This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

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On this day in 1969, Chicago PD, the FBI, and Cook County coordinated to gun down revolutionary activist Fred Hampton, chair of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, in the dead of night. Hampton’s accomplishments include uniting a multi-racial coalition, pacifying gangs, redirecting their energy towards community projects, feeding children via a free breakfast program, and rallying for racial justice, working directly within the NAACP. A prolific young man, his life was cut short by forces who feared his revolutionary potential and liberatory message.

🩺💰 Investors in UnitedHealth are suing the company — for providing too much care.

More Perfect Union

@perfectunion

More Perfect Union on Instagram: "Investors in UnitedHealth are…

Today marks the one year anniversary of the execution of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, alleged to have been committed by 27-year-old Luigi Mangione. As it currently stands, Luigi Mangione’s defense team is seeking to suppress certain evidence from appearing in trial on account of several technical errors committed by NYPD; for instance, he allegedly wasn’t read his Miranda rights.

The recent pretrial hearing has reignited buzz around the case, but let us redirect our focus again to the real story buried in the noise. In the aftermath of the killing of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, the company, apparently compelled by the incident, began approving treatment and coverage at greater rates, much to the chagrin of investors. This older but still relevant More Perfect Union video linked above dives into the lawsuit between investors and UnitedHealth.

Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, the charade is emblematic of the rot at the core of for-profit healthcare: investors looking to squeeze health insurance beneficiaries for every penny will inevitably induce greater harm to greater numbers of people in the interest of profit seeking. The bullets which ended Brian Thompson’s life may have been direct agents of violence, but health insurance companies and their investors engage in a different, more surreptitious form of abstract violence: that which is perpetrated at scale, upon hundreds of thousands or even millions, via spreadsheet, CRM software, arbitrary benchmarks, and the gatekeeping of lifesaving medical care.

🚁⚖️ Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, an unserious man, is accused of serious war crimes. Or worse.

Mike Littwin/The Colorado Sun

In this piece in The Colorado Sun, Littwin chronicles and lays bare ex-Fox Host Pete Hegseth’s entire ongoing war crime snafu. The TLDR version: it appears that War Secretary Hegseth ordered double-tapping (the illegal practice of issuing carefully timed second strikes designed incapacitate first responders or guarantee the total decimation of targets) in at least one of the eleven or more strikes targeting alleged “narcoterrorists” in the Caribbean. The Trump Regime has been bombarding small boats off the coast of South America for the last several weeks without a formal declaration of war, without due process, and for crimes that they have produced scant evidence for. Human rights group Amnesty International has called it a killing spree. Never mind the mounting evidence that most or all of these targets are most likely not carrying drugs, that near-zero fentanyl comes into the U.S. via Venezuela, or that none of these boats could even make it to American shores given their fuel capacity; even mainstream outlets are now entertaining the notion that Hegseth may be embroiled in war crimes.

But let’s not kid ourselves. With the erosion of the facade of the rules-based international order over the last several decades, the likelihood that Democrats should risk opening up that can of worms by seeking to prosecute Hegseth for war crimes seems slim. Such an act could escalate into a tit-for-tat politicized battle. Democratic leadership has already begun to let their constituents down, as per usual, with Hakeem Jeffries calling the pursuit of Hegseth’s impeachment “unlikely”.

🦅🛑 Trump’s push for health care plan stalls ahead of looming subsidy expiration

Adam Cancryn/CNN

Expiring Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies, a contentious issue center to the recent government shutdown, will send American healthcare premiums for everybody soaring upon their dissolution. Understanding that this could spell political suicide for Republicans in the upcoming midterms, President Trump was set to announce a plan that would’ve reportedly conditionally restored at least a decent share of the subsidies. Alas, the dyed-in-the-wool budget hawks in his fragile coalition are more interested in scoring deficit brownie points, even at the cost of their own political futures. To paraphrase former Florida representative Alan Grayson, the Republican healthcare plan for Americans continues to be, after all these years: don’t get sick, and if you do, die quickly.

🇸🇩💵 The European Parliament’s resolution addresses the horror of the civil war in Sudan but not those profiting from it

Volt Europa

As is often customary for western liberal powers, the European Parliament passed a resolution which broadly gestures toward the horrors in Sudan without acknowledging the complicity of international arms dealers, many of which network with the West or its allies.

For more on the history of the situation in Sudan and ways to help, check out our extensive piece on the matter:

🇵🇸👁️ AI-powered surveillance firms are gunning for a share of the Gaza spoils

Sophia Goodfriend/+972 Magazine

AI firms Palantir and Dataminr have embedded themselves into a new U.S. military outpost (the Civil Military Coordination Center, or CMCC) located just off the border of Gaza in Southern Israel. Sophia’s reporting at +972 Magazine dives into the AI surveillance regime that Israel and the U.S. are looking to employ against the Palestinians.

🤝🏙️ Baltimore Streets

Channel 5 With Andrew Callaghan

The full mini-documentary linked/embedded above provides a rare glimpse into life in the city of Baltimore directly from the ground. The video sheds light on Baltimore’s Safe Streets program, a community-led movement designed to deescalate civil and domestic confrontations without the use or threat of violence or police. The timestamp linked above will start playback directly during a couple-minute segment in which leaders from the program explain its premise.

The program has been credited with great success, often cited as a main driver for the rate of violent crime and homicide falling precipitously over the years, contrary to the image of Baltimore often conveyed in mainstream narratives.

🇻🇪🛢️ ‘Venezuela for the American oil companies will be a field day’: Rep. Maria Salazar

Fox Business

In the shadow of “No New Wars” Trump’s imminent boots-on-the-ground war with Venezuela, GOP Representative Maria Salazar has been doing a media blitz, in which she has been stating the quiet part out loud: the primary motivation for this war is to open up Venezuela to pillaging by American corporations (a tale as old as time in Latin America).

Unlike the Iraq War, which sought to justify itself as a response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, a war with Venezuela is wildly unpopular with the American public, with an estimated 70% of Americans disapproving of such an operation. Still, all signs suggest that another costly, inhumane war is imminent.

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

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This Turkey Day, as you glob on morsels of juicy bird meat, consider diving into some of the stories below so that you can be better equipped to stir a different kind of pot with family over dinner.

And, sorry to be a buzzkill, but as the United States sponsors the continued destruction of indigenous peoples abroad, realize that the cultural sanitization of Thanksgiving’s sordid legacy has, in part, given consent to such atrocities.

But hey, Happy Thanksgiving!

🗽 Zohran Mamdani Knew How to Handle Donald Trump

Peter Dreier/Jacobin

I will admit that I was intrigued to see where the meeting between Mamdani and Trump would go. Even prior to the meeting, I had an inkling about something that Dreier highlights in his piece: Trump is largely a transactional, ideologically incoherent political agent who can be charmed into embodying the political will of the people closest to him.

Some are calling Mamdani’s chumminess with Trump a betrayal. Personally, I think it a good thing that he has disarmed their ability to wield his image as a nationwide cudgel against the Democratic Party (a strategy which would largely backfire, anyway, as Mamdani and his platform resonate far beyond NYC’s borders). More importantly, he has disarmed one of the chief obstructionists to his agenda while capitulating on virtually nothing. And if nothing else, there is something rich about receiving an endorsement from your political enemy on the same day where so many in his party, including leadership, joined hands with Republicans to pass a resolution “condemning socialism” for what feels like the umpteenth time.

There are elements of his mayoral transition that I would be remiss not to raise an eyebrow to (the retention of the former police chief, certain appointments stemming from the real estate lobby), and I’m under no illusion that, in his capacity as mayor of NYC, he will he usher in some kind of nationwide class awakening. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how far an undeniably savvy lefty politico can take his agenda within the limited and fragile confines of his own New York City-sized experiment.

🕵️‍♂️ Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire

Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim/Drop Site News

Drop Site News

Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Sell a Surveillance State to Côte d’Ivoire

Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak were specialists in war profiteering. At the end of his tenure as Israel’s defense minister and after his supposed “retirement,” Barak embraced a role as a salesman of Israeli security services to embattled governments, opening the d…

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5 months ago · 612 likes · 20 comments · Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim

This bombshell reporting from Drop Site News details a tenebrous network of profiteering that existed between disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and private and state Israeli military technology firms. All parties involved worked together to sell Israeli spyware and security agreements to multiple countries, including the Ivory Coast, which is highlighted in this piece.

🇦🇫 Inside the CIA’s Secret Afghan Army

Kevin Maurer/Rolling Stone

As details come to light about the DC National Guard shooter, it is becoming increasingly evident that the man is a microcosm of the continued blowback of U.S. intervention in Afghanistan.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal was a member of a vicious, CIA-organized death squad organized to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan. This Rolling Stone piece details via first hand accounts the gruesome nature of frontline service while alluding to accusations of human rights violations perpetrated by the group, including the extrajudicial killing of civilians.

