Paul Haeder, Author

writing, interviews, editing, blogging

The president called his base “stupid” and “foolish” for inquiring about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation.

Right-wing weirdo Laura Loomer is one of the MAGA activists closest to Trump, and she told Politico this July 16: “Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who we know is a convicted sexual predator. This is why I said, and I’ll reiterate it again, the best thing that the president can do is appoint a special counsel to handle the Epstein files investigation.”

Leading voices in President Donald Trump’s MAGA base who had been critical for days of the president and administration’s handling of the Epstein files are now rallying to Trump’s defense following a story in the Wall Street Journal, and are celebrating the administration’s move to release grand jury testimony, potentially cooling the backlash among his supporters.

In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ segment, Bishara Bahbah, the founder of Arab Americans for Trump (now renamed Arab Americans for Peace) and Trump’s unofficial mediator with Hamas, tells Mehdi that he still believes, “that the president wants to end this war.”

Mehdi presses the Palestinian-American businessman and activist on Trump’s unfettered support for Israel’s genocide and mad starvation, asking him that if he called Biden ‘Genocide Joe’, “would you also call Donald Trump ‘Genocide Donald’?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Bahbah tells Mehdi, who then pushes back against Bahbah in what becomes a tense exchange on partisanship and double standards.

Mehdi also challenges Bahbah on what he makes of Trump’s use of the word ‘Palestinian’ as a slur; Bahbah defends his relationship with Trump as “a partnership,” and the two also discuss the latest round of ceasefire talks with Israel, where Bahbah served as a mediator between the US and Hamas.

+—+

And MAGA maggots, relishing the chaos and illiteracy: Wisconsin libraries may have to drastically reduce services under new federal funding cuts

“We’ve got 130 years of traditions that are sort of at stake. If we lose this funding, we would have to rebuild and start from scratch again.”

The Semen Drip Room Temperature IQ Trump’s chaos:

Ohio requires buses for private school kids. Public school students have to find their own ride

School districts are responsible for transporting private and charter school kids, leaving thousands of public school students behind

Ohio middle school bans Uber Eats, says it is security concern

For about 2,000 students attending high school in Dayton, Ohio, there won’t be a bus in sight when they walk out the door for the beginning of the school year this week.

Ruben Castillo, an 11th grade student at Meadowdale Career Technology Center, is one of them.

Ohio law means that public school districts such as Dayton’s are responsible for transporting students who attend private and charter schools. When they fail to do so, they risk fines of millions of dollars.

A shortage of drivers and buses combined with the threat of fines, means that public school districts in Dayton and around Ohio find themselves relegating their own students to the back of the transportation line.

“I’m going to have to use Uber, and it’s going to cost me $25-$30 a day to get to and from school,” says Castillo. “In wintertime, when demand is higher, it’s probably going to be more.” At 180 school days over the course of a year, that’s thousands of dollars he is set to fork out from his own pocket

+—+

Trump’s fucking MAGA war: MAGA hate journalists. Brown ones? Palestinians?

+—+

MAGA loves taking food away from fellow (sic) Americans: Oregon faces $15 billion loss in federal funding for health and food programs

MAGA maggots. You still loving your MAGA cunt granddaddy?

Oregon’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid will be the hardest hit.

In a statement, Governor Tina Kotek said, “The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have betrayed American children and families, who will become sicker, hungrier, and less prosperous because of President Trump’s budget bill.

More hell to pay: Oregon to install ‘executive’ SNAP error watchdogs after new federal aid restrictions

The state’s human services department anticipates that the largest chunk of federal cuts estimated to impact the agency will come from new federal cost-sharing measures for food stamps

+—+

All should be drawn and quartered with a Tesla:

And anyone of you, let alone MAGA maggots, give these cocksuckers the time of day on your fucking feeds? ‘We are so back’: MAGA supporters rally around Trump following WSJ Epstein article

And your fucking Semen Drip is so Entitled to his Racism: Trump claims Washington’s murder rate is higher than Bogotá or Mexico City. Here’s what the stats from those countries say

The skyline of Washington, DC on January 29, 2010. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

This is it for the Semen Drip and Putin? Millions spent on this fucked up photo op?

White House confirms Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, calling it ‘listening exercise’

President Trump at a White House press conference.
President Putin at a meeting in Moscow.

And there will be blood on the streets in Iran:

The water crisis in Iran has reached the point of no return

As a relentless heat wave pushes temperatures toward 50°C (122°F), Iran has ordered government offices in 16 provinces, including Tehran, to close Wednesday to conserve electricity. The crisis highlights a deeper struggle: dwindling water supplies, failing infrastructure, and warnings that Tehran’s reservoirs could run dry within months.

Iran: power cuts, water shortages, and a looming disaster | Watch

The meteorological agency warns the heat wave—ongoing since mid-July—will last at least five more days, with scorching temperatures crippling power infrastructure.

Surging demand for air conditioning has triggered prolonged blackouts, leaving residents to endure sweltering conditions.

Villagers in Sistan and Baluchestan wait with plastic containers for limited water supplies amid worsening shortages

Drought reaches breaking point

Tehran faces its worst rainfall in 60 years, drastically depleting reservoirs. The city of 9 million, perched on the edge of Iran’s central desert, has reduced water pressure in pipelines to stretch dwindling supplies.

President Masoud Pezeshkian singled out the Amir Kabir Dam—a key water source—warning that without drastic cuts in usage, Tehran’s dams could be empty by September.

Decades of mismanagement collide

Experts trace the crisis to population growth (from 28 million in 1969 to 92 million today), agricultural overuse, and poor urban planning.

“Nature has borne the consequences,” says environmentalist Mansour Sohrabi, citing deforestation, sandstorms, and pollution from unchecked development.

Cities on the brink

In recent weeks, multiple cities have endured 48-hour water shutoffs. Power grids, already fragile, buckle under demand.

For residents facing 40–50°C heat without reliable electricity or water, the situation is becoming unbearable.

A warning for the future

With resources stretched thin, officials urge conservation—but the clock is ticking.

As Pezeshkian put it: “If we don’t act, there won’t be any water left.”

For Iran, the heat wave isn’t just a seasonal challenge—it’s a preview of crises to come.

So much for BRICS!

Lake Mead

Ahh, the MAGA maggots just love their two-year-old mentally deranged cunt leader: Water negotiations still at impasse as levels decline at Lake Mead = Colorado River crisis deepens as reservoir levels are projected to continue dropping while western states have yet to reach water-sharing agreement.

Colorado River

Trump administration to review 19 Smithsonian museums to ensure exhibits are ‘patriotic’

White House letter orders review as part of a broader push to assert oversight over cultural institutions

an aircraft on display

“This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions,” the letter is reported to say.

Michael Parenti quote: If the test of patriotism comes only by reflexively  falling...
Robert M. La Follette, Sr. quote: Before the war is ended, the war party  assumes the...
60 Catchy Patriotic Quotes and Sayings Sayings Point
These Quotes Will Inspire You in Your Fight Against Fascism – Deceleration

More cuts celebrated by MAGA maggots: Scientists say they cruised the ocean in a deep-sea submersible and came across an undiscovered ecosystem

Scientists exploring the hadal zone between Russia and Alaska say they discovered the deepest known ecosystem, capable of sustaining life without sunlight.

Marine researchers exploring extreme depths say they have discovered an astonishing deep-sea ecosystem of chemosynthetic life that’s fueled by gases escaping from fractures in the ocean bed. The expedition revealed methane-producing microbes and marine invertebrates that make their home in unforgiving conditions where the sun’s rays don’t reach, according to a new study.

Clusters of tube worms extend red tentacles, with small mollusks (white spots) near the tentacles, at 9,320 meters (30,580 feet).

Geochemist Mengran Du had 30 minutes left in her submersible mission when she decided to explore one last stretch of the trenches that lie between Russia and Alaska, about 5,800 to 9,500 meters (19,000 to 30,000 feet) below the ocean’s surface in what’s called the hadal zone. She said she began to notice “amazing creatures,” including various species of clam and tube worm that had never been recorded so deep below the surface.

Scientists observed previously unknown species, including clams, in the hadal trenches.

While Europe burns, while Italians die of heat, this is where those fucking pasta freaks want?

While the monumental, $15.6 billion project is currently scheduled for completion around 2033, both local opponents and the region’s environment may complicate matters.

It’s not a huge distance by most standards. But for millennia, generations of travelers have required a boat to cross Messina Strait separating Sicily and the mainland. Historical records indicate the desire to build a bridge connecting the landmasses dates as far back as ancient Rome, but a final result has never materialized. Today, the easiest and fastest way to commute between the locations is aboard one of the daily 30-minute ferry rides across the strait.

Capitalism is a Death Cult:

Democratic Party Senator Nicola Irto called it a “controversial and divisive” project that will take money away from critical resources including local transit, infrastructure upgrades, school safety, and healthcare Meanwhile, opposition groups like Calabria’s grassroots No To The Bridge committee have argued that the plans need further technical evaluations, and worry about Ponte Stretto Messina’s water requirements. They estimate building the bridge will use millions of gallons of water per day in an area that remains frequently drought-prone.

… again, both sides of the eunuch political aisle – always transactional, not humane . . .

Experts say Trump’s anti-immigrant policies have triggered labor shortages and a tourism slump in US cities like Las Vegas, where international visits fell over 10%. Immigrants—key to Nevada’s workforce—now face job insecurity and harsher legal status.

A Welcome to Las Vegas store is viewed at the Caesars Forum Shops on May 29, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Due Process? Is that getting closer to human rights?

Is this a bit more human?

President Trump has made a slew of immigration policy changes focused on restricting entry at the border and increasing interior enforcement efforts to support mass deportation. These include rescinding protections against enforcement action in previously protected areas such as health care facilities and schools. While many of these actions focus on the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., they will have ripple effects among the much larger number of people in immigrant families, including millions of U.S.-born citizen children. During the first Trump administration, restrictive immigration policies and increased enforcement activity led to increased fears among immigrant families across immigration statuses that had negative effects on health and well-being, employment, and daily life. They also could lead to family separations as well as mass detentions, which can have negative mental and physical health impacts on immigrants across statuses and their children. Mass deportations also could negatively impact the U.S. economy and workforce, given the role immigrants play, particularly in certain industries, including health care.

Key Findings

  • Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government while the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local governments.
  • Undocumented immigrants paid federal, state, and local taxes of $8,889 per person in 2022. In other words, for every 1 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the country, public services receive $8.9 billion in additional tax revenue.
  • More than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes dedicated to funding programs that these workers are barred from accessing. Undocumented immigrants paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes in 2022.
  • At the state and local levels, slightly less than half (46 percent, or $15.1 billion) of the tax payments made by undocumented immigrants are through sales and excise taxes levied on their purchases. Most other payments are made through property taxes, such as those levied on homeowners and renters (31 percent, or $10.4 billion), or through personal and business income taxes (21 percent, or $7.0 billion).
  • Six states raised more than $1 billion each in tax revenue from undocumented immigrants living within their borders. Those states are California ($8.5 billion), Texas ($4.9 billion), New York ($3.1 billion), Florida ($1.8 billion), Illinois ($1.5 billion), and New Jersey ($1.3 billion).
  • In a large majority of states (40), undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households living within their borders.
  • Income tax payments by undocumented immigrants are affected by laws that require them to pay more than otherwise similarly situated U.S. citizens. Undocumented immigrants are often barred from receiving meaningful tax credits and sometimes do not claim refunds they are owed due to lack of awareness, concern about their immigration status, or insufficient access to tax preparation assistance.
  • Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both because their wages would rise and because their rates of tax compliance would increase. Under a scenario where work authorization is provided to all current undocumented immigrants, their tax contributions would rise by $40.2 billion per year to $136.9 billion. Most of the new revenue raised in this scenario ($33.1 billion) would flow to the federal government while the remainder ($7.1 billion) would flow to states and localities.

