while also wresting control of the private and corporate secrets of Exxon, Raytheon, Monsanto or the other tens of thousands of corporations which have turned the world into an Inverted Totalitarian Game of Thrones.
Note: Daddy Larry is the second richest person on the planet.
Those who control the water, oil, food, money, and now data, control the people and the world. Look up variations on a theme and discover which oligarchs have worked hand in hand with despotic and ill-intended creeps to grift, gouge and rip-off the public.
“Marks” is one way to describe how the rich see us. “Useless eaters” is another of their terms for us.
The “wretched of the earth” is yet another way the titans of tech, war and surveillance see us. Don’t just take my word as someone with 52 years in journalism.
Take a deep breath, learn and then research after reading:
“An artful combination of propaganda flattered the mass, exploited its antipolitical sentiments, warned it of dangerous enemies foreign and domestic, and applied forms of intimidation to create a climate of fear and an insecure populace, one receptive to being led. The same citizenry, which democracy had created, proceeded to vote into power and then support movements openly pledged to destroy democracy and constitutionalism. Thus, a democracy may fail and give way to antidemocracy that, in turn, supplies a populace—and a “democratic” postulate—congenial to a totalitarian regime.”
― Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
That “artful propaganda” has managed the masses of America to turn against itself, and alas, we are the subjects of the billionaires and their shock troops of finance, banking, insurance, real estate, media and other tools propping up an undemocratic society.
I am talking at the Newport Performing Arts Center as part of the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts. At noon, Dec. 4, I drummed up a talk I titled, “Love and Death in a Time of Media Illiteracy.”
Part of the conversation covers digital media literacy, as a way to precipitate a robust critique of what one reads, listens to and watches in this vast media landscape. Unfortunately, the inability of citizens to grasp subject matter as far-ranging as climate heating or immigration, or even as mundane as to why the potholes aren’t getting fixed, is tied to a lack of depth.
These topics have been studied/researched and written about, in long form, i.e. books and academic journals. When the average person reads something on, say, bee colony collapse in the local newspaper or on Twitter/X, the reader is already far behind on the proverbial learning curve.
It is time-consuming to tap into sources that study these colony collapses and which go to the actual fields and into the labs; sources that are not afraid to challenge power, i.e. the corporations spreading pesticides and those ag businesses planting more mono-crops on land that used to sustain a variety of flowering plants for pollinators to sustain their energy to migrate.
What happening is not just a shortening of the material people read on bees, but there is a concerted effort to dumb-down, and to confuse the reader into NOT taking a position on what solutions might be deployed.
A system of artful rhetorical devices is used in this process – false balance and false equivalency. Both-sideism is more descriptive. No gray areas allowed.
I’ve mentioned Project Censored before. If you go there and tap into their Top 25 Censored Stories of 2025, you will be on your way to a knowledge reckoning.
“Faculty and students vet each candidate story in terms of its importance, timeliness, quality of sources, and corporate news coverage. If it fails on any one of these criteria, the story is deemed inappropriate and is excluded from further consideration.”
Dang – The following are just some of the stories corporate and other media have under-reported or just not reported on at all. The Top 25, but many more are printed in the book, State of the Free Press 2025:
Generative AI security risks, Climate change impact on water scarcity, Indigenous activism in Panama, Government surveillance tactics, Corporate “net-zero” promises, Bottled water and inequality, Protests against fossil fuel investments, Healthcare access in Gaza, Texas border policies, PFAS contamination on Native American land, Kids Online Safety Act and free speech, Education for incarcerated youth, Media misrepresentation of crime data, Hospital school programs, Forced labor in Paraguay, Censorship of pro-Palestinian artists, Corporate profit in climate solutions, Amazon and labor rights, US support for authoritarian regimes, The influence of AI in journalism, Environmental impact of space exploration, Mental health crisis and student debt, The opioid crisis and pharmaceutical accountability, Data privacy and health apps, Whistleblower protection inadequacies!
*****
That talk, well, Dec. 4, it will be controversial because I am introducing concepts way outside the sacred cow and holier than thou American belief system. AFTER national day of sorrow/mourning. Do I dare bring up that, and then Dec. 7, that unholy day of Pearl Harbor!
The war that we have carefully for years
provoked
Catches us unprepared, amazed and indignant.
Our warships are shot
Like sitting ducks and our planes like nest-birds,
both our coasts ridiculously panicked,
And our leaders make orations. This is the
people
That hopes to impose on the whole planetary
world
An American peace.
– Robinson Jeffers, “Pearl Harbor.”
*****
“This Pearl Harbor business has a terrible smell.”
– Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in World War II.
Here are a few pieces by Native and Indigenous writers that shed a more honest light on American history and offer a new set of traditions to ground us in this time of uncertainty.
“Four ways to decolonize your thankstaking” by the Indigenous Environmental Network / A Twitter thread reminding readers that the hard work only begins with land acknowledgements, a reflection on the Indigenous land that you live or work on as a way to honor the history of the people who had the land stolen from them.
Trump loyalist and CIA contractor Larry Ellison’s purchase of CNN appears imminent, and marks the latest venture into media for the world’s second-richest individual. But Ellison is not alone. Indeed, the world’s seven richest individuals are all now powerful media barons, controlling what the world sees, reads, and hears, marking a new chapter in oligarchical control over society and striking another blow at a free, independent press and diversity of opinion.
Paramount Skydance– an Ellison-owned company– is in pole position to purchase Warner Brothers Discovery, a conglomerate that controls gigantic film and television studios, streaming services like HBO Max and Discovery+, franchises like DC Comics, and TV networks such as HBO, TNT, Discovery Channel, TLC, Food Network, and CNN.