🏚️ ‘We gave everything’: Afghan allies abandoned by U.S. share fears of life under Taliban

Nick Schifrin and Sonia Kopelev/PBS

Unlike Rahmanullah, many Afghans have not been so lucky to be granted refuge in the United States. This PBS mini documentary provides some insight into the grueling revenge being inflicted upon collaborators abandoned by the United States after the country’s withdrawal from the Afghanistan.

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every week by subscribing.

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After a long hiatus, this will be the first of hopefully many entries to come in our recurring digest series. Covering current events via the digest frees up regular mainline entries to focus on broader, philosophical, and evergreen subject matters.

Of note this week are developments in Trump’s wars both abroad and at home (against Venezuela and Antifa respectively) set upon the salacious backdrop of new Epstein File revelations, as well as global developments in Gaza. Mexico, and Sudan.

🇲🇽 Gen-Z protests in Mexico or coordinated chaos?

Pablo Meriguet/People’s Dispatch

Uruapan Mayor Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, an outspoken critic of organized crime and the cartels in Mexico, was gunned down in broad daylight during Day of the Dead celebrations earlier this month. On November 15th, demonstrators took the streets of Mexico City, ostensibly to demand a tougher response towards organized crime from the current administration. Western media framed the demonstration as organic and youth-led. However, President Claudia Sheinbaum alleges that a network of conservative moneyed interest groups funneled millions of dollars into the demonstration.

A cursory glance at footage of the demonstrators online contradicts the mainstream notion that this was a youth-led protest. Many of the demonstrators appear to be of an older disposition. People donning Nazi iconography and graffiti attacking Sheinbaum for her Jewish ethnic roots were also seen at the event. Considering her long-maintained 70%+ approval rating and her party’s (Morena) innumerable substantive accomplishments (major infrastructure projects, raising the minimum wage, expanding social welfare programs, lifting millions out of poverty), the suggestion that there’d be any legitimate popular uprising against her administration strains credulity. Though, clearly, forces appear to be working to sow the seeds of discontent.

🇻🇪 What is really happening in Venezuela? US attacks and economic situation explained

Ben Norton/Geopolitical Economy Report

Geopolitical Economy Report

What is really happening in Venezuela? US attacks and economic situation explained

A Chinese journalist interviewed Geopolitical Economy Report editor-in-chief Ben Norton about the situation in Venezuela, and his analysis was translated into Chinese. The following were his original remarks in English…

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5 months ago · 123 likes · 12 comments · Ben Norton

In this transcript of an interview, Ben Norton of Geopolitical Economy Report describes what is really motivating the Trump regime’s recent militaristic encroachment on Venezuela: namely, desires to weaken progressive movements in Latin America, to safeguard American corporate interests in the region, and to capitalize on the country’s massive oil reserves.

As he highlights in the piece, there is little-to-no popular support for such an intervention among the American populous. Additionally, though Venezuela shares some resemblance to past targets of US intervention in the Middle East, Venezuela differs in one significant way. After experiencing years of turmoil wrought by a combination of external pressures (American sanctions and embargoes) and internal mismanagement, its domestic economic and political situations seem to have turned a corner and have begun to stabilize. By contrast, places like Syria and Iraq had been experiencing significant internal strife even prior to US intervention (in many ways, second order consequences of past colonial exploits). A war with Venezuela, Ben speculates, could possibly tip popular support against the current government among its people, which is likely a major consideration for the Trump regime.

🏴🚩 Trump Escalates War on Leftists With Antifa Foreign Terror Label

Ken Klippenstein

Ken Klippenstein

Trump Escalates War on Leftists With Antifa Foreign Terror Label

“Antifa” is quickly becoming the shorthand, like al Qaeda, to equate political protest and violence with a coordinated terror group threatening the United States and even the West. Today, the State Department announced that it will be designating four German, Greek and Italian anarchist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs…

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5 months ago · 405 likes · 27 comments · Ken Klippenstein

A couple of months ago, Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), instructing his national security agencies to consider any person or organization espousing “anti-Americanism”, “anti-capitalism”, “anti-Christianity”, and other imprecise and broad categories of dissent as risk factors for terrorism. Now, he is escalating his crackdown.

In this latest development, Trump is labeling several European anti-fascist groups as foreign terror organizations for the first time. As Ken points out in his piece, many talking heads and political figures have downplayed the significance of NSPM-7, citing the fact that no laws on the books criminalize domestic terrorism specifically. Never mind the fact that there are many adjacent laws by which the Department of Justice can (and does) weaponize to pursue charges (i.e., RICO); now, with this new designation, the Trump DOJ has a new weapon in its arsenal: foreign terror laws. We can only assume that they plan to wield it against their political enemies, which appears to encompass everyone not explicitly betrothed to the MAGA movement.

🇵🇸 UN Security Council passes US resolution backing international Gaza force

Al Jazeera

In what many are viewing as an act betrayal by members of the UN Security Council, the group approved a US-authored plan for the future of the Gaza strip. The plan includes the demilitarization of Gaza, the introduction of an international peacekeeping force, and gives preferential and open-ended treatment to Israeli forces, who are afforded lenient terms for withdrawal, “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation."

What this plan ultimately accomplishes is effectively establishing an illegal trusteeship over Palestinians without honoring their dignity, sovereignty, and right to representation (unless you consider the Palestinian Authority’s endorsement of the plan, who co-governs West Bank territories with Israel and is abysmally unpopular with the Palestinian people). It also bears similarities to prior Western blunders in the Middle East, placing ex-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was instrumental in the 2003 Iraq War, at the helm of the operation. Most significantly, the bill is modeled after Trump’s 20-point peace plan proposal, which includes considerations for “exciting development ideas” in Gaza. Trump and cronies in his inner circle like Jared Kushner have time and again expressed glee at the prospect of colonizing Gaza for their own speculative real estate aspirations.

📧 Zeteo Scoured 26,000 Epstein Docs. Here’s What We Found

Prem Thakker and Micah Lee/Zeteo

Zeteo

Zeteo Scoured 26,000 Epstein Docs. Here’s What We Found

Dinners with Peter Thiel and Steve Bannon. Friendly chats with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the New York Times. Trump, Trump, Trump. And so much more. Zeteo scoured the 26,000 documents in a newly-released trove of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The emails range from shocking to absurd…

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5 months ago · 556 likes · 21 comments · Prem Thakker and Micah Lee

The House Oversight Committee published a mountain of emails procured from the Jeffrey Epstein estate. Within these emails, Epstein is seen corresponding with various powerful figures. Trump was a constant topic of discussion; his name appears over 1,000 times across the over 20,000 emails. In one email thread, Epstein states that Trump spent hours at his home with a documented victim. Other notable figures corresponding with Epstein long after his outing as a sexual predator include Trump advisor Steve Bannon, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, infamous economist and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, professor Noam Chomsky, and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel.

At the time of publication, after fighting a months-long battle, Trump has just recently and finally signed the bill to release the Epstein files, which passed nearly unanimously in both chambers of Congress. It’s unclear if Trump’s DOJ will stall, heavily redact incriminating elements of the published files, or what other surreptitious dealings may occur which obscure the full truth once the files finally come to light.

🇸🇩 Sudan’s el-Fasher ‘a crime scene’ after RSF takeover: UN aid chief

Al Jazeera

The situation on the ground in Sudan is deteriorating, as the RSF paramilitary group continues their genocidal campaign of abject conquest and destruction. After having captured the major city of Al Fashir late last month, millions have been displaced, starved, and killed. Foreign aid groups describe the current condition as, “the epicentre of human suffering in the world.”

For more on the topic and places you can look to for help and regular updates, consult my article on the matter from late last month:

🥞 Party for Socialism and Liberation organizes free breakfast for children in Atlanta amid SNAP cuts

@pslatlanta

PSL Atlanta on Instagram: "The Party for Socialism and Liberati…

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every week by subscribing.

Subscribe now

I was unable to publish an entry in the digest last Thursday due to personal obligations and travel. As such, I have tried to cram two week’s worth of stories into this edition.