All differences between U.S.-born and immigrant workers described in the text are statistically significant at the p<0.05 level. In sum, it finds:

  • In 2021, there were 27 million immigrants employed in the labor force, making up close to one in five (17%) nonelderly adult workers (ages 19-64) in the U.S. The share of nonelderly adults who were employed was similar across U.S.-born citizens (78%), naturalized citizens (79%), and noncitizens in the U.S. for five or more years (76%), while it was 63% among recent noncitizens (in the U.S. for less than five years). Compared to their U.S.-born counterparts, nonelderly adult immigrant workers were more likely to be Hispanic or Asian, were younger, and had lower levels of educational attainment.
  • Among nonelderly adults, noncitizen workers were more likely than citizen workers to be employed in construction, agricultural, and service jobs. While some of these differences in occupation patterns likely reflect lower educational levels and skills among immigrant workers, differences in occupations persisted among college-educated workers. One in ten noncitizen workers with a college degree were employed in service jobs, compared with 6% of their U.S.-born peers. College-educated noncitizen workers were also more likely than their citizen counterparts to be employed in construction and transportation jobs.
  • Reflecting these differences in employment patterns, noncitizen workers were more likely than citizen workers to be low-income and uninsured, even among those with college degrees. Roughly one in three noncitizen workers was low-income (below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL)), compared with 15% of U.S.-born workers. In addition, over three in ten nonelderly adult noncitizen workers lacked health insurance, over three times higher than the uninsured rate of their citizen counterparts, reflecting lower rates of private coverage. Incomes and coverage rates were higher among college-educated workers across citizenship statuses, but, among college-educated nonelderly adult workers, noncitizens still were more likely to be low-income and uninsured than their citizen counterparts.

[Chorus]
I only carry my sorrow, my condemnation goes alone
Running is my destiny to evade the law
Lost in the heart of the great Babylon
They call me “the illegal” for not carrying papers

[Verse]
I went to work in a city up north
I left my life behind between Ceuta and Gibraltar
I’m a ray in the sea, a ghost in the city
My life is forbidden, say the authorities

[Chorus]
I only carry my sorrow, my condemnation goes alone
Running is my destiny for not carrying paper
Lost in the heart of the great Babylon
They call me “the illegal”, I am thе lawbreaker

[Post-Chorus]
Illegal black hand
Illеgal Peruvian
Illegal African
Illegal marijuana

[Chorus]
I only carry my sorrow, my condemnation goes alone
Running is my destiny to evade the law
Lost in the heart of the great Babylon
They call me “the illegal” for not carrying papers

[Post-Chorus]
Illegal Algerian
Illegal Nigerian
Illegal Bolivian
Illegal black hand

Cover art for Manu Chao - Clandestino (English Translation) by Genius English Translations

The Golden Cage

La Jaula de Oro

Here I am settled

Aquí estoy establecido

In the United States

En los Estados Unidos

Ten years have passed

Diez años pasaron ya

Since I crossed as a wetback

En que cruce de mojado

I haven’t fixed my papers

Papeles no he arreglado

I’m still an illegal

Sigo siendo un ilegal

I have my wife and my children

Tengo mi esposa y mis hijos

Whom I brought when they were very young

Que me las traje muy chicos

And they have already forgotten

Y se han olvidado ya

About my beloved Mexico

De mi México querido

Which I never forget

Del que yo nunca me olvido

And I can’t go back

Y no puedo regresar

What good is money to me

De que me sirve el dinero

If I’m like a prisoner

Si estoy como prisionero

Within this great nation

Dentro de esta gran nación

When I remember, I even cry

Cuando me acuerdo hasta lloro

Although the cage may be golden

Aunque la jaula sea de oro

It’s still a prison

No deja de ser prisión

Listen to me, son

Escúchame hijo

Would you like us to go back to live in Mexico?

Te gustaría que regresáramos a vivir México?

Whatcha talkin’ about dad?

Whatcha talkin’ about dad?

I don’t wanna go back to Mexico, no way dad

I don’t wanna go back to Mexico, no way dad

My children don’t talk to me

Mis hijos no hablan conmigo

They have learned another language

Otro idioma han aprendido

And forgotten Spanish

Y olvidado el español

They think like Americans

Piensan como Americanos

They deny they are Mexicans

Niegan que son Mexicanos

Even though they have my color

Aunque tengan mi color

From work to home

De mi trabajo a mi casa

I don’t know what’s wrong with me

No sé lo que me pasa

Even though I’m a family man

Que aunque soy hombre de hogar

I hardly go out on the street

Casi no salgo a la calle

Because I’m afraid they might find me

Pues tengo miedo que me hallen

And they could deport me

Y me pueden deportar

What good is money to me

De que me sirve el dinero

If I’m like a prisoner

Si estoy como prisionero

Within this great nation

Dentro de esta gran nación

When I remember, I even cry

Cuando me acuerdo hasta lloro

Although the cage may be golden

Aunque la jaula sea de oro

It’s still a prison

No deja de ser prisión

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Trump was weighing rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1 drug to a Schedule 3 drug.

Classified as a Schedule 1 drug, marijuana is listed alongside heroin and LSD as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

By contrast, Schedule 3 drugs are define as those with “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence” and include ketamine, anabolic steroids and testosterone.

During the final year of the Biden administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration said it supported recommending the reclassification of marijuana.

Reclassifying marijuana would allow for more research into the drug and provide tax benefits to the cannabis industry.

Federal and local law enforcement officers investigate a suspect’s vehicle on South Capitol Street on August 11 in Washington, D.C.

Out of Touch? Fucking Fascist. In an interview with Morning Edition, Schwalb called Trump’s move “unprecedented” and said his office was watching closely to ensure the Home Rule Act and constitutional law are being followed. He added that federal law only allows Trump to request the services of MPD for emergencies.

Trump’s Washington, D.C., takeover targets a host of groups, many of them vulnerable

“The MPD under the direction of the president still has to comply with the law. And that means not engaging in excessive police force, unconstitutional police force, or unconstitutional policing,” D.C.’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb.Schwalb said.

Trump’s takeover ‘out of touch’ with facts on the ground, says D.C. attorney general

Jews in every fucking thing: Schwalb was born to a Jewish family at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., in 1967. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a juris doctor from Harvard Law School.

May be an image of microscope and text that says 'LITERALLY EVERY WORLDISSUE WORLD ISSUE 100x'

Fucking Shia Muslim goy — Should Jon Stewart Run for President in 2028?

I was skeptical about a Stewart candidacy, but maybe ‘The Daily Show’ host is the right person to shake up the Democratic presidential primaries. Mehdi Hasan

Ahh, Oregon is snookered again: When Morrow County Commissioner Melissa Lindsay raised questions three years ago about whether local officials were using their positions to profit from Amazon’s local data centers, she says the blowback was swift and severe.

“People just didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to see it, didn’t believe it,” Lindsay said.

On social media and around town, Lindsay said she felt she was being shamed and shut down by people she had considered friends. She and another commissioner critical of officials’ dealings with Amazon lost a recall election and were kicked out of office.

An aerial view of a large warehouse-style building in a field

A measure of redemption came last month, when the Oregon Department of Justice filed a civil complaint alleging that several officials in the eastern Oregon county “abused their authority and breached the public trust for their personal financial gain.”

The state alleges that public officials pocketed several million dollars by arranging to buy a local telecommunications business from a Morrow County nonprofit. The officials, who had voted to grant Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, allegedly paid far less for the telecom business than it was really worth by hiding the value of its contracts with the tech giant.

When Oregon’s attorney general weighed in last month, Lindsay said the litigation served as a kind of wakeup call in the small community.

When a Jew Speaks, Forbes listens: With Gen Z facing existential career crisesbillionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that in just 10 years, college grads will be exploring the solar system—jobs that will reel in sky-high salaries. The tech leader even says he’s envious of young people because our early-career jobs will look “boring” by comparison.

As AI reshapes the workforce, many Gen Z college graduates are finding out the hard way that their degrees don’t guarantee a smooth career launch.

Peter Thiel-backed Varda Space Industries has raised $187 million in a private funding round as the company leverages microgravity to overcome formulation issues that have long plagued drug development.

Active pharmaceutical ingredients crystallize differently in space, enabling drug formulations that the company says otherwise couldn’t be done. That’s because microgravity suppresses two critical processes — fluid convection and sedimentation — during crystal growth, resulting in a more uniform and controlled process.

Natural Capital and Shrug Capital led the Series C round. Founders Fund, Peter Thiel, Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Lux Capital and Also Capital also invested in the round. Varda has raised a total of $329 million.

The company has logged three launch and return missions. A fourth is currently in orbit, and a fifth is expected to launch before the end of the year.

During the company’s first mission, it grew crystals of the HIV drug ritonavir in orbit and returned them to Earth with no signs of issues that once forced a recall of the drug, due to a manufacturing issue around drug crystallization.

Radocea said the company has undisclosed research collaborations and is “disease agnostic,” targeting areas with large unmet needs. That includes oncology, with Radocea pointing to past work by Merck on cancer antibodies aboard the International Space Station.

Besides pharmaceutical work, Varda operates reentry capsules in partnership with US government agencies. The reentry capsules offer a real-world flight environment for testing subsystems such as thermal protective materials, navigation, communication and sensors.

Varda’s CEO gave an interview to Endpoints news recently:

The main barrier historically was “access to space at a cost that would make sense” and long lead times (e.g., five-year planning). Varda differentiates itself by offering “high cadence lowcost re-entry vehicles,” enabling quicker turnaround times essential for industry. All operations in space are “completely unmanned”.

And of course, the focus is on “biologics” which can be sold for $ millions/dose. Many biologics are administered via intravenous (IV) infusion, requiring hospital visits and significantly impacting patient quality of life. Patients and doctors “desire subcutaneous injections that can be self-administered or administered quickly”. Pushing up concentrations for subcutaneous (subQ) formulations on Earth often leads to proteins crowding and interacting, increasing viscosity and making them impossible to inject (“start to turn into molasses”). Radocea cites the well-known Merck study with Keytruda as a “strong prototype.” Crystallizing antibodies in space allows for “keep[ing] that viscosity low and get to that high concentration formulation for subcutaneous injection.” On Earth, scaling up protein crystallization is difficult due to gravity causing “sedimentation” and shear forces from stirring “shearing apart the crystals.” Microgravity eliminates these issues, enabling consistent crystal growth.

Goyim Going God Crazy! Christian revival event draws thousands in quest to save Portland’s soul

You think these blood sucking Christians had a moment of silence for Gaza and passed around the food aid can for donations?

Didn’t pray hard enough, or maybe these fucking capitaists’ prayers were ansered:

In the latest reversal of U.S. environmental protections, regulators said this week that they plan to approve a trio of new herbicide products made with dicamba, a controversial chemical that has wreaked havoc across farm country, sparked years of litigation and twice drawn court-ordered bans.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a proposed decision dated July 22 stating it sees more benefits than risks in allowing three dicamba products made by agrochemical industry giants Bayer, Syngenta and BASF to be used by farmers growing cotton and soybeans genetically altered to tolerate dicamba.

a combine plows through a field

“Trump’s EPA is hitting new heights of absurdity by planning to greenlight a pesticide that’s caused the most extensive drift damage in US agricultural history and twice been thrown out by federal courts,” Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “This is what happens when pesticide oversight is controlled by industry lobbyists. Corporate fat cats get their payday and everyone else suffers the consequences.”