It’s increasingly obvious that the US military threats against Venezuela have a wider agenda. Their game plan is regime change, but not only in Venezuela. This is the objective – on a longer timescale in some cases – across several of the countries in the Caribbean Basin, aiming to cleanse the region of governments deemed undesirable to Washington.
As international relations professor at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer reminds us, the US “does not tolerate left-leaning governments… and as soon as they see a government that is considered to be left-of-center they move to replace that government.”
In the Financial Times, Ryan Berg, head of the Americas programme at the Washington think-tank CSIS, which is heavily funded by Pentagon contractors, said that Trump’s vision is for the US to be the “undisputable, pre-eminent power in the western hemisphere.” The New York Times dubbed Trump’s ambitions the “Donroe Doctrine.”
After Venezuela, in the current US line of fire, is Honduras. This Central American country faces an election on November 30 which will determine whether the leftist Libre Party stays in power or whether the country reverts to neoliberalism.
The crisis in the Caribbean engineered by the Trump administration is being actively instrumentalized to distract Hondurans from domestic issues when deciding how to vote. Honduras’s mainstream media repeatedly draw attention to the likelihood that Washington will threaten Honduras militarily if it votes the “wrong way” on November 30.
Interviewed on television, opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla was asked what would happen if the Libre Party won. He replied: “Those ships that are soon going to take over Venezuela are going to come and target Honduras.” Amplifying the supposed threat, opposition candidates have posted street signs labelling themselves “anti-communist,” as if communism were actually on offer in the election.
In a bizarre article, the Wall Street Journal alleges that Venezuela aims to “gobble up Honduras.” Turning on its head recent alarming evidence of a plot by Libre’s opponents to steal the election, the article claims that Venezuela is schooling Libre in defrauding the Honduran people.
This argument is also being repeated enthusiastically in the US Congress by María Elvira Salazar and others. On November 12, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said the US government “will respond rapidly and firmly to any attack on the integrity of the electoral process in Honduras.” In fact, the US is working with the opposition to undermine the popular mandate.
There is acute irony here. Washington’s justification for its military build-up is supposedly to tackle “narcoterrorism,” yet a Libre defeat would risk returning Honduras to the “narcostate” it had become in the decade under US patronage before the previous election in 2021.
Also lined up for regime change is, inevitably, Cuba. The UK’s Daily Telegraph, not normally known for its Latin America coverage, argues that Cuba is the “real target” of Trump’s campaign in Venezuela.
Having failed to dislodge the Cuban revolution after more than six decades of blockade, driving its citizens into acute hardship and pushing a tenth of them to migrate, Secretary of State Marco Rubio evidently sees the “real prize” of the US military build-up as dealing the fatal blow to its revolution.
Installing a US-friendly government in Caracas would aid the counter-revolution by cutting off gasoline and other supplies it currently sends to Cuba. Or supplies might be stopped by the US navy itself, further tightening the screws on Havana. In addition, if the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela collapsed, it would embolden the US-sponsored dissidents in Cuba, who feed on the discontent rained upon their country by US sanctions.
Yet even the gung-ho Telegraph doubts whether Rubio’s goal will be achieved, given Cuba’s remarkable resilience.
Another country in Washington’s crosshairs is Nicaragua. Here too, Rubio is leading the charge. But he has plenty of confederates on both sides of the congressional isles.
Although not directly threatened militarily (at least, so far) by the US, it has imposed new sanctions on Nicaraguan businesses, threatens to impose 100% tariffs on the country’s exports to the US, and may try to exclude it from the regional trade agreement, CAFTA.
At the same time, Nicaragua’s opposition figures enthusiastically identify with their peers in Venezuela, hoping that regime-change in Caracas would encourage Washington to further attack Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.
Two other left-leaning administrations in the Caribbean Basin, Colombia and Mexico, have been subject to Trump’s threats of military strikes. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been sanctioned by Washington as “a hostile foreign leader.” He has responded by condemning the US attacks on boats in the Caribbean as “murder.”
Trump has recently repeated earlier threats to attack Mexican drug cartels, saying he would be “proud” to do so. Asked whether he would only take military action in Mexico if he had the country’s permission, he refused to answer the question. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum had earlier dismissed Trump’s threat of military action against drug cartels inside her country, telling reporters: “It’s not going to happen.”
However, despite Sheinbaum’s ongoing popularity, on November 15 she faced so-called Gen Z demonstrations which erupted in over 50 cities. According toThe Grayzone, these were not what they seemed: they were financed and coordinated by an international right-wing network and amplified by bot networks. Their timing in relation to the Caribbean military build-up may have been intentional.
In the context of these protests, Trump said: “I am not happy with Mexico. Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It’s OK with me.” Elements in the MAGA movement are urging him to go further, launching a US military incursion to ensure “a transitional government.”
Washington successfully interfered in recent elections in Argentina. US endorsement of the right-wing victory in Ecuador in April was critical after a disputed election. Next month is the second round of Chile’s elections. Trump hopes for a rightward shift – with a little help from the hegemon – in that election as well as those in Colombia next year and in 2030 in Mexico.
Former Bush and Trump official Marshall Billingslea says the ultimate target of a US regime change assault is the entire Latin American left, “from Cuba to Brazil to Mexico to Nicaragua.” Military intervention leading to the end of the Maduro government would halt what he alleges (without evidence) is the flow of money from Caracas that has led to the “socialist plague that has spread across Latin America.”