U.S. Politics

📜🤑 The One Big Beautiful Bill Is a Big Corporate Cash Grab - Donald Shaw and David Moore/Sludge/More Perfect Union

More Perfect Union

The One Big Beautiful Bill Is a Big Corporate Cash Grab

By Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge…

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9 months ago · 61 likes · More Perfect Union

Trump’s steaming pile of a “Big, Beautiful Bill” narrowly passed another round of votes in the House after being amended in the Senate. It is estimated that the provisions in this bill will result in the deaths of 51,000 additional people per year. As has been thoroughly articulated elsewhere, this legislation represents class war against working Americans, slaughtering a cornucopia of social services in the interest of delivering a multi-trillion dollar tax cut to the richest among us. To name just a few infractions against the working class, this bill kicks 17 million people off of their health insurance through Medicaid cuts, increases the cost of healthcare dramatically through the reduction of Affordable Care Act subsidies, cuts food stamp provisions, increases the cost of electric vehicles through the elimination of subsidies, restructures student loan payment programs to be more costly… the list goes on and on, and we haven’t even mentioned the downstream ramifications, such as the inevitable job cuts that are bound to spring forth from this ungodly abomination of a reconciliation package. All of this is being done in service of one of the largest handouts to America’s wealthiest cohort in history, in the form of massive tax cuts — a tale as old as time.

In the More Perfect Union piece linked above, the authors take a magnifying lens to which industries specifically are benefitting from the handouts provisioned in this legislation, scrutinizing a several levels deeper than the broader “ultra wealthy” moniker often attributed as the greatest beneficiaries of this bill. Industries from Big Pharma to Private Prisons stand to rake in the dough on our dime.

⛓️‍💥🇵🇸 Mahmoud Khalil Released From ICE Detention - Prem Thakker/Zeteo

Zeteo

BREAKING: Mahmoud Khalil Released From ICE Detention

Palestinian Columbia University student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil walked out of a Louisiana ICE detention center on Friday after a federal judge ordered he be released on bail…

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10 months ago · 493 likes · 25 comments · Prem Thakker

Columbia University student, Palestinian rights activist, and political prisoner Mahmoud Khalil was finally released over 100 days after his unlawful detention by the Trump Administration. His release marks yet another defeat in a string of legal battles against the Trump Administration, who has been targeting student visa holders who advocate for Palestinian rights. Other recent notable wins include Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was imprisoned seemingly over writing an op-ed mildly critical of Israel in the school paper, and Mohsen Mahdawi, also a student activist of Columbia University.

🥇🚩 In Zohran Mamdani’s Win, Socialism Beat the Status Quo - Nick French/Jacobin

In spite of massive uphill resistance from establishment figures and institutions, Zohran Mamdani, the upstart Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate for New York City, who was an unknown quantity not long ago, managed to secure a victory in the Democratic Primary against the disgraced, corrupt ex-governor of the state Andrew Cuomo. Zohran still has to win in the general election this November, Democratic Party leadership is hesitant to rally behind him, and he will face independent bids from both Cuomo and incumbent mayor Eric Adams. However, as Nick French writes in the article linked above, there are lessons any pro-working-class political entity should take from the success of Zohran’s campaign.

While you’re at it, check out my article rebuking one of many baseless and incendiary hit pieces published in The Atlantic against Zohran’s campaign.

☣️🥽 E.P.A. Plans to Reconsider a Ban on Cancer-Causing Asbestos - Hiroko Tabuchi/New York Times

Trump’s EPA appears to be considering reversing a ban on asbestos, a material that was previously ubiquitous in construction across this country and is responsible, even currently, for around 40,000 deaths per year across the country due to its carcinogenic nature.

🏞️💰 Plans to Sell Millions of Acres of Federal Land Dropped - Jasmine Laws/Newsweek

A plan by Republican Senator Mike Lee to sell off millions of acres of protected federal land, including natural parks and other preserved spaces, has seemingly been thwarted after proposal faced massive bipartisan backlash.

Global News

🌍🇬🇧 UN experts urge United Kingdom not to misuse terrorism laws against protest group Palestine Action - United Nations

Palestine Action, a UK-based Palestinian activist group, has carried out several actions to successfully impede or deter corporations like Elbit from supplying Israel with military aid. In light of this, UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper plans to imminently designate the group as a terrorist organization, which could result in 14 year prison sentences for anyone associated. Human rights experts at Geneva are urging the UK government to reconsider its stance, as this would constitute an egregious weaponization of the terrorist label against activists.

🚀🇮🇷 US strikes failed to destroy Iran's nuclear sites, intelligence report says - Gram Slattery, Alexander Cornwell and Parisa Hafezi/Reuters

After a 12 day scuttle between the United States, its proxy Israel, and Iran culminated in US strikes on Iranian soil, allegedly in the interest of terminating their ability to produce a nuclear weapon, it appears that the United States has barely made a dent in their capacity, according to US intelligence reports. As far as deterring Iran from acquiring a nuke more generally, it would seem that Iran is now even more likely to accelerate their program to develop one. If the fates of Muammar Gaddafi and Ukraine in light of their disarmaments are anything to go by, then the Iranian regime is unlikely to stop pursuing nuclear weapons any time soon given ramping hostilities in the region.

☠️📈 From economy of occupation to economy of genocide – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 - United Nations

UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, has just released a report naming several western corporations for their direct participation in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as their occupation efforts in the West Bank. Notable entities named in the report include:

• Lockheed Martin

• Elbit Systems

• Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), and Amazon

• Palantir

• Airbnb

• Blackrock

• Vanguard

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every week by subscribing.

Subscribe now

Today is Juneteenth, a day which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States (though “the end” is stretching the truth a bit). When thinking about the challenges of the current moment, remember that slavery, a moral aberration largely only recognized as such in retrospect, was not defeated through capitulation and compromise with its defenders, but a coordinated campaigns of civil disobedience, public messaging, and sometimes even violence, culminating in official sponsorship of emancipation when pressure became too difficult to ignore, even in the face of fierce and deadly opposition from slavery’s own vanguard in the South.

U.S. Politics

“Disgraceful”: Judge Refuses to Order Mahmoud Khalil’s Release, Siding With DOJ - Sharon Zhang/Truthout

Mahmoud Khalil, one of many Palestinian activists who has had their legal residency unilaterally revoked, has spent over 100 days in one of the harshest immigration detention centers in the country, missing the birth of his first child. When a judge proclaimed that Mahmoud could not be held any longer on the basis of the government’s primary charge, it seemed for a moment that his release was imminent. But wielding semantics and delay tactics, the judge has enabled the DOJ to continue holding Mahmoud, as his lawyers and the ACLU outline in more detail via the article linked above.

Here is my original piece detailing Mahmoud’s case in more detail:

BREAKING NEWS: Migrant Uprising Inside NJ ICE Facility Delaney Hall - Dissent in Bloom

Dissent in Bloom

BREAKING NEWS: Migrant Uprising Inside NJ ICE Facility Delaney Hall

They were starving. Not metaphorically. They were literally hungry. Dinners didn’t come until 11 p.m. Breakfast was expired milk. Diabetics were left without food during critical hours. The men locked inside Delaney Hall weren’t just being neglected. They were being broken…

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10 months ago · 1858 likes · 129 comments · Dissent in Bloom

Last week, at a New Jersey detention center where migrants were being holed up and starved, a handful of migrants clawed their way out and organized an escape. This article, which broke the story, details the anguish that both the people connected with the detainees outside of the gates, as well as the people within the walls of the cage, endured, leading to rising tensions that culminated in the uprising.

LA immigrant advocates asked whether they funded recent anti-ICE protests - Helen Jeong/NBC Los Angeles

Faux-populist senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has sent a letter to the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and Union del Barrio, seemingly insinuating that these groups are going to be subject to imminent penalization and investigation by the federal government for allegedly stoking violence. Hawley currently sits as the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism. These groups have been integral to organizing many of the actions and demonstrations happening across L.A. and beyond.

With Newfound Sway in City Hall, Portland’s Democratic Socialists Hope to Redefine the City’s Priorities - Taylor Griggs/Portland Mercury

The DSA has recently experienced a string of victories in Portland, with multiple city council seats being won by dues-paying members. Now, in the wake of rising anti-oligarch sentiment nationwide, it appears that a set of sweeping pro-working class fiscal policies may be within reach for Portlanders.

Global Politics

Can Iran Defeat Israel? - John J. Mearsheimer

In this segment, international relations scholar John J. Mearsheimer outlines the material geopolitical incentives driving a war with Iran, Iran’s far greater capacity for waging a protracted military campaign compared to other recent American adversaries in the Middle East, and the potential ramifications that would stem from direct U.S. involvement in the conflict.

Affordable housing must not be mistaken for low-quality housing – Minister - GhanaWeb

As Africa’s population explodes and the continent continues to industrialize, housing demands are becoming an increasingly important component of the conversation. Ghana has sought to remedy the deficit in housing by launching an Affordable Housing Project.