Kyle Kunkler

Internal corporate documents show that Monsanto, which Bayer bought in 2018, and BASF were well aware that the combination of their dicamba-tolerant genetically altered crops and dicamba herbicides would likely lead to damage across many US farms not buying the specialty crops and chemicals.

Fucking ZioAzovNaziLensky and Adolph Bibi, well well — more money for guns.

The fundamental difference between these two realities? Air conditioning.

In the U.S., 90% of households have AC. In Europe? Just 20% on average. In some countries, such as the UK, that number falls to less than 5%.

At first glance, this might seem like a minor difference — fodder for TikTok skits or Reddit debates, where Americans and Europeans poke fun at each other’s respective abilities to handle summer weather. But when the temperature rises, the impact on productivity is anything but trivial.

Europe’s growing productivity gap with the U.S — which has widened since the pandemic — isn’t just a result of regulation, labor laws, or tech prowess. It’s now also about climate. Or, more precisely, the difference in how we experience extreme temperatures.

Heat is an existential threat to some European economies

Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth. Across the primarily AC-free nations, heat waves can (and increasingly do) shut down schoolsdisrupt businesses, and make it impossible for people to function at their best. Employers are forced to shift working hours to protect staff from the heat, those with caring responsibilities struggle to look after the most vulnerable (children, the elderly) and families are caught in a daily battle for comfort and efficiency. This climate vulnerability isn’t just inconvenient, it’s a serious threat to economic competitiveness.

Lyrics

I was barely 17 when I crossed the border
Apenas tenía 17 cuando crucé la frontera

I promised my old lady, to get her out of poverty
Se lo prometí a mi viejecita, sacarla de la pobreza

The cold nights burned me
Me quemaban las noches de frío

I almost drowned in the river
Por poquito me ahogaba en el río

And to those who suffered the same
Y a aquellos que sufrieron lo mismo

I dedicate this run to you
Les dedico este corrido

I am one of many Mexicans who work day by day
Soy uno de tantos mexicanos que trabajan día con día

To give a future to my children and help my family
Para darle futuro a mis hijos y ayudar a mi familia

How I miss my beloved ranch
Cómo extraño mi rancho querido

My friends, I will not forget you
Mis amigos, que no los olvido

And to my parents who several years ago
Y a mis viejos que hace varios años

I haven’t seen them
Que no los he visto

They think that because I jumped the line I’m a drug dealer
Piensan que porque brinqué la línea soy un narcotraficante

Enough of a thousand humiliations just for being an immigrant
Ya basta de mil humillaciones nomás por ser inmigrante

I’m singing for all my people
Estoy cantando por toda mi gente

Don’t forget it, keep it in mind
No lo olviden, ténganlo presente

That those who were not wanted
Que aquellos a los que no querían

Today they make them presidents
Hoy los hacen presidentes

And although it hurts a lot
Y aunque les duela a mucho

We are the majority, pure Caliber 50, hey!
Somos mayoría, ¡puro Calibre 50, oiga!

The work here has been very hard but I have never given up
El trabajo aquí ha sido muy duro pero nunca me he rajado

And the things that I have achieved, with effort I have earned
Y las cosas que yo he conseguido, con esfuerzo me he ganado

And the one who went to the other side
Y aquel que se fue pa’l otro lado

And he left his past in his country
Y dejó en su país su pasado

Who thought of that little boy?
¿Quién pensaba de aquel muchachito?

And look what he has achieved
Y miren lo que ha logrado

They have promised us so many things and they have given us nothing.
Nos han prometido tantas cosas y no nos han dado nada

Equality, respect, and tolerance is what my race asks for
Igualdad, respeto, y tolerancia es lo que pide mi raza

I’m singing for all my people
Estoy cantando por toda mi gente

Don’t forget it, keep it in mind
No lo olviden, ténganlo presente

And those they didn’t want
Y aquellos a los que no querían

Today they make them presidents
Hoy los hacen presidentes

(cumbia, cumbia) but how good
(cumbia, cumbia) but how delicious
(cumbia, cumbia) but what are you looking at
(cumbia, cumbia)

Here there is no sadness
There is only joy
It is the dance of the dear
Of the loved ones of the past

Look how my mom dances
Dancing with my brother from the past
Their spirits dance together
Full of joy and enjoying

(cumbia, cumbia) but how good
(cumbia, cumbia) but how delicious
(cumbia, cumbia) but what are you looking at
(cumbia, cumbia)

Only certain people can see
Spirits dancing among the people
If you can see them dancing my brother
You will be blessed from heaven

Look how my mom dances
Dancing with my brother from the past
Their spirits dance together
Full of joy and enjoying

(cumbia, cumbia) but how good
(cumbia, cumbia) but how delicious
(cumbia, cumbia) but what are you looking at
(cumbia, cumbia)

“Assassination,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, “is the extreme form of censorship.”

“Occupied Palestine effectively functions as an open-air laboratory for Israel to test techniques of espionage and surveillance before selling them to repressive regimes around the world.” –Middle East Institute

“Israel’s use of surveillance and facial recognition appear to be among the most elaborate deployments of such technology by a country seeking to control a subject population.” –AccessNow

crossing a red line in the sand Stock Photo | Adobe Stock

The idea of a nation plunged into hysteria was actively pushed by newspapers at the time, who were keen to characterise radio – then an emerging medium that was a news competitor – as irresponsible and not to be trusted. And Orson Welles burnished the myth himself over countless retellings on talk shows in the years that followed.

But while it is unclear to what extent actual panic was caused, certain facts remain – chiefly, that the broadcast demonstrated the early power and potential of radio.

I had no idea that I had suddenly become some sort of national event – Orson Welles

On the evening of 30 October 1938, just before Halloween, Welles, then the director and star of radio drama series the Mercury Theatre on the Air, was running through last-minute rehearsals for his innovative new broadcast.

Welles was only 23 years old at the time, and regarded by many as a prodigy – this was his most ambitious project yet, an update of The War of the Worlds, a science-fiction thriller by HG Wells, published in 1898.

His plan was to bring Wells’s story alive by setting it in the modern day, creating a sense of urgency and fear. He changed the location from England to New Jersey, and had the story rewritten as a series of realistic news bulletins reporting an unstoppable alien invasion from Mars, in what sounded like real time, and so blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

“We did that all very carefully and exactly reproduced what would have happened. Thinking to make the whole thing more effective. But we had no idea how effective it would be,” he said in a 1955 episode of a BBC series called Orson Welles’s Sketch Book.

Orson Welles In History
Image

A Harvard scientist, who believes he’s seen proof of alien life before, suspects this object may instead have alien origins.

Professor Avi Loeb said there are clear signs that the comet known as “3I/ATLAS” could be an alien craft.

“We should put all possibilities on the table that it’s a rock, a comet, or something else until we get the evidence, the data that will tell us what it is,” Loeb said in an interview with WBZ-TV.

Professor Loeb and his team say the interstellar object is on an extremely unusual course for a comet, one that will take it close Venus, Mars and Jupiter.

Loeb said the object appears to be “intelligently” directed and if it is alien, the world should prepare.

Again, two-year-old reactive Semen Trump and the fourth-grade reactive Media, enough of this now.

But sobering reality has set in:

Jonathan Cook: How is it possible for a BBC reporter to have made the following obscene observation in his segment on Israel’s murder at the weekend of Al-Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif:

“There’s the question of proportionality. Is it justified to kill five journalists when you were only targeting one?”

How many red lines are there? And, we are out of that fucking red paint, so now what, pink?

Israel has systematically murdered, jailed and tortured medical workers in Gaza as “Hamas operatives” on the grounds that the enclave’s hospitals were run by Hamas. It has attacked and destroyed all Gaza’s hospitals on the same grounds.

The idea that Israel could destroy Gaza’s hospitals initially shocked observers. But western media like the BBC quickly normalised these crimes against humanity, even as the people of Gaza were left with no medical services in the midst of a saturation bombing campaign by Israel and a mass starvation policy.

Israel has been doing the same with Gaza’s journalists: implying that any connection with the governing party, however tenuous, justifies murdering them. And western journalists like those at the BBC are going along with this outrageous narrative.

The British government, for which journalists like Donnison work, is setting the agenda that BBC journalists, as state stenographers, are following. — J. Cook

And it all rests with Jews as the Supreme Racists.

Ep2: Gerald Horne on The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Slavery, Jim Crow & the Roots of US Fascism.

[ In this episode, Gerald Horne and I discuss his latest book, The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of US Fascism. We also discuss the recent controversy with James Sweet, president of the American Historical Association, over his essay on so-called “presentism,” and certain related problems with Catherine Liu’s book Virtue Hoarders. Dr. Horne also talks about the Haitian Revolution, Juneteenth, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. ]

And so, another fucking pathetic story, that is, story of this murder culture called ZioJudNazIsm: Slaying and Censoring the Journalists: The Murder of Anas al-Sharif by Binoy Kampmark / August 12th, 2025

But, more fucking pain:

From beautiful bride, to victim of marital rape, this is the story of Shanti, a 19-year-old whose husband has been charged under the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2013. IMAGE/Inter Press Service (IPS)

Shanti Maheshwari was a 19-year-old woman living in Karachi’s working class neighborhood of Lyari who got married to Ashok Kumar Mohan on June 16, 2025, after a two-year engagement. But for two days after her wedding, she was brutally, repeatedly, and unnaturally raped by her husband. Shanti was gruesomely wounded, and started to bleed internally.

Her in-laws took Shanti to a health clinic but the doctor released her, and so they brought her home.

On June 30, witnessing Shanti’s seriously deteriorating health, her family brought her back from her in-law’s house. Her parents came to know from Shanti that on June 17 and 18, she was a victim of “unnatural sexual acts,” i.e., sodomy.

The assault complaint filed by Shanti’s brother Sayon with police stated that her husband “inserted a metal pipe” and then his “hand and arm” in her anus, and bit her breasts and neck. Her husband threatened Shanti with death if she revealed to anyone what he did to her. — Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever

Najma Maheshwari, the social activist who was with Shanti when she died.

[Najma Maheshwari, the social activist who was with Shanti when she died.]

And so we die inside a little each time we have to be exposed to these stories:

In the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan tops the list with 85% of married women undergoing sexual or physical violence by their husbands, compared to India’s 29% and Bangladesh’s 53%.

Globally renowned social activist and classical dancer Sheema Kermani of Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) Cultural Action Group joined with other women’s groups and civil society in protest. She said possibly Shanti would have survived if the doctor had treated her properly.

+—+

Again, back to the psychotic whiteness:

What Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Actually Want? | The New Yorker

Bob Malone: “[RFK Jr.] had a briefing… all of this stuff is true. Roswell… the reverse engineering… Whether they’re time travelers and they’re humans… or they’re from another dimension… apparently it’s real.”

This clip of Malone is taken from an interview with Tommy Carrigan posted to the Tommy’s Podcast Rumble channel on July 27, 2025.

—————–Partial transcription of clip————–

“The other day I had two FBI agents come to the Farm. Oh, yeah. To interview me about, what I’d experienced during, the censorship and defamation and all that during COVID That’s why. Because they. They were launching an investigation about the people that were doing this kind of stuff, including within the federal government.

“And as they were going out the door, we had our, The woman, Justine. That is our kind of our. Our special, person within Malone news that focuses on UAPs. And, so she was there and she couldn’t. She just couldn’t help herself. She asked, do you know anything about, the UAPs? And one of them piped up and said, in the investigation. She said, well, I can’t talk about it because I’m actively involved in supporting those investigations. But I can tell you that a lot more activity is happening now. That’s data point number one, and that they’re real.

“Okay, data point number two. I’m talking to my friend and, mentioned this, while we’re on the boat, and he says, oh, Bobby had a briefing. And, all of this stuff is true. Roswell, all those things. The reverse engineering, the, origin of, the night vision. Whole bunch of this tech comes out of reverse engineering, recovered material. And, So stay tuned on that. It sounds like, there is absolutely there, there.