US-imposed regime-change in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua – where the “socialist plague” has taken deep root – is a bipartisan project. For other progressive and left-leaning Latin American states – Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, and even Chile – the pax americana prescription stops short of outright deep regime change; infiltration, intimidation and co-optation are employed to keep them subordinate.
For Democrats and Republicans alike, the US imperial projection on the region is a given. Trump and his comrade-in-arms Rubio are leading the charge. But the so-called US opposition party is offering weak constraints.
To these ends, the US empire, with Trump at its titular head, is weighing the opportunity costs of deploying the full force of the military might assembled in the Caribbean, one-fifth of its navy’s global firepower. But Trump’s neocon advisers appear to want to seize the moment and embark on hemispheric political change, bringing a Trumpian “Donroe Doctrine” to fulfilment.
Will caution prevail, or will the US continue to bring lawlessness and chaos – as it has to Haiti, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere – not just to Venezuela but possibly to other countries in the region?
Abuja, November 26, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Nigerian authorities to release journalist Friday James Alefia, who has been in detention since September on cybercrime charges, for which he could face up to three years in jail.
“Nigerian authorities should swiftly drop the cybercrime charges against journalist Friday James Alefia, who has been sick and required hospital treatment since he was taken into custody in September,” said CPJ Africa Director Angela Quintal. “Nigerian authorities must stop criminalizing the press and act urgently to prevent police and politicians intimidating journalists who report critically on governance issues.”
On September 23, police arrested Alefia, publisher of the Naija News Today site, published by Asiwaju Media Company, at his home in Ikorodu in western Lagos State, and transferred him to detention facilities in Gudu district in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
Police also confiscated Alefia’s phone and laptop, a person with knowledge of the case told CPJ, on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals.
On October 8, Alefia and Asiwaju Media Company were charged with five counts of “false” statements on a media platform and social media, including Facebook, under sections 24 and 27 of the Cybercrimes Act, according to a copy of the charge sheet, reviewed by CPJ, and the journalist’s lawyer, Israel Opah Abida.
The charge sheet included the headlines of four reports, which alleged that a lawmaker was involved in intimidation, extortion, electoral fraud, and land grabbing.
On November 12, Alefia appeared in court and pleaded not guilty, according to newsreports, which said he was remanded at Kuje Prison, outside Abuja, until a hearing on January 27, 2026.
On November 24, the prosecution opposed Alefia’s application for bail and the matter was adjourned to November 27, his lawyer told CPJ, adding that the prosecution was fined 50,000 naira ($34) for delaying the process.
CPJ research shows that at least 25 journalists faced prosecution under the Cybercrimes Act before its amendment in February 2024. Alefia is the sixth journalist to be prosecuted for cybercrimes since the reforms and authorities have used the law to harass others in the media without bringing formal charges.
When CPJ called national police spokesperson Benjamin Hundeyin, the officer who answered referred CPJ to Abuja police spokesperson Josephine Adeh, who did not respond to CPJ’s calls and messages requesting comment.
The global civil society alliance Civicus has called on eight Pacific governments to do more to respect civic freedoms and strengthen institutions to protect these rights.
It is especially concerned over the threats to press freedom, the use of laws to criminalise online expression, and failure to establish national human rights institutions or ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
But it also says that the Pacific status is generally positive.
Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Solomon Islands have been singled out for criticism over press freedom concerns, but the brief published by the Civicus Monitor also examines the civic spce in Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and Vanuatu.
“There have been incidents of harassment, intimidation and dismissal of journalists in retaliation for their work,” the report said.
“Cases of censorship have also been reported, along with denial of access, exclusion of journalists from government events and refusal of visas to foreign journalists.”
The Civicus report focuses on respect for and limitations to the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly, which are fundamental to the exercise of civic rights.
Freedoms guaranteed
“These freedoms are guaranteed in the national constitutions of all eight countries as well as in the ICCPR.
“In several countries — including Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, PNG and Samoa — the absence of freedom of information laws makes it extremely difficult for journalists and the public to access official information,” the report said.
Countries such as Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, continued to enforce criminal defamation laws, creating a “chilling environment for the media, human rights defenders and anyone seeking to express themselves or criticise governments”.
In recent years, Fiji, PNG and Samoa had also used cybercrime laws to criminalise online expression.
“Governments in the Pacific must do more to protect press freedom and ensure that journalists can work freely and without fear of retribution for expressing critical opinions or covering topics the government may find sensitive,” said Josef Benedict, Civicus Asia Pacific researcher.
“They must also pass freedom of information legislation and remove criminal defamation provisions in law so that they are not used to criminalise expression both off and online.”
Civicus is concerned that at least four countries – Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Tonga – have yet to ratify the ICCPR, which imposes obligations on states to respect and protect civic freedoms.
Lacking human rights bodies
Also, four countries — Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu — lack national human rights institutions (NHRI).
Fiji was criticised over restricting the right to peaceful assembly over protests about genocide and human rights violations in Palestine and West Papua.
In May 2024, “a truckload of police officers, including two patrol cars, turned up at a protest at the premises of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre against human rights violations in Gaza and West Papua, in an apparent effort to intimidate protesters”.
Gatherings and vigils had been organised regularly each Thursday.
In PNG and Tonga, the Office of the Ombudsman plays monitor and responds to human rights issues, but calls remain for establishing an independent body in line with the Paris Principles, which set international standards for national human rights institutions.
“It is time all Pacific countries ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and ensure its laws are consistent with it,” said Benedict.
“Governments must also to establish national human rights institutions to ensure effective monitoring and reporting on human rights issues. This will also allow for better accountability for violations of civic freedoms.”