At the Africa Real Estate Conference and Expo in Accra, Gizella Tetteh-Abgouti, Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Works and Housing, reiterated the need for affordable housing, while reminding the audience that affordable need not be conflated with low quality. She called on stakeholders to embrace innovative thinking in order to achieve Ghana’s ambitious housing targets.

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every week by subscribing.

Subscribe now

A day late and a dollar short, but hey; who’s keeping track? This week’s digest is chock full of increasingly hectic developments, both domestically and globally, so buckle up.

🇺🇸 American News

🏴 Donald Trump Manufactured the Crisis in Los Angeles - Meagan Day/Jacobin

The Los Angeles protests (which have generally been confined to a few intersections across L.A.’s sprawling 4000 square miles) have largely been characterized by mainstream outlets as fiery frenzies setting the city ablaze. Though this characterization is patently exaggerated, even if we grant that the Trump Administration’s expanded ICE abductions have incited some level of justifiable outrage, that outrage has been needlessly enflamed by Trump’s authoritarian crackdown in deploying the Marines and National Guard against American citizens.

Meagan Day at Jacobin compellingly argues that the Trump Administration is stoking a violent response as a means of distracting from his own policy failures, while she deftly recenters the argument around what matters: punitive crackdowns on illegal immigrants as a tool of distraction from and scapegoating for exploitative economic policy.

🐖 A Tale of Two Resolutions: 75 Dems Join GOP in Resolution Praising Trump’s Mass Deportation Regime - Jonathan Cohn

In a resolution ostensibly crafted to target antisemitism, Republicans explicitly called for honoring Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers in their battle against “terrorism”, even after watering down its most absurd elements. Even the liberal Zionist entity J Street struggled to understand what this vapid resolution sought to accomplish beyond scoring rhetorical brownie points for the right.

Still, in spite of this, 75 Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in the House and pushed this resolution through during a moment in which the country is revolting against Trump’s draconian immigration policies. I was surprised to see Congressman Dave Min amongst them, who, at his University of California Irvine town hall the other day, paid shallow lip service to protecting student immigrants, a prominent target of the Trump Administration.

🏃‍♂️ David Hogg exits DNC - David Weigel/Semafor

David Hogg’s short tenure as DNC Vice Chair came to an abrupt end this week after a spat with party insiders over his plan to put money behind younger candidates challenging older incumbents in nationwide Democratic Primaries culminated in his exit.

While the Democratic Party’s gerontocratic tendencies do present their own set of problems (such as when members, y’know, die, giving Republicans the majorities they need to pass harmful legislation), fixating on this element of their failings as Hogg sought to do is more like contending with a symptom rather than the disease. The Democratic Party is overrepresented by older people because older people are more likely to have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, to adhere to corporate benefactors and the consultancy class, and to be averse to positively transformative popular initiatives (especially those which would upset the economic balance), but these problems are not necessarily exclusive to older politicians. Plenty of younger Republicans and Democrats alike reflect the same degree of incongruity with American voters and working class values; these problems are a function of the political class’ incentive structures.

📈 Mamdani surges in new poll, leading Cuomo for first time in New York mayor’s race - Nick Reisman and Joe Anuta/Politico

Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim socialist, is currently leading Democratic mainstay and credibly accused rapist and negligent ex-governor Andrew Cuomo in the race for mayorship of one of America’s largest cities.

This video Zohran hosted for the (now defunct) Gravel Institute is now over 4 years old, yet remains evergreen both in the context of his campaign and more broadly:

⛓️ Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk shares various clips highlighting ICE’s ruthless campaign against hardworking immigrants and families

🌍 Global News

Surprise: CIA link to sketchy Israeli aid scheme - Kelly Beaucar Vlahos/Responsible Statecraft

The Gaza Humanitarian Organization, which was billed by the U.S. and Israel as a “neutral” arbiter of aid, began falling apart before it could even get off the ground. Many of its most prominent partners began fleeing the project, and once instituted, it became increasingly clear that the purpose was to corral Gazans and bait them southward as part of Israel’s long term plan to expel them out into the Sinai Peninsula. Now, it is becoming increasingly evident that both American and Israeli intelligence agencies are behind the project in meaningful ways.

Gaza is reportedly suffering a total comms blackout. No phones. No internet. Across north, south, and central Gaza - Drop Site News

Did an anonymous Twitter account with a squirrel profile picture accurately predict Israel’s strikes on Iran?

Last night, Israel struck multiple targets inside Iran, killing dozens of civilians and injuring hundreds more in the process. It should go without saying at this point that, after over 30 years of baseless allegations about Iran’s imminent nuclear capabilities and a tried and true track record of dragging Americans into needless war, an Israeli attack on Iran is very obviously being done under the presumption that America will soon come to Israel’s aid.

Never mind all of the reasons that a hot skirmish between the United States and Iran could spiral into a global bloodbath; last month, zei_squirrel on Twitter laid out their analysis of news circulating at that time which alleged that Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu was floundering. They laid out a perspective not seen nearly anywhere else and which turned out to be highly prescient. The full thread is worth a read and is available via the link in the headline above.

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

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After a bit of a hiatus, I am back to publishing on a more frequent basis. This week’s digest focuses on Trump’s expanding crackdown against migrants and citizens alike.

The clip embedded above comes from the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference during a segment in which the speakers ironically embraced the label of “domestic terrorist” as a tongue-in-cheek jab against what they saw as the politically charged application of the term by Democrats. As you will read below, Trump’s counterterrorism efforts have been geared towards exactly those ends: the targeting of political enemies.

From Praxis

From Around the Web

🕵🏻‍♂️ The government is expanding its scope and focus on domestic terrorism to target political enemies

Ken Klippenstein

What are "Nihilistic Violent Extremists"?

The arson attack on Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s home has unified the national security state around a broader threat it sees in the American people…

Read more

a year ago · 368 likes · 30 comments · Ken Klippenstein

Ken Klippenstein

Trump's Counterterror Czar Proposes Terror Charges for Political Opponents

White House counterterror czar Sebastian Gorka said today that Americans who are not on board with the Trump administration’s immigration policy are “on the side of terrorists…

Read more

a year ago · 421 likes · 39 comments · Ken Klippenstein

Ken Klippenstein

Trump Admin Orders Social Media Review on Gaza

Secretary of State Marco Rubio today ordered the vetting of all visa applicants who have been to the Gaza strip since 2007, according to a diplomatic cable marked “SENSITIVE” that we obtained…

Read more

a year ago · 170 likes · 4 comments · Ken Klippenstein

The Trump Administration is seeking to expand the net it casts when it comes to identifying and suppressing terrorism. Officially, “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” have become the primary subject of this new Trump Administration’s counterterrorism efforts, a broad label which could include virtually anybody, since the label is not exclusive to any particular or coherent political ideology. Perhaps in a less official but still substantive capacity, there has been increased scrutiny on those sympathetic to Palestine, as well as those sympathetic to migrants implicated in Trump’s draconian abduction policies, such as Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

🇺🇸 American citizens are being implicated, profiled, and detained by ICE

‘Treated like a criminal': US citizen says he was detained returning from Canada
(via NBC Boston)

U.S.-born man held for ICE under Florida’s new anti-immigration law
(via Florida Phoenix)

The Trump Administration is continuing to detain American citizens and permanent residents. In the first story linked above, a Lebanese man was returning by car from a vacation in Canada when he was detained and had his phone searched. In the second story, a U.S.-born hispanic man was pulled over for going 78 miles per hour in a 65 zone and was subsequently asked to remain in detention by ICE, even though his birth certificate was presented in court.

At this point, when traveling abroad from the U.S., it would be prescient to bring a burner phone that you don’t mind being confiscated and searched by Customs and Border Protection.

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

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I’ve been working diligently on my next long form piece. A lot of research has gone into it, but it’s going to need just a bit more time. Various life circumstances have made this a very difficult month for me to devote time to Praxis.

In any case, take a look at this round-up of stories from around the web:

🤕📉 Trump Administration lowers the minimum wage for federal contractors from $17.75/hr to $13.30/hr

🇾🇪💬 The Trump Administration accidentally leaks war crimes to The Atlantic

Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg found himself befuddled when he was suddenly added to a group chat on Signal, the encrypted messaging app, with Trump Administration officials. The chat included figures purporting to be leading government officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, amongst others. They were coordinating last week’s airstrikes on Yemen. Goldberg had assumed the conversation to be spam or an elaborate prank, until he realized that specific strike plans lined up perfectly with news of the strikes well ahead of time.

Included in the messages was a segment in which various officials celebrate the leveling of an entire residential building in order to assassinate a single target, an alleged war crime.