“And, we can look forward to. As you’re talking about the future, we can look forward to, learning a lot more about what the heck is going on with these. Whether they’re time travelers and their humans coming back, or they’re from another dimension or they’re whatever, fill in the blank. But apparently it’s real.”

+—+

And so the headlines unfold each nanosecond.

ALIENS. Jews.

Gaza has already been reduced to apocalyptic ruin. Satellite data a month ago found that 89% of the buildings in Rafah, 84% of the buildings in northern Gaza, and 78% of buildings in Gaza City have been completely or partially destroyed. Overall, they found that 70% of structures in Gaza had been severely damaged, leaving them uninhabitable, with a quarter overall being completely destroyed.

They also noted that the real level of destruction could be even higher, because the satellite imagery couldn’t detect damage to the walls of a building unless the roof had collapsed.

Oh, so Yankee Doodle Dandy and Stars and Bars MAGA are lining up to soldier up and head to Occupied Palestine with these bra and panties freaks above:

Last week, Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to “fully occupy” Gaza. Such plans are even opposed by Israel’s military, not because they care about the Palestinian people – they have enthusiastically committed war crimes agains tthem – but because, to quote the Israeli chief of staff Eyal Zamir:

“occupying the Strip would drag Israel into a black hole — taking responsibility for two million Palestinians, requiring a yearslong clearing operation, exposing soldiers to guerrilla warfare and, most dangerously, jeopardizing the hostages.”

There’s also a crisis of Israeli recruitment going on. Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, reports that only 60% of Israeli soldiers are showing up for reserve duty.

This will be your commander, MAGA muts.

_==_

And life fucking goes on in my Gmail box, where Jewish Technology lurks:

Dear Paul,

As a leader in biometrics, the decisions you make today will shape the future of security, efficiency, and innovation. Whether it’s navigating emerging technologies, responding to shifting policies, or anticipating the next big innovation, you need to stay ahead of the curve.

That’s why IDGA have created the ‘Biometrics Bundle’, a handpicked collection of expert insights, real-world case studies, and must-read interviews, designed to give you the clarity, foresight, and strategies to lead with confidence in an evolving landscape.

Jews. Israel: Stop using biometric mass surveillance against Palestinians

Our Google Jews:

And some fuck called Andy or Jacques with the Yes Men, banned me from commenting on his fucking anemic Substack? Andy and the Yes Men being JEWS, of course.

Andy on the left. I feel as if that boy will be turning me in, man oh man. Two Jews with tans perfect for IOF/IDF.

The Yes Men: Revenge of the Pranksters - The New York Times

“Israeli and international companies profit from, sustain and bolster Israel’s military-industrial complex. Systematic violence inflicted on Palestinian bodies also serves as a testing ground for such companies’ technology ”

Fact Sheet: the Israeli Cyber Industry

ISRAEL’S CYBER INDUSTRY

  • Israel headquarters more surveillance companies per capita than any other country.
  • Israeli cyber firms claimed 31% of global investment in the cyber sector in 2020.
  • Israeli cyber companies export both offensive and defensive cyber technologies, profiting off of supplying the most sophisticated threats as well as the reaction to these threats.
  • In 2020, Israel’s total military exports were valued at $8.8 billion, while its cyber exports were valued at $10 billion.
  • The Israeli government engages in spyware diplomacy,” supplying offensive cyber tech as a bargaining chip to promote normalization in countries like Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia.

UNIT 8200

  • Unit 8200, the Israeli intelligence unit responsible for Israeli cyber offense, is the largest unit of the Israeli military.
  • Unit 8200 functions as an incubator for private Israeli cyber companies and tech entrepreneurs, with its veterans founding over 1,000 companies.
  • Of 2,300 Israelis who founded 700 Israeli cyber firms, 80% were graduates of Unit 8200. These founders use their military experience and connections as a marketing tool for foreign investors.
  • Information gathered by Unit 8200 “is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society.”

ISRAELI UNIVERSITIES

There is a revolving door between Israeli academic institutions, the Israeli military, and Israeli cyber companies:

  • Six Israeli universities have centers dedicated to cyber research.
  • Israeli universities carry out military research directed by the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Directorate for Defense R&D (DDR&D) and military companies.
  • Israeli universities cater programs to the Israeli military and military intelligence corps, including the Academic Reserves (Atuda), Talpiot programs, and Havatzalot Program.
Prime Minister Netanyahu at Cyber Week 2017

Discussion about this post

The Yes Men replied to your comment on WTF are the ICE men doing?. “FUCK YOU. Antisemitic shit like this is why I need to limit this to subscribers only. Goodbye, shithead.”

House speaker prays at Western Wall for US to 'always stand with Israel' -  JNS.org

Hmm, those fucking fools.

Extra credit — which one is the Jew? Pranksters on a Mission: An Interview With the Yes Men

“I just accidentally created a media firestorm around something really, really stupid. Maybe there’s a way that this can actually be meaningful in a bigger way?”

[answer: both!]

So, I basically said:

“ICE is a Stephen Jewish Miller wet dream. Nothing happening in the Pedophile and Rapist in CHief’s Minyan is not prior approved by his Minyan.

ICE is a proving ground for the Israel work tied to the Gazafication of the WOrld, but first, America.

ICE in this next iteration would not exist without those Jewish tools of Silicon — Little Tel Aviv Valley (that’s actually San Fernando Valley/LA), Unit 8200, Pegasus, Google, Altman, Ackman, Adelson, Zuckerberg, Karp, Eillison.”

Literally: “Hmm, this is the brainchild of Jewish Stephen Miller, and the AI dogs? Mossad and Unit 8200 and Brin of Google with the cloud by Larry Ellison and of course, Ackman, Altman, Zuckerberg .

No need to discuss how deeply entwined the Jewish Products like Pegasus and, well, Jesus, these ICE UnMen Cometh are Just Pitbulls of Israel, in that Gazafication of U$A.”

I put in the link to one of my Substacks: https://paulokirk.substack.com/p/for-most-jews-the-entire-non-jew

FUCK YOU. Antisemitic shitheaded garbage like this is why we might need to limit this to subscribers only. But we won’t, so that others can see what we’re dealing with.

Again, FUCK YOU.

Now, a Goy like me pointing this out would be in the eyes of Andy Bichlbaum, Yes Man Leader, Antisemtic.

  • Largest Israeli Diaspora Population: Los Angeles is home to the largest population of Israeli Americans outside of Israel, with over 250,000 Israeli Americans residing in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.
  • Concentrated Communities: The Israeli community in Los Angeles is largely concentrated in the San Fernando Valley and the Westside, specifically areas like Encino and Tarzana, which are known for their significant Israeli populations.
  • Israeli-American Influence: This community has contributed significantly to local business, government, and culture, and Los Angeles is home to the world’s first Israeli Community Center (ICC).
  • Cultural and Economic Ties: The city’s Mediterranean climate and economic characteristics, coupled with its role as a media center and a diverse Jewish community, have fostered a thriving Israeli presence and facilitated strong ties with Israel.

I am sure that Yes Man eats here:

LA’s swanky new Carmel eatery serves upscale Tel Aviv market fare, no added politics

Four friends focus on their love of the White City’s Carmel Market by bringing Angelenos gourmet spins on local classics despite anti-Israel spike after Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities

From left to right: Carmel restaurant partners Liron Hazan, Ronnie Benarie, Asaf Moaz, Yoav Schverd, in their Los Angeles, California eatery, May 2024. (Kelly Hartog)

[From left to right: Carmel restaurant partners Liron Hazan, Ronnie Benarie, Asaf Moaz, Yoav Schverd, in their Los Angeles, California eatery, May 2024.]

[Interior of Carmel restaurant in Los Angeles,]

[All of the friends’ eyes lit up when they spoke about the food on offer.

“We serve knafeh,” Maoz said, aware that many non-Israelis have never tried the traditional Arabic dessert made of needle-thin pastry threads and melted cheese soaked in sweet syrup.

“And everyone says it’s the best,” Hazon added.]

[“The Moroccan cigars are my favorite. I could eat them all day,” Hazan said. Called “My Grandma’s Mushroom Cigars” on the menu, the restaurant’s version of Morocco’s answer to spring rolls is vegetarian and wickedly spicy. Light as a feather and punched up with the Middle Eastern baharat spice mix, pine nuts, and chuma pepper, they are served alongside a creamy dip. The smoked eggplant musabbaha, made with chickpeas and sheep’s milk yogurt, is also a rare treat.

While Chef Maoz includes kosher meat on the menu, including a hanger steak kebab and ribeye, there are also decidedly non-kosher dishes, such as grilled Mexican prawns and Peruvian sea scallops — a nod to the religious diversity in Israel, where tradition is often held dear, even if the letter of the Jewish law is not.]

Read this cunt’s piece below. He has the Audacity to ask, “Where are their pastors?”

Hmm.

Rabbis anyone? They speaking out in mass? Jew York Times news (sic) paper one page statement of solidarity for Palestine and decrying the genocide supported by, hmm, 90 Percent of Jews in Israel, and in the Diaspora? a

I came here as a Jew, Zyklon Blinken!

I come before you as a Jew,’ Blinken tells Israel after Hamas attack | The Jerusalem Post

Oh, the funny Jews at the Yes Men!

Well, it’s Andy’s version of War, this GENOCIDE, this MOWING of the Lawn, this country that was doing this way before fucking Adolph Bibi Mileikowsky pried his perversion into Palestine.

Israel, as seen by the Jews, calling it the Jewish State of Israel, is a womb of terrorism, the Judaic dirt of those Jews, we like to call ZIONISTS. I don’t see that word in his piece? Andy’s? Genocide? Holocaust?

Besides the extremist, annexationist vision of an apartheid Jewish state with less and less room for Palestinians, the only other option we’re hearing about is what the US and Europe are pressuring Netanyahu to accept: a carceral “two-state solution” in which Jews and Palestinians are restricted to their own bunkered territories by an increasingly reinforced border wall — like today, but with “autonomy” for the Palestinians. And they don’t seem to have any vision beyond that.

A carceral Palestinian state may be better than nothing, but it won’t stop either Jews or Palestinians from considering the land beyond the wall as their home too.

From the Jordan River in the East to the Mediterranean Sea in the West, from the forests of the Galilee in the North to the Red Sea resorts in the South, there is only one homeland for both peoples. Many Palestinians yearn not only for Nablus, Hebron, Gaza and Ramallah, but for Haifa and Jaffa and Acra and the many other places they were mostly kicked out of in the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. At the same time, many Jews want to live in the West Bank, either because Biblical events took place there, in what some of them call Judea and Samaria, or because it’s been the only home they’ve known for the past three generations.

Solidly dividing the Jews’ and Palestinians’ mutual homeland will only lead to further displacement, and will provide ample fuel for extremists to escalate conflict. — AB

Unfortunately, neither Palestinians nor Jews want that.

Palestinians, for their part, really don’t want (p. 15) to share a joint state, perhaps because they rightly don’t trust Israeli Jews to share power equally — and perhaps partly because Palestine’s indigenous Arab communities haven’t yet, in three quarters of a millennium, ever been ruled by Arabs, let alone had their own state.

As for Jewish Israelis — secular and religious, Left and Right — it’s unthinkable to not have recourse to a Jewish state in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure. You can call that paranoia, historical memory, “Jewish supremacism,” “settler-colonialism,” or whatever you like — it doesn’t change the fact that very few Jewish Israelis would willingly give up a country that’s fully theirs. — AB

Final Solution, and this is it for Andy?

“Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are on the wrong side of public opinion on this, and they’re losing badly in the court of public opinion,” says Chris Hayes. “The more they lean into the cruelty, the less popular it all is.” — Chris Hayes

President Donald Trump and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller set a goal of deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants each year — a staggering number that would require a massive expansion of immigration enforcement. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” delivered just that, throwing roughly $170 billion to the administration’s immigration restriction program, including $45 billion for new detention centers and $30 billion to hire 10,000 new ICE officers. ICE will now become the largest law enforcement agency in the country.

How the US and Israel exchange tactics in violence and control

Two decades of Israeli-US police cooperation include training in racial profiling and violent suppression of protests.

Leila, a campaign organiser at JVP who asked that only her first name be used, told Al Jazeera the exchange programme is just one aspect of violent policing in the United States that has existed for decades.

“The violence that we’re seeing today in the US is 100 percent the result of white supremacy and anti-blackness and institutionalised racism in the US,” Leila said.

“The exchange programmes create the opportunity for US armed forces and Israeli armed forces to come together and swap tactics, and deepen the harmful practices and policies that already exist in both countries.”

Deputy Director of ICE was sent by the ADL for training with the Israeli military

Fuck these fucking Jewish “comics”! Bill, Jon, Seinfeld, Sandler.

“Certain police practices and policies that all happen time and time again, when you look back and try to pull back on the thread to see where they got this from, it always comes back to somebody went to Israel.” — Steven H., an organizer with the Black Alliance for Peace.

Andy B — For most Jewish Americans, whatever their political persuasion, support for Israel has been a bedrock principle. Thus, it’s notable that a broad swath of U.S. Jews — reacting to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza — have been urging the Israeli government to do more to ensure the delivery of food and medicine.

There is no overwhelming consensus. On the left, some U.S. Jews contend that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is guilty of genocide. On the right, some conservative Jewish news outlets have suggested that the widely verified food crisis in Gaza is a hoax.

WTF are the ICE men doing?

And where TF are their pastors?

Aug 11, 2025

By Andy Bichlbaum

Last week I went to NYC immigration court with a coalition of groups (among others, JFREJ) that’s trying to mitigate the harm ICE does to immigrants showing up for their scheduled immigration-court hearings. The immigrants imagine they have a right to due process (which, as it happens, they do), and never imagine they’re going to be kidnapped—and yet they often are, regardless of the outcome of their hearing or any other factors.

My grandfather having been taken away from my father by the Gestapo, forever, I don’t feel the right to stay silent when something analogous is happening here in my country.

The ICE agents I saw last week at the downtown courts seemed entirely different from everyone else—from security guards, immigration court “judges” (actually lawyers), even police. And then I realized why: they’re thinking extremely hard, and that changes the way they look.

What strenuous mental effort it must take for an ICE man (they’re almost always men) to see what he’s doing not as thuggery, not as pointless and cruel attacks on obviously vulnerable human beings, but as patriotism, valor, and helping other “good citizens” like themselves.

They’re not stupid, or no stupider than the rest of us. But they’re marshaling their intelligence to support some incredibly stupid conclusions against the evidence of their eyes.

If I were to speak to an ICE agent (and I won’t) because I thought there were a chance in hell they would listen (there isn’t), I would say:

“So sorry, Mr./Ms. ICE, that you feel so unmoored, invalidated, worthless. So sorry there’s a big ICEy void at your core that can’t be left empty. Your emptiness isn’t unusual, but thinking you can possibly fill it with cruelty and violence takes a special kind of intelligence, maybe a whole second brain hovering feet from the first à la Mr. Duffy. Give it a rest, you fucker. Relax and let yourself see what’s glaringly obvious to everyone else. Then use that intelligence to actually help yourself and your people instead.”

But again, they wouldn’t listen, not to those words. I’d have to translate them first into something they could actually hear, the way only their own trusted pastor or other community member could.

So where are their pastors?

To do the really important (and not just symbolic) work, get inside and see for yourself, with one of the groups (like JFREJ) trying to resist this horrible thing.

Just for fun, for printable versions of the below (and variants), visit www.theyesmen.org/project/ICE/posters. Additional non-secret projects will be posted at www.theyesmen.org/project/ICE as they materialize.

2009 — Two Jewish activists have withdrawn their documentary from the Jerusalem Film Festival in hopes of making the Israeli public think critically about state policies toward the Palestinians. Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos pulled their film in compliance with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign, aimed at pressing Israel to recognize the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and end alleged violations of international law through international pressure and economic sanctions.

“It’s embarrassing as Jews to hear constantly what’s going on [in Israel] and to hear the policies of the state described as fascist,” Servin told The Jerusalem Post. “This is one way to communicate that there is something really wrong going on.”

Servin and Vamos are the founders of the organization “The Yes Men,” which produces documentaries and presentations that spoof large corporations to expose their unjust practices. Their newly-released documentary, The Yes Men Fix the World, which draws attention to corporations’ role in climate change, was scheduled to appear at the film festival until last week, when Servin and Vamos announced the withdrawal in a letter to the organizers. The organizers did not respond to their letter, nor could they be reached for comment. However, a curator with the festival told Servin privately that the decision to withdraw was the right decision. Servin, known by the stage name Andy Bichlbaum, and Vamos, known as Mike Bonanno, mulled over joining the boycott campaign for about two months before making the final decision to withdraw.

“It didn’t even occur to us at first,” Vamos said. “At first, we just thought ‘business as usual,’ but it really shouldn’t be, and we should be thinking twice [about showing support for Israel’s actions].” They will instead distribute the documentary in Israel through activist organizations, Servin said. In their letter to the festival organizers, Servin and Vamos cited the impact that a boycott campaign had on ending apartheid in South Africa, but Vamos stressed that they were not drawing parallels between South African and Israeli policies and that they weren’t showing support for terrorist actions against Israel. “A lot of people would hear us make these comparisons and think we’re saying the situations are the same, which they are not. It’s a situation where the attention of the world focused on something and economic sanctions made a difference,” Vamos said. “What we’re supporting is the nonviolent groups who are calling for a boycott of all activity that could be seen as supporting state policies.”

Servin and Vamos stressed that they still felt a deep connection to the Jewish people and to Israel. The decision was not meant to be a “slap in the face” to either the film festival or Israel, Servin said. Instead, it’s a push that he hoped would make Israelis register the change in public opinion toward their country and respond accordingly. “We just care a lot. We think things have to change,” he said. “I don’t want Israel to be an embarrassment.”

KISS that Wall!

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson Visits the  Western Wall - The Western Wall, Jerusalem

Is that Andy down there?

The Western Wall: Place of Tears, Prayer and Conflict | Messianic Bible
Adam Sandler and the Quiet Strength of Solidarity Recently, actor and  comedian Adam Sandler spoke out during a challenging moment for Israel,  saying: “I hate the lies they spread and their lack

the more you subscribe, the more chaos of the brain disease will eat you quicker than flesh chomping brain prions . . . i.e. Mad Cow Disease 4.0 a la Fort Detrick

Remember this shit? The Reagan administration proposed changes to school lunch regulations in 1981 that would have allowed ketchup to be counted as a vegetable to meet the required vegetable servings, saving money by reducing the amount of other, more nutritious vegetables served.

Image

Former President Ronald Reagan would surely be pleased to know that many of his legacies remain intact in 2012, from campaign promises to lower taxes to ketchup’s classification as a vegetable. But few are aware that Reagan is also responsible for another enduring contribution to American food culture: National Frozen Food Day.

Reagan's Unsung Legacy: Frozen Food Day : The Salt : NPR

Another Welfare Queen Snitch?

Armageddon Prose/ “EBT Recipient to MAHA: ‘You’re Gonna tell Me I Can’t Have a F***ing Dr. Pepper With My Dinner?’”

Quoting:

Dripping with righteous indignation — in the grating Valley Girl aesthetic she inherited from Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton or whatever pop culture harlot the corporate media foists on American youth — this woman is “dumbfounded” that she’ll no longer be able to purchase Dr. Pepper and brownies with her government-issued EBT card:

I am so dumbfounded right now. There are people who genuinely think that people who use EBTs don’t deserve sodas, candy, or desserts. You’re gonna tell me that my daughter doesn’t deserve a popsicle? You’re gonna tell me that I don’t deserve to get brownies? You’re gonna tell me I can’t have a fucking Dr. Pepper with my dinner? And all I’m hearing is ‘be grateful’… Get off of your throne of entitlement* and take a look around you guys. Everyone is one bad day away from being homeless or even needing government assistance. Do you guys not see how that makes you look? Your lack of empathy and understanding is outstandingly atrocious.”

Entitlements? He’s going to go to a dictionary, uh? Which billionaire and millionaire CEO and schmuck working for them is getting their ketchup and cake and other entitlements?

Important information about aliens can be obtained from the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense’s “Astrobiodefense: Biological Threats and the Next Frontier” meeting held on May 8, 2025.

Trillion$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Extra credit if you can ID these two criminals?

Logo

Trillion$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for these cocksuckers in suits and skirts. And it’s about Dr. Pepper and SNAP?

“Planetary Protection Officer” named J. Nick Benardini? TRILLION$$$$$ in “entitlements.”

The Evolution of Planetary Protection Implementation on Mars Landed Missions

“We’re in a race to the Moon, we’re in a race with China to build a Nuclear Reactor on The Moon”

“There’s a part of the Moon everyone knows best, there’s ice & sunlight there & we have to get there first to claim it”

NASA Chief Sean Duffy just declared the race to colonise the Moon is on against China. Wild.

How Dr Pepper Became the Internet's Favorite Offbeat Cocktail Ingredient |  VinePair
Planetary Protection

Shit, I get pushback on Fuck You Book when I stated that “Aaron is a fool for this fucking headline”:

There are no pledges worth feces from Semen Drip and Pedophile Trump, and Putin is the fucking fool, man:

May be an image of 2 people and the Oval Office

What would our KGB researcher—let’s call him Igor—have found out about Steve Witkoff using open-source intelligence, ie, stuff that’s been in the newspapers?

Well, Igor would surely have unearthed a lengthy 1998 Wall Street Journal profile, which recounts how, only three years previously, Witkoff was a small-time landlord in the Bronx who wore a licensed handgun on his ankle while out collecting rents uptown.

The piece did not paint a flattering picture of Witkoff’s burgeoning property portfolio, with a number of sources voicing concern about how highly leveraged his operation was.

The article upset Witkoff, who told a podcaster 20 years later: “I don’t have a thick skin.”

According to this piece, financiers were nervous about lending Witkoff more money. But he was lucky enough to meet a man named Mark Walsh, a managing director at Lehman Brothers, whom he described in terms nearly as flattering as those he later reserved for Putin: “One of the finest people I have ever met in my life.”

Walsh was more trusting of Witkoff than others and backed him to buy the landmark Woolworth building in Lower Manhattan in 1998. Lehman even had plans for Witkoff to launch a $2 billion IPO.

Well, we know how the Lehman story ended. In 2008, the bank came crashing down, with some people suggesting that Walsh bore a share of the blame. Igor will no doubt have discovered a 2009 New York Times piece asking of Walsh: “How could a real estate wizard… end up doing deals that contradicted everything he seemed to stand for and contribute to the collapse of one of Wall Street’s most venerable firms?”

Witkoff was more understanding and went back into business with Walsh in 2011. He told the WSJ, “Unfortunately, Mark has to live with the talk of having done a couple of bad deals rather than people focusing on the overwhelming amount of good ones.”

So, Igor will have built a picture of Witkoff’s striking appetite for risk.

And sooner or later, he will doubtless stumble upon another of his associates, Jho Low, often described as a “Malaysian playboy.” Like Walsh, Low was only too willing to lend Witkoff money, providing 85 per cent of the equity for a $654m deal to buy the Park Lane Hotel in 2013.