A youth march with the notable absence of youth. A march against violence that ended with deliberately provoked violence. A nonpartisan march with one of its key proponents in the pay of the nation’s conservative party. A march inspired by imagery from the hit left-wing comic One Piece descending into a maelstrom of far-right hate.
The contradictions surrounding Mexico’s so-called “Generation Z” march on November 15 — also known as the “15N protests and riots” — are abundant. Moreover, they provide an object lesson in the “franchise model” of international demonstration symbolism in which a domestic event is appropriated to suit the agenda of the franchisees.
Note: Again, smalltown news, a newspaper that is now as thin as a tissue, once a week, and here we are — a 900 to 1000 word piece by yours truly once a month. This November, some catching up with October’s Banner Books week, and other funky things.
Next month I do a bit of jujitsu, and I was begged to speak, and I both look forward to it and dread it:
I am NEVER in friendly territory, and in most cases, it’s ‘friendly fire’ against me, the messenger and the dude who is anti-authority and is not a sheeple, but again, Haeder does not spell H-A-T-E.
In a week, another Op-Ed runs, twice in a month, and that pisses people off, for sure. So much copy, and why so long, why 956 words? I’m introducing this talk to the wider community, tied to the death of journalism, with a trigger warning and redressing the zombification and infantalilization of AmeriKKKa.
Oh, maybe 60 Power Point slides, a media literacy quiz, and a box full of Project Censored “year in review books on the most censored stories of that respective year” and some Covert Action magazines and Z-Magazines, too.
Public schools across the U.S. saw more than 6,800 book bans in the 2024-25 school year. A new documentary, The Librarians, examines the experiences of school librarians who’ve found themselves on the front lines of a battle against censorship.
Maybe they will make connection between schooling and libraries and media illiteracy? The documentary, The Librarians.
It’s a lot of work, working with democrats, mostly grayhairs, and alas with the Anti-Antisemitism virus hitting may of us, those in the audience do not like the word “genocide” or the concept of “ethnic cleansing” or the very big tent idea of 130 Jewish billionaires and a few million multi-millionaire Jews, well, having that outsized “control of banking and media and tech and AI and war mongering and finance and real estate and, well, governments from her to Sudan to Venezuela, et al.”
Now, this op-ed continues with the bloody lies of, well, Capitalism, big time or small time USA.
Ahh, the banned books week passed (it should be a daily reminder that freedom of speech and thought are illusory in Capitalism). That was October 5 through 11, and you can Google what intense censorship has always occurred in USA and is going on now with the new brownshirts in office.
You can call school and library administrators, school board and library board members, city councilpersons, and your elected representatives to ask them to support the right to read! But most of them are running scared and are completely cowed by their own shadows.
Imagine California, running this House Bill and it passing with the Ray-Ban governor’s signature.
The law no longer references Israel’s war in Gaza, but critics have said it could still have a chilling effect and prevent open discussion on contentious issues in the classroom.
“Teacher discourse on Palestine or the genocide in Gaza will be policed, misrepresented, and reported to the antisemitism coordinator,” Theresa Montaño with the California Faculty Association said in a statement.
So, no need to burn books or ban them since K12 students will be policed and brought before boards of inquiry if they dare talk about the Nakba and how that ethnic cleansing that started in 1948 (earlier, really, but don’t tell our representative Gomberg that!) relates to another passing October critical thinking milestone – Indigenous People’s Day.
That was October 13, and with the fanfare of stormtroopers hitting Portland’s streets and even our own backwater county seeing ICE masked raiders taking a citizen away, forget about finding deep discussion about that day of infamy – celebrating for ONE 24-hour period our own legacy of indigenous culture and wisdom.
The schools might not even be able to put up posters stating the following with this new regime of Stephen Miller and his Homeland Security infecting the great shining city on the hill: “We honor the Native American people for their culture including art and many crafts, their food, their clothing, their grit and endurance, their goodness and influence. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 4.5 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the United States today. That is about 1.5 percent of the population in the United States. There are ten main areas of North America where the Native Americans have lived over the last 2,000 years.”
The jig was up more than 250 years ago, throughout the enslavement of Africans, but recall that we had politician after general after newspaper editor repeating in variations of a theme these racist but highly American statements in regard to our Native People:
In 2021, Rick Santorum claimed there was “nothing” in America before colonization and little Native American culture present today.
Trump’s boy, Andrew Jackson, signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forced many eastern tribes, such as the Cherokee, Choctaw, and others, off their ancestral lands. This policy led directly to the “Trail of Tears.” Jackson’s own words often framed Native Americans as uncivilized and an obstacle to American progress.
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian” is a racist proverb originating from General Philip Sheridan. [Denied by Sheridan — DV Ed]
Maybe schools will allow coursework — now that we have National Day of Remembrance or Sorrow — to include American Indian scholars questioning the origins of Thanksgiving.
“Almost any portrait that we see of an Indian, he is represented with tomahawk and scalping knife in hand, as if they possessed no other but a barbarous nature. Christian nations might with equal justice be always represented with cannon and ball, swords and pistols,” states Elias Johnson, A Native Tuscarora Chief.
I doubt this book has been banned from public libraries: Let’s Play Indian, is a children’s book by Madye Lee Chastain. It’s one of countless examples of “playing Indian,” a practice engaged in by outsiders who appropriate, or take on, American Indian identities and cultural ways. Chastain’s main character transforms herself into “a really truly dressed-up painted Indian,” who runs, whoops, and waves her tomahawk.