Notably, Jeffrey Goldberg is an ex-IDF prison guard who dropped out of an Ivy League college to serve. He once wrote about aiding to cover up prisoner abuses. Perhaps the Trump Administration felt he’d be amenable to strikes on Yemen as a result of his perceived ties to Israel, who has been the subject of the economic blockade by Yemen in the Red Sea that led to these retaliatory strikes.

In the days following the revelation, the Trump Administration has sought to deflect, misdirect, and downplay the significance of the incident. Many have rightfully questioned why sensitive military content and attack plans are being discussed on a corporate messaging platform in the first place.

⚖️🛢️ Climate group Greenpeace required by a North Dakota jury to pay a fossil fuel company $667 million for peacefully protesting

Renowned climate activist Steven Donziger (who himself was embroiled in a controversial legal battle with the fossil fuel industry) writes, “The proceedings were so deeply flawed – at core the trial was really about crushing dissent — that I believe there is a good chance it will be reversed on appeal and ultimately backfire against the plaintiff Energy Transfer pipeline company.”

Legal observers have decried the suit as a classic example of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), or a lawsuit intended to dissuade public dissent on an issue. In the case, which was originally slapped down in 2019, fossil fuel company Energy Transfer argued that the climate activism group was engaging in “terrorism” by organizing peaceful protests.

The trial took place in a solidly pro-Trump county, and the majority of participants on the jury had ties to the fossil fuel industry, while none of them had indigenous ties, in spite of indigenous rights being central to the protests in question. We shall have to see how Greenpeace’s appeal proceeds. If it is determined that a mistrial took place, then Greenpeace may wind up being the ones who ultimately receive a payout.

🇵🇸⛓️ Students continue to be abducted by ICE for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights

Here is a list representing just a small fraction of the students across the country who have been abducted or have had their visas or residencies challenged as a result of being outspoken on the issue of Palestine:

• Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student who led negotiations between encampments and university faculty.

• Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) economic protest movement against Israel.

• Ranjani Srinivasan, another Columbia student who lightly participated in protests in support of Palestinians.

• Yunseo Chung, a resident of the U.S. since she was 7 and yet another Columbia student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. She has thus far managed to avoid being arrested thanks to an ongoing lawsuit.

Columbia, which has a rich history of Palestinian studies, has been a particular target of the Trump Administration’s crosshairs, as protests in the spring of last year exploded when police and pro-Zionist agitators sought to enflame tensions. The federal government has cut $400 million in funding for the university. In an attempt to have this funding restored, the university has largely kowtowed to Trump’s demands, albeit to no avail so far and at the great expense of many students.

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This week’s collection of stories is a bit of a doozy in both number and magnitude, so bear with me. I thought about splitting the digest into two pieces for this week, but by the time I had considered it, it was already probably too late.

Without further ado:

🇻🇪🇸🇻 U.S. deports hundreds of potentially innocent undocumented Venezuelans to brutal El Salvador prison

Trump has invoked a 1798 wartime law in order to justify deporting hundreds of Venezuelans to one of the most brutal prisons in the world without due process. The Alien Enemies Act was previously employed to justify Japanese internment. The Trump Administration has attempted to justify the deportations by baselessly alleging that all of the deportees are associated with the gangs Tren de Aragua and MS-13. Without due process, it’s impossible to know for certain, though easily available evidence already appears to be disputing these sweeping claims:

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, known for anti-democratic mandates and widespread punitive crackdowns involving torture, disappearances, and death, agreed to jail people on behalf of the U.S. earlier last month. The prisoners are being housed in the country’s mega prison, CERCOT, and are facing brutal and humiliating treatment.

🇾🇪 "Anti-war" Trump launches war on Yemen on Israel’s behalf

Earlier this week, the U.S. struck eight provinces in Yemen as the first stage in what they are describing as a large scale military operation against the Houthis, otherwise known as Ansar Allah. The strikes reportedly killed 53 people and injured 100 others. A Yemeni health ministry official cited that most of the victims were women and children. Graphic scenes from the aftermath of the strike seem to corroborate this.

These strikes come as retaliation against Yemen’s naval blockade of trade ships in the Red Sea, a vital trade route for Israel, as well as their largely futile efforts to lob missiles at Israel to basically no avail. Ansar Allah has been exercising this blockade since Israel began pummeling Gaza. On Truth Social, Trump posted:

To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!

Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world, has suffered an immense humanitarian crisis over the years at the hands of the U.S.-backed Saudis. It is estimated that U.S.-supplied weapons have aided Saudi Arabia in killing over 377,000 people in the country since the start of their war. Now, Trump appears to be trying to take the fight directly to these besieged peoples over their protest against genocide in Gaza.

🇵🇸 With sign-off from Trump, Israel breaks the ceasefire and carpet bombs Gaza in the dead of night, killing hundreds

Around 2 A.M. on Tuesday, Israel carried out a massacre against Gaza, killing hundreds of innocents, including children. Scenes of the incident posted on social media paint a chilling and hellish image of the event.

It appears that Israel intentionally carried out the attack to sabotage an imminent breakthrough between Hamas and American negotiators. Netanyahu is calling these strikes “only the beginning”.

🫏🤕 Senate Democrats effectively give up the power to overturn Trump’s tariffs

Under the counsel of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, ten Senate Democrats broke away from party consensus to provide Republicans with the keys to pass their spending bill.

The bill was being blocked from being brought to the floor by cloture, a legislative process requiring 60 votes to end a filibuster. Republicans’ narrow majority meant that they needed enough Democrats to break away to give them the 60 votes required.

After the Democrats awarded them this, the actual funding bill set to be brought to the floor only required a simple majority (50 votes), which Republicans comfortably secured. The funding bill effectively allocates billions of dollars away from agencies like the NIH and IRS and towards defense spending. Perhaps most importantly, a provision in the bill strips the ability of Congress to block some Trump tariffs.

Not passing the bill would’ve put the government at risk of a shutdown (a risk that Trump was likely not comfortable with), and yet the Democrats were willing to entirely cede their only leverage for virtually nothing in return. In response to Schumer’s flimsy rationale about a hypothetical government shutdown giving Trump and DOGE carte blanche to sabotage government agencies, one should wonder, how exactly is that any different from what is currently happening? Any agencies with the power to intervene that would be impacted by a potential shutdown aren’t really doing much to begin with.

Understandably, both the Democratic base and many elected officials are not happy about their party’s feckless capitulation to Republicans, with many floating potential replacements for party leadership. The Democratic Party has recently reached an all-time low in the polls, with only 7% of respondents feeling very positive about the party.

🪦💸 People report missing Social Security payments after falsely being declared as deceased

Americans are already beginning to feel the pain of DOGE’s disingenuous assault on Social Security, as live and well individuals like Ned Johnson from the article linked above report having their payments frozen after erroneously being marked as dead.

✈️⛓️ Green card holders continue to be arbitrarily detained and tortured

In addition to the ongoing case of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card carrying Columbia student who was detained by ICE for his outspoken views on Palestine, others are beginning to report being arbitrarily detained. From the story linked above, Fabian Schmidt, upon returning from a trip to Luxembourg, was allegedly detained, stripped naked and showered, interrogated, and made to bear deplorable conditions by border patrol, all while ill and with minimal food, water, and sleep.

🇨🇳🚗 Chinese EV firm BYD unveils battery tech that can charge 300 miles in five minutes

Chinese electric vehicles continue to impress with cutting edge developments, as bad news continues to mount against Tesla, who has seen nearly a 40% reduction in their stock’s value since the beginning of this year. Lack of access to charging infrastructure has been a major hurdle for EV adoption in the States, so anything to improve the experience markedly by reducing friction like faster charging speeds would be a boon to the industry.

BYD’s new vehicles are set to go on sale in China next month.

🏦📈 People report up to 10x increases in student loan payment amounts under Trump

After pausing applications for all income-driven student loan plans, the Trump Administration has caused some student loan monthly payments to surge in price, with some citing the difference being 10x as much. With Trump intending to shutter the Department of Education entirely, the worst is likely yet to come.

🇷🇸 Massive anti-corruption protests take place in Serbia’s capital

🇲🇽🇵🇸 Mexico’s Jewish president recognizes the state of Palestine by welcoming an official Palestinian Ambassador

This article is part of a digest series delivered every Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events of the week, along with my own brief commentary.

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I was unable to publish last week due to work-related obligations. However, I plan to get back on top of it, starting with this week’s roundup of stories!

You may notice that the name of the digest has changed, and I’ve decided to move the cadence from twice a week to once a week. The latter change will hopefully allow to me give more focus to the most important current events of a given week by way of their own articles.