That arrangement also ended in tears, with the US Department of Justice claiming that Low had used fraudulent proceeds to buy his 55 per cent stake. The NYT reported that “he sits at the centre of what authorities are calling one of the biggest international money laundering schemes ever.” Low is currently reported to be hiding in Myanmar or holed up in Macau.

In his 2018 podcast, Witkoff claimed to have “vetted [Low] like we would vet any other partner.”

+—+

Every Journalist Should be on a Week of Silence boycotting all other “news” and just drill drill drilling down on this Jewish-American Mafia killing the messengers.

The martyrdom of Anas al-Sharif

“Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.”

The martyrdom of Anas al-Sharif - Palestine Will Be Free

Anas will remain, beyond the shroud.

He’s still here. In every exposed lie. In every crack in their power.

We will haunt them, beyond the shroud.

May be an image of ‎1 person, hospital and ‎text that says '‎لصحفي أنس الشريق‎'‎‎

Hiroshima Lives On—In Gaza

Where Is the UN-Supported Doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Today?

After A Targeted Smear Campaign, Israel Targets And Kills Journalist In Gaza.

Israel Is Continuing Its War On Brave Palestinian Journalists.

Pictured Above: Journalist Anas Al Sharif, who was recently targeted and killed by Israel

Since starting its Holocaust in Gaza, Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

The reason is obvious: if journalists were allowed to report on what Israel is doing in Gaza, the world would see the full extent of its crimes against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

International doctors who have been allowed into Gaza have exposed shocking crimes, such as IDF snipers shooting children in the head, and IDF snipers targeting different body parts on Palestinian civilians on different days.

If Israel lets journalists into Gaza, this is only a fraction of the crimes that would be uncovered.

As part of this information blockade, Israel has targeted and killed native journalists in Gaza to prevent them from exposing Israel’s crimes.

Gaza’s Media Office has documented 221 Palestinian journalists who have been targeted and killed by the IDF since October 7th of 2023.

Most recently, Israel targeted and killed journalist Anas al-Sharif along with four of his colleagues, “correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and three cameramen: Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa”.

The IDF bragged about murdering al-Sharif on X, falsely claiming he was a “Hamas terrorist”.

In reality, Israel ran a coordinated smear campaign against Anas Al-Sharif in order to justify killing him for his journalism.

+—+

Fuck Putin and ZioNaziAzovLensky and Ukraine and the fucking Russians!

The “Aid” That Eats Its Own Victims

Muhannad Zakaria Eid was crushed by an “aid” drop in the ongoing ritual of humiliation and suffering

I am ashamed that every day I live a leisurely life is devoid of justice.

This morning I listened to “On Being,” the episode where Krista Tippett interviews a grief therapist who says our bodies are not built to carry the full weight of the world. She speaks softly, in the way people do when they are trying to soothe without sounding patronizing, and tells her audience that it is okay to look away. I’m standing in my kitchen with my thumb on the nespresso (one I bought before they joined the boycott list), nodding along, even though I know I will resent her words by noon. — Ahmad Ibsais

In Counterpunch today, and the Martens do good work; however . . . . there is no outrage worth reporting from the so-called MAGA base. Who are these lowlifes? And, MAGA is Military Industrial Finance Real Estate AI Digital Prison Mining Polluting Big Ag-Oil-Chemical Surveillance COMPLEX.

The Billionaires in the Epstein Files and Their Ties to Israel by Pam Martens – Russ Martens

Image

On July 7, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI released a joint, unsigned memorandum that began with these words: “As part of our commitment to transparency….” The two-page memorandum reveals that these federal agencies had searched everything from databases to hard drives to locked cabinets and closets for documents pertaining to the international sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, the college dropout who had amassed a $577.7 million fortune at the time of his death, according to probate documents in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The statement from the DOJ/FBI said its extensive searches had turned up 300 gigabytes of Epstein-related data. (For an idea of how much that might translate into if converted into Microsoft Word documents, it comes out to approximately 19.5 million pages or 65,000 pages per gigabyte according to tech experts.)

But despite that opening promise of “transparency,” the memorandum meanders its way to a very Trumpian finish. Not one word of the 300 gigabytes of Epstein data in the hands of the government would be released to the public. That’s because the President’s Praetorian Guard, populated by his own former defense attorneys, have determined that there was no “incriminating ‘client list’ ”; “no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals” and not a scintilla of “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The intellectually insulting memo landed like a hot fireball among Trump’s MAGA base. Trump had promised for years to expose all the elite pedophiles controlling the Deep State if he was returned to the Oval Office. The outrage was immediate on rightwing podcasts and social media.

The fallout has spiraled nonstop for the past month on evening news programs. Unfortunately, corporate media can’t seem to even whisper the name of the most obvious third-party target for a DOJ criminal charge: the largest bank in the United States, JPMorgan Chase, with a storied history of money laundering; five previous DOJ felony counts; and client relationships with Epstein’s two major money men – billionaires Leslie Wexner and Leon Black – both of whom have ties to Israel, as did Epstein.

According to court records, JPMorgan Chase sat at the very center of the financial side of this sex trafficking network and has an existing spreadsheet showing it processed 9,000 transactions payable to Epstein-related persons that occurred between 2005 and 2019 with a combined value of over $2.4 billion.

Could Trump splatter the wall with ketchup and not lose a vote? - The  Boston Globe

THREE FUCKING YEARS AGO when the room IQ mind of the fucking lunatic pedophile deranged semen drip NPD cocksucker’s bi-polar self was on display. THREE YEARS ago, and here we are.

‘Ketchup dripping down the wall’: 5 stunning moments from Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 testimony

Trump lunging for the Beast’s wheel

Hutchinson told the committee that she heard from a top presidential security official, Tony Ornato, about an altercation on Jan. 6, as Trump continued pressing to go to the Capitol following his speech to supporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse. When Trump was told he would return to the White House instead of going to the Capitol that day, while being driven in the presidential vehicle known as “the Beast,” Hutchinson recalled hearing that he became irate.

She said she heard from Ornato that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of the car and was physically restrained by the head of his Secret Service detail, Robert Engel.

Ornato “described [Trump] as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, ‘I am the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now,’” Hutchinson said. She added that while Ornato relayed this story to her, Engel sat silent.

Trump throwing food at the wall

After then-Attorney General William Barr gave an interview to The Associated Press in December 2020 saying there was no widespread voter fraud, Trump was so enraged that he threw his plate of food at the wall, smearing it with ketchup, Hutchinson said.

“There was ketchup dripping down the wall and a shattered porcelain plate on the floor,” Hutchinson testified, noting that aides nearby conveyed the president was “extremely angry” at the Barr interview. She told the committee that she then grabbed a towel and started wiping the ketchup off the wall alongside a presidential valet.

A call from ‘angry’ McCarthy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Hutchinson on Jan. 6 to relay his concern that Trump would try to come to the Capitol after the then-president mentioned it on stage at the Ellipse rally, she testified.

Trump OK’ing weapons at ‘Stop the Steal’

Minutes before the then-president took the stage at the Ellipse rally of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021 — a gathering to amplify his baseless election fraud claims that he vowed would be “wild” and later metastasized into the Capitol riot — Hutchinson said she heard Trump urging the Secret Service to remove security magnetometers and let in people with weapons.

His rationale, as she recalled it, was allowing in armed rallygoers because “they’re not here to hurt me.”

Trump wanted the rally space to be full and “for people to not feel excluded,” Hutchinson said, and was “fucking furious” people were turned away.

+—+

A moratorium on covering these Jewish Run and Jewish Fed Monsters in the Minyan, AKA, White Man’s House/Synagogue.

Okay, just more feces, while Palestine Burns, Journalists are Eradicated, and the Jewish Project of Domination is Right on Target, as Planned:

Trump issued an Executive Order on July 24, 2025 that openly threatens to put homeless people in concentration camps, under the false pretext of public safety:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe. The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration — 274,224 — was the highest ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both. …

Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order. Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens. My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety. …

Sec. 2. Restoring Civil Commitment. (a) The Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, shall take appropriate action to:

(i) seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.

Trump just began implementation of that Executive Order in DC today!

“Just as the college ‘towards the advancement of Universal learning’ was intended to help people become more rational, so, too, the college for the study of ‘Oriental tongues and Jewish Mysteries’ was intended to make people more ‘pious’, since the ‘first oracles of God’ were delivered in those languages, and the revelation of the true worship and religion was transmitted to humanity by means of Judaism”. [48]

It is noteworthy how the idea of making people “more rational” is so closely linked here with the idea of “true” religion originating from Judaism.

We see a reflection of Berman’s statement that the Jewish religion was “based precisely on the rooting out of animistic beliefs” [49] – in other words our sense of belonging to living nature.

I am also reminded of Alain Daniélou’s reference to “a Judaism which had become monotheistic, dry, ritualistic, puritan, Pharisee and inhuman” [50] and of John Lamb Lash’s view that the ancient Jews were not interested in conscience, and the power to choose what is right, but “merely introduced a set of rules purporting to dictate what is right”. [51]

It is further worth recalling that Max Weber says Judaism has a “particular historical importance in the blooming of the economic ethics of the modern West”. [52] — Thanks to, The Invisible College and the plan for our enslavement

New thing: Trigger warning for any truths or Lenny Bruce reality that this blog may manifest through the railing and ranting and polemics of our time but banned by the masses on Substac

What sort of fun are the Jews in Israel and the Jews in High and Low Eichmann Position unfolding for the world?

Which dirty underwear do we remove from the Trump Wardrobe?

UN ambassadors have condemned Israel’s plans to “take control” of Gaza City as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted it was the “best way” to end the war.

During a press conference, which Netanyahu said was intended to “puncture the lies”, the Israeli leader said the planned offensive would move “fairly quickly” and would “free Gaza from Hamas”.

He also claimed Israeli hostages held in Gaza were “the only ones being deliberately starved” and denied Israel was starving Gazans.

Meanwhile, Israel came under heavy criticism at an emergency meeting of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, with the UK, France and others warning the plan risked “violating international humanitarian law”.

+-+

Condemnation after Condemnation? Jews love turning it all around, you know, preverbial victim of the ugly anti-Jew world only in their wet dreams.

european-heat-dome-extreme-heatwave-europe-august-2025

Which Jew Mafia are the EuroTrashLandians supporting?

Extreme, scorching heat will also worsen ongoing drought conditions across Iberia, central, southern, and partly western Europe, where recent devastating and historic wildfires have been ongoing in south France, the west Iberian peninsula, Greece, and Turkey.

A major Heat Dome is building up over a large part of Europe this week and will remain strong throughout the new week, lasting into mid-August. Over time, the excessive heat will spread north and east, reaching the UK and Benelux, to Slovakia, Ukraine, and Poland on the east.

How many Jews have paid for Trump?

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”

Double or triple the number, and now? Times ten, the money in the Jews’ surveillance and digital spying investments.

Mostly Jew money directly or through Jew Fink and Schwarzman and Goldman Sachs.

EPA terminates federal union contracts, effective immediately

Jews: The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it will no longer recognize its federal unions and that all collective bargaining agreements are terminated, effective immediately.

EPA’s announcement makes it the second known agency this week to cancel collective bargaining for agency employees, following a similar announcement at the Department of Veterans Affairs two days ago.

The impacted unions are the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Association of Government Employees, the Engineers and Scientists of California and the National Association of Independent Labor. Union leaders from those labor organizations received an email from EPA’s Office of Mission Support Friday afternoon.

“You are receiving this email because you are a union point of contact or have reported the use of official time in the recent past,” the email, obtained by Federal News Network, reads. “EPA’s contracts with AFGE, NAGE R4, NAGE Narraganset, ESC and NAIL are hereby terminated.”