Forget about K12. I believe OCCC would get pushback if, say, I taught writing and communication including an amazing young Lakota’s Red Nation broadcast Nick Estes is a Lakota activist, writer, and scholar whose work delves into settler-colonialism, indigenous history, and decolonization. He is the author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance. I’d be highlighting Nick’s on-line advocacy for Palestinian liberation, wherein he highlights the ongoing genocide in Gaza by exploring the intersection of the struggles faced by Palestinian and Indigenous peoples in America.
Drill down into Native American perspectives and unmask almost all myths perpetrated in this country. But as you pass the gravy on Nov. 27, remember it’s not all a bed of pumpkins and cranberries:
Federal agents kept the Dakota-Sioux from receiving food and provisions. Accordingly, on the brink of death from starvation, some fought back, resulting in the Dakota War of 1862. In the end, President Lincoln ordered 38 Dakota men to die from hanging, but he too was spinning PR, so he felt that the first Thanksgiving (1863) offered an opportunity to bridge the hard feelings amongst Natives and the federal government.
“It was propaganda,” Dr. Kelli Mosteller, Citizen Potawatomi Nation’s Cultural Heritage Center director explains. “It was to try and build this event so that you could have a deeper narrative about community building and coming together in shared brotherhood and unity.”
So, there was a counter Op-Ed, running two weeks ago, and of course, I ran my own letter to the editor, here:
But they, the readers, the democrat lite or light-headed, they just DO NOT get AmeriKKKa.
Imagine just a month tying into just a few dozen Break Through News reports, such as this one:
Dear Editor:
So, a long attack on me was published Nov. 12, along with a snarky fucked up letter to the editor also attacking the above “facts.” Opinion piece. Here, just published today, my letter response:
Dear Editor — Recent attacks (Nov. 5 commentary and letter to the editor) on my integrity as a writer and as an educator, plus the inane label of “antisemitism,” just don’t hold water. The thing about going after someone’s credentials and lifework is called ad hominem attack. Kill the messenger is also a term I could deploy with two personal attacks on my Oct. 15 Commentary.
Learning curves are steep in a country of people who have been miseducated, propagandized, and drawn and quartered by an elite media, whether right or left of some imaginary middle.
For real journalism on Gaza and the Jewish genocide, as well as just general news, try Drop Site News (dropsitenews.com). Try heading over to Monthly Review On-Line for deeper analyses of USA the Empire, and its insane and perverted hatred of socialism, as well as its relationship with an apartheid and genocidal state called Israel, the Occupied Land of Palestinians (monthlyreview.org). Then, of course, The Intercept, theintercept.com, will get you more news.
Again, steep learning curves are present when one comes out of K12 and college in this Empire of Chaos, War, Pain, and Terror. Try Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research — thetricontinental.org. I could list five dozen sites here that easily counter the narratives cooked up in the minds of Americans who have been colonized by one-sided narratives and bizarre takes on US and Global history.
Lifetimes of work and research and ground-truthing easily shoot holes into what most Americans and Westerners have come to believe are their “truths.”
The world has lost a giant with the passing of Australian media legend Bob Howarth. He was 81.
He was a passionate advocate for journalism who changed many lives with his extraordinary kindness and generosity coupled with wisdom, experience and an uncanny ability to make things happen.
Howarth worked for major daily newspapers in his native Australia and around the world, having a particularly powerful impact on the Asia Pacific region.
I first met Bob Howarth in 2001 in Timor-Leste during the nation’s first election campaign after the hard-won independence vote.
We met in the newsroom of the Timor Post, a daily newspaper he had been instrumental in setting up.
I was doing my journalism training there when Howarth was asked to tell the trainees about his considerable experience. It was only a short conversation, but his words and body language captivated me.
He was a born storyteller.
Role in the Timor-Post
I later found out about his role in the birth of the Timor Post, the newly independent nation’s first daily newspaper.
In early 2000, after hearing Timorese journalists lacked even the most basic equipment needed to do their jobs, he hatched a plan to get non-Y2K-compliant PCs, laptops and laser printers from Queensland Newspapers over to Dili.
And, despite considerable hurdles, he got it done. Then his bosses sent Howarth himself over to help a team of 14 Timorese journalists set up the Post.
The first publication of the Timor Post occurred during the historic visit of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to Timor-Leste in February 2000.
A media mass for Bob Howarth in Timor-Leste Video: Timor Post
In that first edition, Bob Howarth wrote an editorial in English, entitled “Welcome Mr Wahid”, accompanied by photos of President Wahid and Timorese national hero Xanana Gusmão. That article was framed and proudly hangs on the wall at the Timor Post offices to this day.
After Bob Howarth left Timor-Leste, he delivered some life-changing news to the Timor Post — he wanted to sponsor a journalist from the newspaper to study in Papua New Guinea. The owners chose me.
In 2002, I went with another Timorese student sponsored by Howarth to study journalism at Divine Word University in Madang on PNG’s north coast.
Work experience at the Post-Courier
During our time in PNG, we began to see the true extent of Howarth’s kindness. During every university holiday we would fly to Port Moresby to stay with him and get work experience at the Post-Courier, where Bob was managing director and publisher.
Bob Howarth with Mouzy Lopes de Araujo in Dili in 2012 . . . training and support for many Timorese and Pacific journalists. Image: Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo
Our relationship became stronger and stronger. Sometimes we would sit down, have some drinks and I’d ask him questions about journalism and he would generously answer them in his wise and entertaining way.
In 2005, I went back to Timor-Leste and I went back to the Timor Post as political reporter.