With that out of the way, take a few minutes to check these stories out:

🪖🏥 Trump plans to cut 80,000 jobs from Veterans Affairs

🇵🇭⛓️ Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the despotic former president of the Phillipines, has been arrested by the ICC

Duterte was perhaps best known for his violent war on drugs, in which he executed the extrajudicial killing of thousands of mostly poor people in urban centers. He was also condemned for his crackdown on the press, notably targeting Nobel Prize winning journalist Maria Ressa and employees of her news organization, Rappler, for being critical of his administration.

🇦🇷🔥 Argentina revolts against Javier Milei’s austerity measures

Pensioners and others have taken to the streets in response to Argentine President Javier Milei’s recent pension cuts, as well as his failed austerity policies more broadly. Under Milei’s purview, Argentina’s poverty rate has soared to over 50%.

Recently, he has also sought to secure a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This process normally requires congressional approval in Argentina, which he has sought to circumvent by emergency decree. The country’s already deep debt trap with the IMF will be exacerbated further by these new loans.

📚📉 Department of Education staff cut in half as Trump seeks to dismantle it

Layoffs hit the Department of Education earlier this week, relieving about 2,000 workers, or half of the agency, of their duties. Trump has long promised to dismantle the department entirely, and these layoffs represent a major step in that direction. Eliminating the department would likely eliminate 180,000 teaching jobs, jeopardize special education programs serving 7.5 million students, weaken the government’s ability to combat discrimination in schools, and put Pell Grants and federal student loans at risk. Many in Trump’s orbit have long sought to fully privatize the student loan program, putting higher education even further out of reach for more people across the country.

🇵🇸🚔 Mahmoud Khalil, Palestinian Activist and Permanent American Resident, Disappeared by ICE

🇬🇷🕯️ Two years on, Greece's workers demand accountability for a deadly rail crash

Dispatch from Below is a digest delivered every Monday and Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and international current events, along with my own brief commentary.

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I know that I technically did not publish a digest on Monday, but I was feeling a bit exhausted. I did release this piece examining the future of generative AI and the implications for the economy that I recommend you check out if you haven’t already!

Otherwise, let’s dig into the some of the most major stories of the week:

🚔🇷🇴 Trump grants refuge to convicted sex traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate

The brothers, who were being held in Romania on charges of rape, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation of women (for all of which there are mountains of evidence from their own mouths), have fled the country after Trump administration officials pressured Romania to lift travel restrictions on them.

🇺🇸🇷🇺 U.S. Votes against U.N. Resolution condemning Russia

In the meantime, it appears that Trump and Zelenskyy are set to meet Friday to sign a deal which grants the United States 50% ownership on all future revenue earned from Ukraine’s state-owned natural resources.

👩‍⚖️🏛️ Judge issues order restraining Elon and DOGE from Department of Education and Office of Personnel Management

In response to requests from labor unions, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman has issued a temporary restraining order against DOGE, restricting them from accessing sensitive data in the DOE and OPM. It is unclear whether or not the administration will comply, nor what may happen if they choose not to.

⛓️🪖 Ex-Blackwater CEO (the private mercenary group responsible for war crimes) wants to help Trump build a private army to do deportations

Erik Prince, the ex-CEO of Blackwater, the private mercenary group which aided George W. Bush in his destructive campaign on Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands, has been circulating a proposal to aid President Trump with deportations. The proposal includes creating a 10,000 man army of private citizens and housing migrants in camps at U.S. Army installations. Apt comparisons are being made to other private partisan militias of the 20th century.

🚩📈 Die Linke, the German Left Party, outperforms expectations in German elections

After polling at 2% for some time, the German Left party soared to nearly 9% this week as German elections took place. In some progressive strongholds like Berlin, Die Linke won a majority of the vote. Although there is some understandably grim reporting about AfD, the far-right party, surging basically 100% since the last election, Die Linke returning from the brink should inspire hope that strong left-wing parties who stand for proudly for a progressive vision can serve as a real alternative to deepening rightward tendencies in the west.

💰🥊 Bernie Sanders launches “Fighting Oligarchy” tour while Biden and Harris are nowhere to be seen

Bernie Sanders emerged to thunderous applause as he launched his “Fighting Oligarchy” rally tour in the midwest. By contrast, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, the recently vacated leaders of the party, have virtually been nowhere to be found (aside from signing with talent agencies, apparently).

The dichotomy is deeply emblematic of the current state of the Democratic party. Voters’ pleas for some action to curtail the Trump Administration’s assault on vital programs and agencies have largely fallen on deaf ears. The same centrist leaders who fear-baited voters for years about an imminent fascist threat are now seemingly absent when said threat has become more concretely manifest than it’s ever been. Only the most progressive members of the party, who have for so long been derided as unreasonable extremists both by their opposition and peers, have been mounting any sort of rigorous response.

Dispatch from Below is a digest delivered every Monday and Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and current events, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every weekend by subscribing.

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My next long-form piece is underway, but it needs a bit more time in the oven before I’m ready to hit publish. As such, it will probably have to arrive next week. For now, why not catch up with some of the most interesting stories I’ve collected this week?

👑 Trump signs an executive order declaring himself as the sole interpreter of law over independent agencies

This executive order requires all executive branch agencies to report and run any draft regulations and strategies by Trump, with their enactment subject to his approval and discretion. Functionally, this vests in Trump near-absolute power over federal agencies. This comes as Trump has recently likened himself to a king and quoted notorious French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

🔨 Lina Khan FTC Merger Guidelines to remain in effect, in spite of her ouster

🇧🇷 In Brazil: Bolsonaro charged with co-conspiring to poison Lula

Jair Bolsonaro, the former right-wing president of Brazil, has been charged with participating in a failed conspiracy to poison his political opponent and current president, Lula de Silva. Prosecutors suggest that they have assembled a mountain of evidence, including text message correspondence between Bolsonaro and co-conspirators.

🇺🇦 Trump proposes Treaty-of-Versailles-levels of economic punishment upon Ukraine

The Trump Administration is proposing a 50% cut on all revenues generated from extracted resources in Ukraine, a cut of their GDP that would rival the reparations imposed on Germany at the end of World War I (WWI). Notably, Germany was an aggressor state in WWI, and the economic conditions brought about by the treaty could be seen as partially responsible for for giving rise to the Nazi Party.

He has likened Zelenskyy to a dictator and suggests that Zelenskyy started the war. Insofar as Zelenskyy played a role in provoking the conflict by snuggling up to the west and expressing a provocative (if empty) desire to join NATO, Russia initiated the offensive, and the United States has been instrumental in prolonging and exacerbating the conflict as a means of overextending Russia since at least 2014, including under Trump. To impose economic devastation on the people of Ukraine, who’ve already suffered immensely as pawns in a proxy war, would be unusually and needlessly cruel and punitive.

🗳️ Democratic Party Politicans are more angry at grassroots groups than they are at Republicans

Reporting from Axios indicates that Democrats are frustrated by grassroots constituent groups inundating congresspeople with phone calls to action.

Democrats have rightfully been handed a lot of heat lately for their weak response (when one is even offered up at all) to Trump Administration actions, like sweeping and illegal cuts to government agencies, with many Democrats even voting to confirm Trump cabinet nominees.

Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic House Minority Leader, recently came under fire for asking revealingly in a now-viral clip, “What leverage do we have?” Well, from the ivory halls of congress, I’d reckon that they have a lot more leverage than the average Joe calling in.

✂️ D.O.G.E agency cuts continue

D.O.G.E. agency cuts have extended to the following agencies:

• CISA, an election security watchdog, has ceased operations

• NIH, which funds scientific and medical research, has had their funding cut so drastically that entire fields of research may be under threat

• NASA, notably a competitor to Musk’s private counterpart in SpaceX, was set to cut 1,000 employees before terminations were paused temporarily

• Social Security, whose top official was pressured to resign by D.O.G.E., is currently under assault by the Trump Administration with false claims of widespread payments to dead recipients (see section below)

🗽 Trump bribes New York City Mayor to take up immigration crackdown

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has had corruption charges dropped, seemingly in exchange for allowing Trump’s ICE to run roughshod over the city in search of migrants. The charges allege that he was accepting bribes from foreign nationals, including allowing them to construct skyscrapers in the city without passing safety inspections.

Mayor Adams seems to have been setting the stage for this new bribe for some time. He began to pivot towards a tougher position on immigration as Trump’s return to the presidency seemed likelier and as investigations into his past bribes began to escalate.