Farm Irrigation

Again, Jews like Bibi and Zelensky and Ellison and . . . fill in the blank _________________.

Country in collapse, thanks MAGA and Trump and his Jews. Now, how to mitigate this in America, those 50 States? The White Man’s Psychosis is fucking brain dead.

Eastern Washington’s rapidly declining groundwater highlighted in new study

Soldiers marching via Shutterstock

Oh, darn, the real lord of war. 1 ‘Strong Buy’ Defense Stock to Snag Instead of Palantir

LORD OF DEATH, Skinny Jeans and all.

Fucking Jews Want an End to Schools, man. More crap articles, from the Chronicle of Higher Dying Almost Gone Education.

College in the Post-Educational Age - WSJ

College in the Post-Educational Age

Students lose something vital when they go to school in search of careers, not learning.

[Some 19 million students and 1.4 million variously credentialed faculty will soon descend on America’s college campuses to begin the school year. For the first time in decades, I won’t be among the latter cohort, where I always found myself in an awkward double-edged position: a practicing journalist deeply committed to the academic mission, while also an observer studying academia’s foibles with journalistic scrutiny.]

College in the Post-Educational Age - WSJ

Forbes, now on the Trump Chlamydia Hit List

Another stupid and dead headline: Netanyahu’s Gaza takeover plan satisfies no one but himself.

Shit, another CNN Jew telling us:

New condemnation of Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City

Tel Aviv —

Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, the Israeli security cabinet voted for yet another military expansion: the proposed takeover of Gaza City. The plan, which was initiated and pushed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, arguably reveals more about his domestic political maneuvering than evidence of any well-thought-out military strategy.

Says it all about a fucked up Oppe-Monster-Heimer white psychosis. Moon over homo sapiens and Gaia.

The moon motherfucking cunts.

After starvation in Gaza, Sudan, refeeding syndrome a risk

Even if food aid reaches Gaza, Sudan and other famine zones, complications can arise in malnourished or starving people when they regain access to regular meals. Those complications can be fatal

Yeah, the fucking MOON, when we can’t do it right on Mother Earth. JEWS.

JEWS: Really, so this headline gets you? On Sunday, the Israeli military killed our press colleagues, Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa.

The journalists were killed by an Israeli airstrike late Sunday local time. One minute, they were reporting on Israel’s escalating bombardment of Gaza City. And the next minute, they became victims of it.

NO ONE CARES seems to be the standard operating procedure:

Child crushed to death by airdropped aid pallet – War on Gaza Day 673

Jews. Fucking rabid JEWS. Jews of the world. JEWS.

Virus.

Bacteria.

Flesh eating monsters.

Blood . . .

libel.

Jews.

Media firestorm': Israel protest at professor's home sparks heated  free-speech debate | US news | The Guardian

Yellow Hammer. Black Lodge Singers. Northern Cree. Cozad Singers. Bear Creek. Southern Thunder.

Kids jumping into the Yaquina River. Near Elk City. Pacific breath like an open freezer throwing clouds out into the forest. We flow away from the wrack line in Newport, up through forest road, into the rez.

Georgia Pacific pulp spewing the white snake of death from the town of Toledo. Slug and acid ponds bubbling up like the last waltz on the Titanic.

Flow, that odd dance white men do entering another place, another culture, way away from the domination mindset, way away from the hot slag of the retread America, one nation under one white god so far away from Turtle Island.

Flow through Oregon slipstream of Air Streams and two hundred K Mercedes van campers.

Slipping into an ancient fire, plugging along at fifty mph, but back into a time when contact was just a dream of elders.

Nightmare. Stories. History. Flow.

Wrack line and drum circles.

The history of the Siletz is in many ways the history of all Indian tribes in America: a story of heartache, perseverance, survival, and revival. It began in a resource-rich homeland thousands of years ago and today finds a vibrant, modern community with a deeply held commitment to tradition.

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians―twenty-seven tribes speaking at least ten languages―were brought together on the Oregon Coast through treaties with the federal government in 1853–55. For decades after, the Siletz people lost many traditional customs, saw their languages almost wiped out, and experienced poverty, killing diseases, and humiliation. Again and again, the federal government took great chunks of the magnificent, timber-rich tribal homeland, a reservation of 1.1 million acres reaching a full 100 miles north to south on the Oregon Coast. By 1956, the tribe had been “terminated” under the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act, selling off the remaining land, cutting off federal health and education benefits, and denying tribal status. Poverty worsened, and the sense of cultural loss deepened.

The Siletz people refused to give in. In 1977, after years of work and appeals to Congress, they became the second tribe in the nation to have its federal status, its treaty rights, and its sovereignty restored. Hand-in-glove with this federal recognition of the tribe has come a recovery of some land―several hundred acres near Siletz and 9,000 acres of forest―and a profound cultural revival.

This remarkable account, written by one of the nation’s most respected experts in tribal law and history, is rich in Indian voices and grounded in extensive research that includes oral tradition and personal interviews. It is a book that not only provides a deep and beautifully written account of the history of the Siletz, but reaches beyond region and tribe to tell a story that will inform the way all of us think about the past.

The trucks with waving young dancers put along the little town of Siletz. Older folk, in their 70s, smiles, ready for the elder dances, the chicken dances, the grass dancers. Fancy shawl dances, gourd dances, jingle, buckskin dancing.

Cedar dance houses.

Run to the Rogue, I remember, 240 miles. Treaty Day, Sept. 10.

Tecumtum (Chief John)

Tecumtum (“Elk Killer”), also known as Chief John, was chief of the Etch-ka-taw-wah, a band of Indians who lived along the Applegate River in southwestern Oregon. Tecumtum’s band was the last group of Rogue River Indians to surrender to United States forces during the Rogue River War of 1855-1856.

The discovery of gold in southwestern Oregon in the early 1850s and the subsequent rush of newcomers to the region exacerbated the already conflict-ridden relationship between whites and Indians in the Rogue River Valley. In the fall of 1855, one of Tecumtum’s sons and another member of his band were lynched by a mob of whites in Eureka, California. Not long after, a company of volunteers from Jacksonville attacked a peaceful Indian village just outside the Table Rock Reservation, massacring dozens of men, women, and children.

In response to these events, Tecumtum gathered his people and fled to the mountains, where he fought the invading whites for over a year. One government official noted that Tecumtum wanted to live peacefully with the whites, but “that he would rather die fighting for his rights than to…have his people killed for nothing when ever it suited the caprice of some men to do so.”

Tecumtum surrendered in the summer of 1856 when it became clear that victory over the whites was impossible. He and more than two hundred of his people were forced to abandon their ancestral lands, walking 125 miles north to their new home on the Coast Reservation, which later became the Siletz Reservation.

Two years later, both Tecumtum and his son Adam were imprisoned in San Francisco for allegedly plotting an uprising. In 1862, they returned to Oregon’s Grand Ronde Reservation. Tecumtum died of old age on June 6, 1864, at Ft. Yamhill, Oregon.

+—+

Flow, white man with old man with autism, flowing in the dance of Pow wow, the vendors throwing Benjamins. Elders and young, paraded along paved roads. Magnificent blankets with eagle, bear, cougar.

I can and I won’t believe it has been a year ago. Same powwow and same genocide. One year ago, just another white man, that ghost man, Biden, and the Palestinian Trail of Tears was just again on full display: Read that piece from a year ago — below. I am in a state of suspended humanity — no core love anymore for the white man, and of course, all men and women who are not talking about or protesting or roaring against the fudcking live-streamed slaughter, as if it is a soccer championship.

My old man client and I hit the back roads. He is 60 but wants to flow in river water. Odd pair of dudes trucking in 2006 Grand Caravan.

Imagine, taking this off the beaten path road, Elk City Road:

Dock

There were boys and girls on the dock. Jumping and fishing and tadpole netting. Diving and just cool talkative kiddos.

Talking about earthquakes and, well, Paulo jumps in to guide, elder of sorts, and he/me/we loves the kiddos, and these precocious kiddos were a blast. We talked about tsunamis, about sharks, about the movie Jaws. And, alas, they were there, with my client jumping in the river in his clothes, and nothing fazed these kiddos.

Ukraine. Bella went to Ukraine she said many times. Thirteen times in all her 13 years. She was born near Albany, Oregon, but her parents were from Ukraine. The parents were nowhere to be found, but I saw them at the campground from afar with a paddleboard and kayak about to be portaged down.

Again, no concerns about this bearded dude, me, having these great long and dramatic talks with the girls and the guys.

My guy with autism loved the water, showed me he could swim (I was ready to jump in).

Ukraine.

I ran into Ukrainians in Spokane. Religious, clanish, fucked up in many ways. The guys were chop shop dudes, oh those Nissans and Toyotas, man, hotwired and chopped by the Ukrainians.

Mothers all bond up in their klannish religion.

They supported Christ in public schools. Supported bans — right to life for women to CHOOSE.

20241011 Ministries in Responce to WBC-LBooth

They love this group of members from Westboro Baptist Church who held signs from 9:45 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. on the corner of Sharp Avenue and Ruby Street, where they were met with students and community members who came out to counter the protest.

The independent church from Topeka, Kansas, issued a press release last Sunday outlining its plans to picket at GU and Spokane Community College. Ellen Maccarone, GU’s vice president for mission integration, sent an email to the university community on Wednesday evening, clarifying that the WBC would not be allowed on campus for safety reasons and urging GU community members to avoid engaging with protesters.

Here, the fucking propaganda version of why Ukrainians in Spokane (I ended up in Spokane in 2001 from El Paso)

Ukrainian flag

It’s difficult to pinpoint how many Slavs live in Spokane County. Alex Kaprian, a Ukrainian American pastor at Pilgrim Slavic Baptist Church, said the best guess puts the number at roughly 50,000 Slavs in the Spokane area, and Ukrainians make up the largest percentage of that figure. All throughout Spokane County, Ukrainian Americans are terrified for their friends and family in Ukraine.

Laura Brunell, a professor of European politics at Gonzaga University, explained the origin of Spokane’s large Slavic population “all goes back to religious persecution in the Soviet Union and Reaganism.”

Being a Christian in the atheistic Soviet Union was often miserable or dangerous. Clergy and believers could be imprisoned, especially Baptists, Brunell said.

Between 1989 and 1991, parts of the Soviet Union began to democratize and claim independence. During that period of instability and turmoil, millions of Christians had an opportunity to leave.

Many came to America, a majority-Christian nation of immigrants with a strong belief in religious freedom.

“Reagan was like, ‘Yes, anybody can get out of any of the Soviet satellites or the Soviet Union, come on down,’ ” Brunell said.

In the mid- to late 1990s, economic factors may have fueled the Eastern European exodus more than religious persecution. The Russian economy collapsed in the mid-1990s, and the region experienced a period of upheaval.

Petr Gaydarzhi, a Ukrainian American who came to the U.S. in 1997, said his family wasn’t being persecuted for being Christian by the time they left. But they were worried religious freedom in newly independent Ukraine might be temporary.

“Life is not getting better, so people try, try, try, and then they move,” Gaydarzhi said.

The United States was willing to accept large numbers of Christian refugees, and it had a policy to determine where to put them. Refugees often don’t get to pick their new home town.

“Our government puts them here,” Brunell said. “They didn’t pick Spokane, Spokane was picked for them.”

Brunell said the U.S. tends to resettle refugees in areas experiencing population decline and deindustrialization. It’s an economic policy, and it’s often why there are seemingly random pockets of immigrant communities throughout the U.S.

+—+

So Bella and Mika and Mike and Jennifer, all talkative, all with Ukrainian roots, but not born there. “I met my grandparents when I went back to Ukraine. I met them in the graveyard.”