When the owners of the Post appointed me editor-in chief in the middle of 2007, at the age of 28, I contacted Bob for advice and training support, with the backing of the Post’s new director, Jose Ximenes. That year I went to Melbourne to attend journalism training organised by the Asia Pacific Journalism Centre.
I then flew to the Gold Coast and stayed for two days with Bob Howarth and Di at their beautiful Miami home.
“Congratulations, Mouzy, for becoming the new editor-in-chief of the Post,” said Bob Howarth as he shook my hand, looking so proud. But I replied: “Bob, I need your help.”
He said, “Beer first, mate” — one of his favourite sayings — and then we discussed how he could help. He said he would try his best to bring some used laptops for Timor Post when he came to Dili to provide some training.
Arrival of laptops
True to his word, in early 2008 he and one of his long-time friends, veteran journalist Gary Evans, arrived in Dili with said laptops, delivered the training and helped set up business plans.
After I left the Post in 2010, I planned with some friends to set up a new daily newspaper called the Independente. Of course, I went to Bob for ideas and advice.
On a personal note, without Bob Howarth I may never have met my wife Jen, an Aussie Queensland University of Technology student who travelled to Madang in 2004 on a research trip. Bob and Di represented my family in Timor-Leste at our engagement party on the Gold Coast in 2010.
Without Bob Howarth, Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo may never have met his Australian wife Jen . . . pictured with their first son Enzo Lopes on Christmas Day 2019. Image: Jennifer Scott
Jen moved to Dili at the end of that year and was part of the launch of Independente in 2011.
In the paper’s early days Howarth and Evans came back to Dili to train our journalists. He then also worked with the Timor-Leste Press Council and UNDP to provide training to many journalists in Dili.
Before he got sick, the owners and founders of the Timor Post paid tribute to Bob Howarth as “the father of the Timor Post” at the paper’s 20th anniversary celebrations in 2020 because of his contributions.
He and the Timor Post’s former director had a special friendship. Howarth was the godfather for Da Costa’s daughter, Stefania Howarth Da Costa.
Bob Howarth at the launch of the Independente in Dili in 2011. Image:
30 visits to Timor-Leste
During his lifetime Bob Howarth visited Timor-Leste more than 30 times. He said many times that Timor-Leste was his second home after Australia.
After the news of his passing after a three-and-a-half-year battle with cancer was received by his friends at the Independente and the Timor Post on November 13, the Facebook walls of many in the Timorese media were adorned with words of sadness.
Both the Timor Post and the Independente organised a special mass in Bob Howarth’s honour.
He has left us forever but his legacy will be always with us.
May your soul rest in peace, Bob Howarth.
Mouzinho Lopes de Araujo is former editor-in-chief of the Timor Post and editorial director of the Independente in Timor-Leste, and is currently living in Brisbane with his wife Jen and their two boys, Enzo and Rafael.
Bob Howarth (third from right) in Paris in 2018 for the Asia Pacific summit of Reporters Without Borders correspondents along with colleagues, including Asia Pacific Report publisher David Robie (centre). Image: RSF/APR
The Fijian Media Association (FMA) has demanded better police protection after a journalist working for the state broadcaster Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) was violently attacked outside a courthouse
In a statement today, the FMA again called for police to be more vigilant in managing security and threats outside the Suva High Court in the capital after another Fijian journalist was violently attacked by a convicted murderer leaving under police guard.
Journalist Apenisa Waqairadovu of the FBC suffered injuries to his arms and hands after he was attacked by Sairusi Ceinaturaga, who had just been convicted of murdering the one-year-old child of his de facto partner, the FMA stated.
After his conviction, Ceinaturaga walked out of the courtroom in handcuffs, followed a metre or two behind by a police officer who was outrun and scrambled to catch up when Ceinaturaga chased the journalist.
Ceinaturaga threatened Waqairadovu, swore and ran after him before pushing him down the stairs.
“This has been happening too often to journalists outside the courtroom, and we do not see any improved process despite our repeated calls for stronger security and protection,” the FMA stated.
“We have been consistently calling for urgent action from police to protect media workers — even after another convicted murderer Tevita Kapawale tried to attack journalists outside the courthouse in August.
‘Physical threats every year’
“Journalists have faced physical threats every year while covering court cases, and the Fiji Police Force’s repeated failure to provide adequate security for media personnel is unacceptable.
“The media plays a vital role in ensuring transparency and accountability in our justice system. Journalists have the right to report on matters of public interest without fear of violence or intimidation.”
The FMA is now demanding the Fiji Police Force immediately implement proper security protocols for court proceedings, including secure perimeters during prisoner transport and adequate police presence to protect journalists from violent offenders — the same call it made following the August incident.
The FMA says police must do better and relook at how they provide security at the courthouse.
“In the past officers would surround the accused person and escort him out, not let them just walk out with officers strolling at the back.
“In this case the journalist kept their distance but was still chased down and attacked and this is totally unacceptable.”
The FMA said reporters covered court stories in order to inform the public and to ensure that justice was served under the law.
“We are again urging the public to appreciate and understand the role journalists play in providing the coverage of how justice and the rule of law is administered in this country.”
Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt has defended his decision to ban the Samoa Observer in response to a joint letter from the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and the Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF).
“The action taken relates solely to the Samoa Observer, following sustained unprofessional behaviour, breaches of industry ethics, and continuous inaccurate and misleading reporting over an extended period.
“Samoa remains firmly committed to upholding media freedom, transparency, and open engagement with the media,” the statement said.
“However, it is equally important to clarify the context and the basis of the government’s decision.”
The release said that the move targets one media outlet and does not represent a broader clampdown.