🤥 D.O.G.E. pushes lies about Social Security

Recently, Trump and Musk have been pushing claims that Social Security has been issuing payments to people aged 100 and beyond. However, according to the Social Security Administration Inspector General report, 98% of the ~18 million people over the age of 100 recorded in the database as still living are not receiving payments, which would be consistent with Census Bureau data stating that around 86,000 living people in the U.S. are over the age of 100. These entries in the SSA database are likely improperly marked as living due to their death occurring before the advent of electronic death records. The report suggests that it would cost millions to correct these discrepancies, a cost not worth the benefit if most entries don’t actually represent wasted payments.

Dispatch from Below is a digest delivered every Monday and Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and current events, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every weekend by subscribing.

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The most notable story from this weekend has to be Trump’s escalation in firings, targeting hundreds of thousands of workers across government agencies in a move that is sure to hamstring many vital government functions. Read about this and more below:

🇦🇷💰 Argentine President and Trump ally under investigation for promoting a crypto scam

Notably, on the eve of his inauguration, Trump launched a meme coin that he and his affiliates own an 80 percent stake in.

🇮🇱📵 Former Congressman Mike Gallagher says that the TikTok ban was primarily motivated by a desire to control messaging for Israel

Ken Klippenstein

TikTok Ban Fueled by Israel, Not China

It all started with Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and concerns about anti-Semitic content on the social media platform TikTok. It all ended with a classified briefing and a foolish attempt, still alive, to ban the social media platform…

Read more

a year ago · 611 likes · 16 comments · Ken Klippenstein

At the Munich Security Conference, Senator Mark Warner and former Congressman Mike Gallagher confirmed what many had suspected for some time: that the TikTok ban was accelerated by a desire to control messaging around October 7th and Israel’s punitive campaign of bombardment on Gaza.

The linked article outlines a long series of revelations and leaks from the past year and a half that have long affirmed this notion, including accounts from and about high-ranking Israeli diplomats expressing discontentment with the platform.

🇺🇸🔥 Trump fires huge swaths of probationary employees across the federal government, including nuclear safety officials

This weekend, Trump directed agencies to fire nearly all probationary (generally meaning hired within the last few years) employees who’d not yet received civil service protection, with warnings of more cuts to come. Civil service protection grants civilian, non-partisan employees in the federal government the assurance that their hiring and firing would be based on performance-based assessments, not partisan whims. While probationary workers are easier to fire than tenured staff, the reasoning still must be rooted in performance-oriented evaluations, which is impossible to claim for a sweeping mandate like this affecting hundreds of thousands of workers simultaneously.

The logic here is likely rooted in reducing operating costs and the notion that people seeking employment under Biden are potentially more sympathetic to the Democratic Party.

Amongst those workers impacted include 300 officials who oversee the safety of nuclear weapons programs (who the Trump administration subsequently attempted to rehire upon realizing their blunder).

Towards the end of Trump’s first term, he implemented a provision known as Schedule F, which essentially carved out a new category of civil servant employment that stripped non-partisan protection away by requiring loyalty to the administration. He and his new Office of Management and Budget chief have expressed plans to reimplement Schedule F, which would functionally allow Trump to fire whomever he pleases across the federal government. It’s also worth noting that it will be difficult for future administrations to rebuild these agencies, as hiring is much more difficult than firing, especially in the public sector, where wages are not always as competitive as private counterparts for similar work.

Most likely, Trump will pull any levers he can to eliminate, cripple, or vacate government agencies wherever possible, except those that directly benefit his greatest benefactors in the corporate world. The administration appears to be pulling directly from Argentine President Milei’s scorched earth anti-government playbook, who has overseen a meteoric rise in Argentina’s poverty rate from around 25 to over 50 percent, potentially a sign of things to come here in the U.S.

Dispatch from Below is a digest delivered every Monday and Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and current events, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every weekend by subscribing.

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This week’s headlines feature a hodgepodge of globe-spanning events, and yet, three weeks after its inception, we still find Trump’s administration at the center of many of these stories. In any case, here are some of the most noteworthy happenings this week:

🇺🇦 Trump seeks to negotiate a resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war with Putin in deal that will cede territory to Russia

🥕 Trump’s foreign aid freeze leaves boatloads of food originally bound for foreign recipients sitting to rot at ports

📈 American Inflation hits year-long high and is increasing rapidly

🇿🇦 Trump extends refugee status to white Afrikaners while refugee programs for black and brown nations remains paused

In a move which brazenly contradicts Trump’s ostensible anti-immigrant posture, Trump has signed an executive order which extends refugee status to white South Africans on the basis of helping them escape new land expropriation laws designed to serve justice for decades of racially motivated apartheid. Apartheid, which included explicit land control restrictions on black people, only ended just around 35 years ago, and so white South Africans still control around 70% of farmland. Notably, Elon Musk is a white South African who was raised there during the apartheid era and is likely influencing the administration’s actions on this matter.

🇧🇫 West African nation of Burkina Faso debuts an electric car

Burkina Faso, the West African nation which has taken a continuously confrontational attitude towards western neocolonialism since Ibrahim Traoré took power, has just launched a homegrown electric car. Perhaps this signifies humble new beginnings for a nation which has been stifled and wrought by exploitation since the assassination of their visionary leader, Thomas Sankara.

📊 Germany’s left wing party, Die Linke, surges in the polls

Germany’s democratic socialist party has surged in polling beyond the 5% mark required to remain in the Bundestag (German parliament). This comes as people across the nation rally against the insurgent neofascist AfD party, which has has surged in the polls from 10 percent up to 20 percent since the last election, in spite of the party’s deep connections to Neo-Nazis and virulent anti-immigration attitudes.

🇵🇸 Israel appears to be attempting to sabotage the ceasefire

According to Hamas, Israel has not been holding up its end of the bargain, especially as it pertains to aid. 53,000 of the 200,000 promised tents have been allowed in, and none of the 60,000 mobile housing units have arrived. Trump and Netanyahu have promised to “let hell break out” if all Israeli hostages are not released by Saturday, in spite of not abiding by the deal and against the backdrop of Trump attempting to extort leaders in Jordan and Egypt to accept his resettlement proposal by threatening to cut off foreign aid.

📡 Trump loyalist and FCC Chair Brendan Carr is being used as a tool of extortion by the Trump administration against his enemies

Trump is weaponizing the FCC to attack enemies and extort them. Trump has a long history of seeking to silence his enemies in media through legal action. Now, he is using the FCC to block a merger being organized by CBS’s parent company unless they settle with him over a frivolous lawsuit. Additionally, the FCC is attacking free speech rights in other ways, including targeting companies for DEI initiatives.

🔪 Republican budget resolution seeks to cut Medicaid by $880 billion, food stamp program by at least 20%

This comes after prior reporting from the New York Times detailing a grab bag of social spending cuts Republicans were tossing around in order to pay for Trump’s anticipated $5T in tax cuts:

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My next long-form analytical piece is in the works and should be out this week. For now, let’s cover the most recent chapter in what appears to be a brewing constitutional crisis.

Various Lawsuits Filed Against Trump Administration

• “Judge blocks Trump administration from cutting research funding after 22 states sue”

• “Judge Partially Blocks DOGE Data Access in Response to Lawsuit by AFGE, Allies” (Federal Workers Union)

• “US ordered not to release list of FBI agents tied to Jan. 6 cases”

Trump Forces California to Needlessly Release Billions of Gallons of Water in Fire-related PR Stunt, Stoking Fears from Farmers That There Won’t Be Ample Water for the Summer

Trump to Allow Corporations to Bribe Foreign Officials

In the first days of Trump’s presidency, he had revoked existing executive orders which prevented lobbyists from bribing executive branch officials with gifts, money, and promises of future employment. Now, he has directed the DOJ to ease the enforcement of a law intended to stop U.S. companies from bribing officials overseas.

DOGE Infiltrates the Department of Energy, Risking Unqualified Access to Nuclear Secrets

In what appears to have become a theme, yet another group of unqualified twenty-something interns from one of Elon’s other ventures has gained access to a crucial government department, this time being the Department of Energy. Concerningly, this is the department tasked with overseeing nuclear weapons programs. Though Trump’s new energy secretary, fossil fuel executive Chris Wright, has sought to assuage concerns that the consultants’ lack of security clearance would bar them from accessing nuclear secrets, this hasn’t stopped them from accessing sensitive information from other agencies, like USAID and the Treasury.

Musk Tries to Kill Consumer Protection Agency so That He Can Do Fraud

Elon Musk is attempting to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), likely in order to benefit his future X banking product as well as the financial interests of others in his orbit.

The CFPB is responsible for fighting fraud and abuse perpetrated by banks and other financial institutions. The agency has saved consumers billions over the years. Closing a single overdraft loophole late last year is estimated to save consumers $6 billion annually, and it’s unclear what’s going to happen to a new rule designed to remove medical debt from credit reports.

Several conflicts of interest are manifestly obvious here. Musk has long touted his plan to turn X into an “everything app” akin to Chinese super apps like WeChat, which include social functions and payment processing. Recently, X and Visa appear to have entered a partnership, bringing this concept closer to reality and meaning that Musk’s company would become imminently subject to the scrutiny of the CFPB. Musk and other billionaires in Trump’s orbit were notably involved in other financial products like PayPal and various crypto ventures, as well.

Judge Accuses the Trump Administration of Ignoring a Court Order to Unfreeze Spending

A judge had ordered the Trump administration to reverse its sweeping federal funding freeze. Although the administration has partially done so, funding for some agencies, like the National Health Institute (NIH) (which funds disease research) and USAID remain frozen.

Vice President J.D. Vance and Musk have both publicly questioned the authority judges wield over Trump and the executive branch. “Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power,” Vance suggests. But if the administration feels that the judge has unfairly declared an executive action as unconstitutional (an act well within the constitutional designs of the judicial branch), there is an appeals process that they may follow to escalate accordingly. Simply ignoring judicial rulings, which is what Trump’s acolytes appear to be advocating for, would effectively grant dictatorial power to the executive and pave the way for a constitutional crisis. Let’s hope that, should it come to that, other institutions are robust enough to stand as a bulwark against unfettered centralization of governmental power.

Dispatch from Below is a digest delivered every Monday and Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and current events, along with my own brief commentary.

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We are now in week three of Trump’s nascent administration, and yet he continues to flood the zone and dominate the airwaves with increasingly intense, illegal, or perplexing executive actions at an unrelenting frequency. Here are some of the most notable stories to emerge out of earlier this week.

Israel and U.S. Exit U.N. Human Rights Council

Israel Escalates Attacks on West Bank’s Jenin, Leveling Buildings and Killing the Elderly

Republican Congressman Introduces Bill to Destroy Workplace Safety Agency

Nine Global South Nations Form “the Hague Group” to Uphold ICC and ICJ Rulings Against Israel

Trump Pledges, Then Partially Rescinds Tariff War

Under the pretense of combatting illegal immigration and drug trade, Trump threatened our neighbors with tariffs that were set to go into effect on Tuesday. The tariffs would’ve applied a 25% tax on imports from Canada and Mexico, while Canadian energy products would only be subject to a 10% tariff. To be clear, the cost of these tariffs would be passed onto American citizens, not the countries they are targeting, with the intent being to compel people and corporations away from doing business with entities operating in these targeted countries, having a potentially crippling effect on these targets in the long term.

However, in the face of retaliatory tit-for-tat responses from these nations, Trump quickly “struck a deal” with our neighbors. Canada is pledging $1.3 billion to strengthen its border, while Mexico is promising to send 10,000 troops from its national guard to its border. While Trump is trying to frame these concessions as wins with the American public, Canada had actually announced its border strengthening plan months ago, and Mexico flexibly sends troops in the tens of thousands to and from its border on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, Trump’s 10% tariff imposition on China is in full swing, and China is responding in kind with tariffs on various U.S. imports. The tariffs are bound to have significant effects on larger firms, but what’s not clear is how crippling they may be for smaller entities and sellers due to de minimis exemptions on smaller imports seemingly being axed.

Trump is Preparing to Kill Department of Education

The Trump administration is preparing to direct the secretary of Education to create a plan to dismantle the Department of Education. This is yet another chapter in a long-running quest the right has been on to privatize education and limit its accessibility, or as Ronald Reagan’s education advisor put it when he was governor of California, to limit the “danger of producing an educated proletariat”.

UNRWA Continues Operating Despite Israeli Ban

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is continuing to operate in the region, in spite of a legal ban from Israel predicated on flaky allegations suggesting that some of their officials participated in Hamas’s incursion on October 7th, 2023. UNRWA is one of the largest health, education, and emergency response providers in the Gaza strip. The agency is largely to credit for a spike in Palestinian literacy over time. The government of Israel largely sees a well-educated Palestinian population as a potential threat to their sovereignty.

At a Meeting with Netanyahu, Trump Calls for U.S. To Take Control of Gaza, Suggests that Half a Million Gazans Have Been Killed

At a meeting with Netanyahu, Trump doubled-down on and reiterated his previous calls to fully vacate the Gaza strip. He outlined a vision which included U.S. sovereignty over the strip and callously fantasized about Gaza’s beach-side potential, statements which echoed prior comments from his son-in-law expressing a desire to develop beach-front property in Gaza. As with many of Trump’s prior vapid designs that came to naught, I’d take this with a grain of salt.

During conversations and appearances related to the matter, Trump continuously reiterated that a population of around 1.7 to 1.8 million Gazans would need to be expunged, suggesting that this previously unreported number came to him as official guidance. Official counts were closer to 2.3 million prior to Israel’s campaign that began in October 2023, and most residents were unable to leave, suggesting that the strip’s official death count reported inside the U.S. government may be close to half a million people.

The despot and wanted criminal Netanyahu left Trump a parting gift in the form of a golden pager affixed to a stump, a callous callback to Israel’s terrorist attack on Lebanon, in which pagers acquired by Hezbollah and intercepted and bugged by Israel detonated spontaneously, killing and injuring civilians in the process. Hopefully for Trump, this one is non-explosive.

Dispatch from Below is a digest delivered every Monday and Thursday, highlighting what I find to be the most interesting stories covering politics, working class struggles, and current events, along with my own brief commentary.

You can get it delivered to your inbox every weekend by subscribing.

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Welcome to the first edition of this new digest. I was already producing a sort of digest as a form of coverage of Trump’s executive actions, but I wanted to broaden the scope a bit and increase the cadence. This way, I can keep the longer-form content more focused on the sorts of bigger picture analyses that I’d prefer to write about, rather than covering the seemingly endless barrage of Trump hysteria with unique articles.

With that out of the way, let’s get into it.

Trump’s Bid for Greenland is More Than Bluster?

Reporting from the Lever suggests that Trump’s bid for Greenland may be a serious commitment to some of his closest robber baron companions, such as Marc Andreesen and Peter Thiel, who happen to be funding various initiatives seeking to exploit Greenland’s rare-earth metals and land to establish AI pet projects and fiefdoms.

Trump Threatens to Deport Pro-Palestinian Protestors

Trump’s threats to revoke student visas mirror a Heritage Foundation proposal from last year called Project Esther. Both parties frame this attack on speech rights as a defense against antisemitism.

Three West African States Exit France-Aligned Economic Bloc, Rejecting Neocolonialism

France’s capture of ECOWAS and Macron’s imposition of ruthless dictatorships and sanctions on the bloc of nations have compelled some of them to break away, forming a new and budding independent alliance.

Costco and Teamsters Reach Tentative Agreement and Avert Strike Days After Costco Raises Non-union Pay to $30 an Hour

The deal comes in spite of a currently dysfunctional two-seat NLRB, meaning that there is currently no government body to adjudicate any wrongdoing by Costco were such a thing to take place.

Elon’s Unprecedented Hostile Takeover of Government Agencies

Aided by recent high-school graduates who go by monikers online like “Big Balls”, Elon Musk, the unelected billionaire who has bought his way into the government, and his quasi-agency, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have sought to gain access to and undermine multiple government agencies over the last few days.

It was first reported a few days ago that DOGE had gained access to the Treasury payment systems responsible for processing $6 trillion yearly in federal cash flow with the intent to stymie federal payments. The systems include sensitive information about Medicare and Social Security recipients and could impact those and other vital services if meaningfully disrupted, which is seemingly exactly what Musk intends to do. Musk and his DOGE acolytes (who are supposed to be private citizens) could also potentially misuse the sensitive information to attack political and economic enemies.

Musk and Trump have also sought to pause all foreign aid and dismantle USAID, a controversial agency tasked with delivering aid to developing countries whose budget totals over $50b yearly. While the agency has delivered meaningful aid to the developing world, critics of the agency have lambasted it for delivering aid with strings attached (usually in the form of neoliberal reforms) and often being a friendly front for regime change and counterinsurgency programs and propaganda.

Regardless of how one feels about USAID, many in the third world are actively depending on its benefits and activities today. It being shuttered unexpectedly without reconstituting these functions guarantees significant short term pain for many of its beneficiaries. Between Trump’s imperialist saber-rattling and the agency’s duties seemingly being subsumed by Trump’s State Department, all signs would indicate that the Trump administration has no intention of reforming U.S. intervention abroad (as if that needed stating). Additionally, Trump bucking constitutional precedent, unilaterally dismantling an agency, and locking out its employees with zero input from congress bodes ill should he seek to extend this power elsewhere.