‘Multiple opportunities’
According to the statement, the Samoa Observer was given “multiple opportunities for correction, dialogue, and improvement,” and that “No other media organisation in Samoa is affected. Engagement with all other local and regional media continues uninterrupted.”
The release also said it would follow due process.
“The Prime Minister has already indicated that a formal review will be undertaken in due course, once all matters surrounding the Observer’s conduct are addressed and resolved and the facts are fully documented,” the statement said. “This review will include an opportunity for the media organisation concerned to respond to the issues raised.”
The release also reiterated its recognition of the importance of a free press.
“The government reiterates that it welcomes robust scrutiny, responsible journalism, and constructive criticism,” it said. “At the same time, media freedom carries the corresponding responsibility of accuracy, professionalism, and respect for the truth.”
“The government invites PINA and PFF to engage constructively and to review the documented evidence of unprofessional reporting and breach of media ethical standards that led to this action,” the statement said.
“Samoa remains available to provide clarification and to work collaboratively to strengthen media standards across the region.”
No response to Samoa Observer
“The decision relating to the Samoa Observer is specific, justified, and based on conduct, not on an attempt or attack to suppress the free flow of information or journalism,” it said.
“The government of Samoa remains open to fair, balanced, and ethical engagement with all media organisations, both local and overseas.”
The Samoa Observer reached out to the government on November 19 to offer the opportunity to make corrections and provide clarifications on the five points originally raised as the reasons for the ban but no response has been received.
Former Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari says Israel has “lost the war on social media,” describing the online space as the most dangerous and complex arena shaping global public opinion, especially among younger generations.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington, DC, Hagari urged the creation of a powerful new propaganda apparatus modelled on the capabilities and structure of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite cyber intelligence division, reports Middle East Monitor.
He argued that Israel must now fight “a battle of images, videos, and statistics—not lengthy texts.”
Hagari proposed establishing a unit capable of monitoring anti-Israel content across platforms, in real time and in multiple languages, supplying rapid-response messaging and data to government and media outlets.
His plan also calls for the systematic creation of fake online identities, automated bot networks, and the use of unofficial bloggers — “preferably mostly young women” — to shape global perceptions.
He warned that the decisive phase of this battle would unfold a decade from now, when students using artificial intelligence tools searched for information on the events of October 7 and encountered “two completely contradictory narratives.”
Hagari, a former navy officer who served in sensitive military roles, became Israel’s top military spokesperson in 2023 before being dismissed from the position earlier this year.
The past two years have seen a catastrophic failure by Western journalists to report properly what amounts to an undoubted genocide in Gaza. This has been a low point even by the dismal standards set by our profession, and further reason why audiences continue to distrust us in ever greater numbers.
There is a comforting argument — comforting especially for those journalists who have failed so scandalously during this period — that seeks to explain, and excuse, this failure. Israel’s exclusion of Western reporters, so the claim goes, has made it impossible to determine exactly what is occurring on the ground in Gaza.
Prime Minister La’aulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt says international media are “in the dark” about the reasons behind his decision to ban the Samoa Observerfrom government press conferences, arguing that overseas attention has created “support for one newspaper at the expense of the entire country.”
He also addressed concerns raised locally, directing criticism at the Journalists Association of Samoa (JAWS) for advising him to reconsider the ban.
“Now you have given me advice, but you should advise where the problem came from,” he said at a media conference this week. “Why are you advising me to lift the ban when you should be advising them [Samoa Observer]?”
La’aulialemalietoa said his duty was to the nation. “Who do I stand for? It is the country I represent. I will not back down from protecting the people of Samoa.”
He said he remained firm in his decision but hoped for a “constructive resolution” ahead. “As the Prime Minister, I will stand strong to do the right thing.”
On international reactions, he said some overseas commentators “do not understand Samoa” and claimed outside support was being used “to support one business and throw away the whole country that is trying to protect its future.”
He said the media was “part of democracy,” but argued that global reporting had focused on the ban itself rather than what he described as the issues that led to it.
Questioned actions of journalists
Turning to domestic matters, the Prime Minister also questioned the actions of local journalists, saying JAWS did not engage with ministries affected by earlier Samoa Observer reporting.
“You are talking to me, but why didn’t you talk to the ministries impacted?” he asked.
He also raised questions about the role of a media council. “Where do I go, or where does the government go, if this sort of thing happens?” he said, adding he was unsure whether such a body existed or had convened.
The Prime Minister said his concerns extended beyond media conduct to the protection of the Samoan language and culture.
“My whole being is about the Gagana Samoa. If there is no language, there is no country,” he said.
He also accused the Samoa Observer of showing disrespect and said harmful reporting left lasting effects.
“If you say something that hurts a person, it will stay with the person forever,” he said.
La’aulialemalietoa said he made it clear upon taking office that his position “is Samoa’s chair,” and the government must correct misinformation when it believed reporting was inaccurate or misleading.
“The government has to say something if a journalist is in the wrong,” he said, arguing that overseas commentary did not reflect local realities.
He said the government supported the media but insisted that cooperation depended on factual reporting.
“If you want to work together, the opportunity is open, but we cannot move forward until the writings are corrected.”
He dismissed one allegation as “a pure lie,” accusing journalists of trespassing onto his land.
“People do not walk onto my land like it’s a market,” he said, urging respect for aganuʻu and cultural protocol.
After waging war on public broadcasting and the arts, the Trump administration threatened last month to cut federal funding to nine prominent colleges unless they restricted campus speech that opposed conservatives.
“Academic freedom is not absolute,” read part of a Compact for Excellence in Higher Education that offered the schools preferential research funding if they obliged with a laundry list of demands that would restrict expression. If any school refused the demands, it “elects to forego federal benefits,” the compact read.
While the corporate media chose to gloss over the full extent to which the proposal undermined free expression, thousands of students across the country read it for themselves and took to the streets, demanding that their schools not capitulate.
And although none of the initial nine universities have signed on thus far, President Trump has now offered the agreement to every college in the country.
What does the compact say?
The compact was sent on October 2 to the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Virginia.
Nine pages long, it listed almost two dozen demands. Among the most controversial was one requiring schools to abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Students noted these terms were vague, perhaps intentionally.
“What does that mean?” said Raya Gupta, a freshman at Brown who protested the compact. “We can be pretty sure that the Trump administration is going to use that to shut down programs like the Center for Students of Color and our LGBTQ+ center.”
The compact also demanded professors, when acting “as university representatives,” refrain from speaking on “societal and political events.”
Timmons Roberts, a professor of environment and society at Brown, said his courses on climate change fall into those categories.
“How am I going to teach what I need to teach?” he said. “That is a direct attack on the freedom of speech.”
In another clause, the compact demanded that universities “screen out” international students who “demonstrate hostility” to US values and allies, and share “all available information” with the State Department.
Universities risk “saturating the campus with noxious values, such as anti-Semitism,” the compact read.
Notably, the State Department this year has revoked the visas of hundreds of students it accuses without evidence of supporting antisemitic terrorism.
Students and faculty claimed other demands—a limit on international students to 15 percent of the school population, sex-based definitions of gender, and an SAT requirement—eroded institutional independence.
“We are not a dog,” said Clay Dickerson, the student council president at UVA, at a protest. “We are not to be leashed up by the federal government and dragged around.”
Demonstrators at Brown University taped their mouths shut to emphasize how they believe the compact would have a chilling effect on free speech. Students and faculty at all nine institutions that initially received the compact have protested it, as have thousands of other students across the country. | Photo by Jake Parker
How did universities respond?
Although federal officials set a final deadline of November 21 to respond to the compact, seven of the original nine schools have already rejected it. Vanderbilt and UT Austin have not indicated whether they will sign on.
But, in a social media post, Trump expanded the compact’s scope to all universities, claiming it will “bring about the Golden Age” of higher education.
While only two universities—the New College of Florida and Valley Forge Military College—have officially agreed to the compact, many of the schools that rejected it appeared more concerned with preserving merit-based research funding than protecting free expression.
In his response to the federal government, Arizona President Suresh Garimella wrote that his school has “much common ground” with the compact’s ideas, but does not agree with “a federal research funding system based on anything other than merit.”
UVA Interim President Paul Mahoney’s response was almost identical. Penn President Larry Jameson’s only justification was that he is “committed to merit-based achievement.” MIT President Sally Kornbluth wrote that the compact would “restrict” her school’s independence. But “fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone,” she wrote.
Only three schools—Brown, Dartmouth, and USC—heavily emphasized academic freedom in their responses.
“It’s disappointing,” said Jade Personna, a senior at MIT who protested against the compact, “that the school, which has a lot more power and leverage than I do, is not willing to stand up for us in that way.”
Personna said she believed MIT treaded lightly to prevent a brash response from Trump. But she would have preferred “stronger language,” she said.
It remains unclear what will happen to the schools that did not sign. In early November, Project Censored requested comment from the Education Department, but received an automated response: “Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of [a spending bill]. … We will respond to emails once government functions resume.”
What did the media cover?
The Wall Street Journalreported first on the compact, but its main and deck headlines included no mention of free speech. Six paragraphs in, after referencing the SAT requirement, the story mentioned the clause banning “institutional units” that “belittle” conservative values.
The article included no reference to clauses prohibiting professors from discussing “societal and political events” and mandating that schools screen foreign students who “demonstrate hostility” to US allies. Neither did stories by the New York Times, CNN, and USA Today.
The Washington Post’s story does mention the “societal and political events” clause—thirty paragraphs in. But, like the others, it doesn’t say international students would be screened for their values.
In its framing, CNN initially downplayed free speech implications, describing the effective ban on anti-conservative speech as a policy “to foster ‘a vibrant marketplace of ideas on campus,’” before quoting the rest of the clause seven paragraphs in.
Personna, the MIT student, said it was “concerning” to see that the establishment press did not cover all of the compact’s free-speech implications. Although she read the compact in full, individuals who relied on media summaries may have lacked critical information. “We all need to look at the things that are most alarming,” she said in reference to the compact’s free-speech clauses, because they can become a “stepping stone for the Trump administration to expand its power further.”
But even with the selective coverage, student groups on campus publicized the unfiltered truth, Personna said.
“The Trump administration very much miscalculated … how easy it would be to coerce people into signing something like this,” she said.
This essay first appeared on https://www.projectcensored.org/attack-freedom-of-speech-trump-higher-ed/
Since August, the US has been amassing military assets in the Caribbean. Warships, bombers and thousands of troops have been joined by the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, in the largest regional deployment in decades. Extrajudicial strikes against small vessels, which UN experts have decried as violations of international law, have killed at least 80 civilians (CNN, 11/14/25).
Many foreign policy analysts believe that regime change in Venezuela is the ultimate goal (Al Jazeera, 10/24/25; Left Chapter, 10/21/25), but the Trump administration instead claims it is fighting “narcoterrorism,” accusing Caracas of flooding the US with drugs via the Cartel of the Suns and Tren de Aragua, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