+—+

And then, bam, on this road, a fucking pack of purebred German Shepherds. Both nirvana and what the fuck. Broken down van. Literally 12 dogs, from the adult paid and then these 4 month old half a dozen and then these year-olds.

Fucking a dozen, coming at me as I exited the van. Crazy big-eared dogs, barking like fiends, and then the master, the owner, bearded young guy but long ass Rip Van Winkle beard, gray, too, from weathering. We talked, me and this Jacob. He was laid off from a good-paying job. He lost rental housing. Every one of the dogs he had names for.

Fucking barking puppies and yearlings. Coming at me like a pack of sharks.

Nirvana and another surreal run in the back woods running into Ukraine and atypical homeless blue collar white guy.

They were off the charts, though, barking at me, and I am a dog whisperer, sure, but fucking adult and young German Shepherds coming at me from all angles. Damn that was fun.

Damn, the fucking Ukrainians, the campers, the kiddos, this dispossessed thirty something, the dogs, the river, on the side of the county road, just fucking crazy America, and crazy Paulo, stopping, putting the hand out, and soaking in and sucking in stories.

America is broken, and flipped over as this odd comedy tour — from Powwow where Indigenous welcomed all, and the fucking color guard, as always, and thank you for your service over and over when I was getting discounts for my client who is a buy buy buy shark. So psychotically white deranged, that we have these Ukrainians with nice campers, and their kiddos talking it up a storm to a Paulo who is definitely no fan of Orthodox Ukrainians, Bandera, and ZioNaziLensky.

German Shepherd World® (@thegermanshepherdworld) • Instagram photos and  videos
Join The Pack And Hike With Dogs In Penobscot Maine

The fucking AMericans should have never been there. Viet Nam. And the goddamned dogs? Yeah, John Esposito from my El Paso days. Veterinarian, ex dog guy, Viet Nam. I’ve written about John and Shannon and Tom Connelly. Catch that in Cirque Journal.

Written about my youth in Arizona — Wrestling the Blind, Chasing Apache Horses and Unpacking Vietnam.

So, then, we keep driving down Elk City Road, and I spot some apple trees. Many varieties. A few trees had birthed a load of apples onto the ground. I backed up and went up the dirt road. I got out and picked a few, calling out a name, “John, you around, John?” … An old ploy. John Tomilson, for sure.

I thought I had a couple of apples, but then this white boy, a man, came tromping down.

“So you stole apples from my tree on my property. What the hell are you doing on my property.”

“Hey, man, I was looking for John.”

“John who?”

“This guy has a motorcycle for sale, some John Tomilson.”

Oh these fucking white men, paranoia, but his driveway up the hill had no “No Trespassing” signs.

This dude insisted that I stole his apples and that I was on his property.

“Hey, the guy down the road with the dogs, he said there is motorcycle for sale. John’s place. I’m interested in buying a bike.”

“So you have two stolen apples in your hands, and this isn’t John’s place.”

“Well, my bad, and I’ll head on out.”

“But you have my apples, the stolen ones, in your hand.”

I looked around, and the trees were already dropping them on the ground.

“Yeah, honest mistake. I thought that a couple of apples while I was calling out John’s name wouldn’t hurt.”

“You stole and still have my apples.”

“What do you want then . . . “ I tossed them at the tree near him.

“So you just threw apples at me, stolen apples from my tree.”

“Nah, I tossed them at the tree with the other apples on the ground.”

“Threw apples at me, man.”

“Well, that’s not the case, and so go ahead and hassle a veteran out for a drive.”

“Yeah, what war did you fight in?” (fucking wars make a veteran?)

“Vietnam.”

“You’re too young to have been in Vietnam.”

“Really? I remember Hanoi and China Beach very well.”

“How old are you?”

“What?”

“Too young to have fought in Vietnam.”

I lied and said, “Shit, dude, is this an age game? Seventy-one.”

“You don’t look it.”

“I take care of myself. Eat veggies.”

So, this little road, in the boonies, Elk City Road, with the Ukrainians and this incel, man, this is what takes the cake for America. MY WHOLE fucking life traveling in this stolen land.

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Churches on the Rez:

Logsden Church
SGT church, Siletz Oregon | Siletz OR
Siletz Church of Christ

The fucking tribal chief, a woman, thanked Jesus for the day.

Jesus and the rez?

Then this fucking blasphemy. I heard him with his fucking whiny voice, East Coast fucking voice, talking about “This is the best one here for Indian tacos.”

Fucking skull cap, beaded no less — poor fucking Indian spirit who beaded it is going to Jew Hell — there in line.

And so my feeds feed me more Jewish lies — Israel’s Biggest US Donor Now Owns CBS

That’s it over at Scheer Post? vis-a-vis Mint Press News:

Jewish First AmeriKKKan Jew, Biggest US Mercenary Merchant of Genocide, Ellison and his Evil Spawn, Now (Jews always owned this network) CBS:

After reaching an agreement with President Trump, David Ellison—the son of the second-richest man in the world, Larry Ellison—has acquired Paramount Global, the media giant that owns CBS News.

Larry Ellison, the largest private funder of the Israel Defense Forces, is deeply tied to the Israeli national security state and counts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among his closest friends.

And the Rez has Jesus and some slob from New York waiting for his kosher taco.

Oracle sees itself as an activist organization, one whose goal is the advancement of the Israeli colonization project. Safra Catz, the company’s Israeli-American CEO, bluntly explained that any employees uncomfortable with supporting a genocide should simply quit. “We are not flexible regarding our mission, and our commitment to Israel is second to none,” she said, adding:

This is a free world and I love my employees, and if they don’t agree with our mission to support the State of Israel, then maybe we aren’t the right company for them. Larry and I are publicly committed to Israel and devote personal time to the country, and no one should be surprised by that.”

Another essay, not a rant or cut and paste:

In the Eye of the Wolf — Measuring Myself through Death

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Twelve Hours Away from the Faux and Deadly Mean/Meaningless Fucked up Western News

… and I am sure that the same black face shit and Jewish Death Spiral shit just kept on ticking like that global timebomb about to blow us all up, motherfuckers

Paulo Kirk/ Aug 10, 2024

Drumming in the dancers:

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians host and invite all to come join & celebrate our annual Nesika Illahee Pow-Wow. Our celebration takes place in the heart of the Siletz reservation in the town of Siletz, Oregon. Every summer during the second weekend in August, Native & Non-Native people from all over the United States & further gather here to take part in our annual Nesika Illahee Pow-Wow.

For three days our community, situated on the central Oregon coast is transformed. On display is traditional dancing, drumming, and singing from all over Indigenous America and further. Our gathering has an array of vendors that represents the many facets of Indigenous American Arts, Crafts and Cuisine. The Pauline Ricks Memorial Pow-Wow grounds on Government Hill becomes the beating heart of our community.

Nesika Illahee Pow-wow Poster

1.1 million-acre reservation was established by President Franklin Pierce on November 9, 1855, fulfilling the stipulations of eight treaties. Over time, reservation lands were taken away, and CTSI was terminated as a tribe in 1954. In 1977, CTSI was the second tribe in the nation to achieve restoration.

History COUNTS, and as we see, the Palestinians have been denied humanity, and now the Jewish freaks have colonized most people’s minds. Yep, the reservation people are always paying tribute to the veterans and the Old Glory. But . . . They are fucking Palestinians in the minds of the Anglo-Franco-Iberian-Germanic-Saxon-Judaic.

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A good one below, verbatim. Quoted. Cut and pasted.

Dead Horses: The complicated education of a White person growing up among the Siletz

Born in a tiny hospital overlooking Alsea Bay and the Pacific Ocean, I entered the world on an unusual snowy night. My father was home on leave and scheduled to serve the US Army Air Corps in faraway Alaska, where Japanese troops had occupied a pair of remote islands. I didn’t know any of that, of course. I wasn’t aware that my mother and I were living with her parents and her two youngest sisters. Nor was I aware when that house burned to the ground six weeks later. I’m told my twelve-year-old aunt ran back into the house to rescue me and the family dog.

Grandpa, who had been a commercial fisherman on Alsea Bay for many years, had finally succumbed to competition from sport fishermen and taken a sawmill job in the Siletz country. We moved to be with him in a tiny, two-room house that had been a neighborhood schoolhouse in early reservation days. Eventually, he was able to build a new home on a beautiful plot of land that had been part of the original Siletz Reservation, also called the Coast Reservation. The property was divided by the gravel road that ran from the City of Siletz (formerly known as “Agency Farm”) east toward the Upper Farm/Logsden area. My father sent money home to purchase the property on the north side of the highway, where I eventually lived with my parents and my four siblings, mostly oblivious to the historic world I had been carried into. It would be decades before I began to understand the horrific history of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

In 1856, nearly thirty tribes and bands were forced from their homelands in Southern Oregon, Northern California, and the Willamette Valley after being defeated by US troops sent to clear out the people they considered savages to make way for miners, settlers, and so-called pioneers eager to get the free land stolen from the tribes.

Deceived by the promises made in treaties, the battered, despondent, sick, and starving people arrived in the valley of the Siletz River to find no homes, no supplies. Many of the people were, if not enemies, harboring old hostilities.

In their former homelands, mostly centered around the Rogue Valley and Rogue River area on or near the southern coast, the tribes were free. In The People Are Dancing Again: The History of the Siletz Tribe of Western Oregon, Charles Wilkinson wrote, “Western Oregon Indians understandably revered these landscapes that fed their people . . . and they had their sovereignty, their right to follow their own star, the self-determination for which indigenous and ethnic cultures the world over yearned. All this stood in the starkest contrast to what was to come.”

There was nothing in Siletz of the old freedoms. No way to protect or feed the families. No shelters. Though the river and streams teemed with fish, crawdads, and eels, and the forest sheltered plenty of deer that would provide venison for the starving people, the tribes were denied any rights to hunting or fishing. They were to assimilate into White culture, and the government seemed to believe the first step was for them to become potato farmers.

Those early years must have been horrific beyond description. In 1862, six years after arriving on the new reservation, Chief George of the Sixes Tribe told a visiting government representative, “Our people have had to eat frozen potatoes, that are rotten, and the carcasses of dead horses. They are dying very fast, and my heart is sick. I think rotten potatoes are not good for any people.”

Six years! The tribes that had thrived upon hunting, fishing, and gathering had no experience farming, and fields often failed. Treaties remained unsigned by the US government. Food was sparse and seldom arrived. William, chief of the Chetco Tribe, reported that when a supply of flour arrived at Fort Hoskins, at the eastern edge of the one-million-plus-acre reservation, or at Depot Slough, nearly ten miles from Siletz, tribal women were “packed like mules” to carry it to the Siletz agency.

After the chiefs made their complaints in 1862, the agent approved some passes for hunting on their ancestral lands. But then a ruthless new agent, Ben Simpson, arrived, and he had other plans. There was much suffering by those whom he whipped for violations.

Some of the people had made homes near the Yaquina Bay (now Newport), where they could gather Native foods like crab, clams, perch, oysters, mussels, and salmon. Conniving settlers wanted access to the harbor. Senator James Nesmith, a former Superintendent of Indian Affairs, lied to the Secretary of the Interior and President Andrew Johnson, saying the bay was not used or needed by the people of the reservation. In 1864 the government stole 300 square miles of the Coast Reservation. It was the beginning of numerous similar thefts by the federal government: in 1875, the Siletz Reservation was reduced to 225,000 acres; then, the General Allotment Act of 1887 forced the Siletz people to sell 192,000 acres.

Each loss of reservation lands meant loss of Native access to the foods on those lands. It also meant loss of access to materials for the basket weaving that provided utensils for the tribal homes and a livelihood for the weavers. When the massive theft of reservation lands was finished, the tribes were left with a miniscule land base held in trust by the same government that had done the stealing.

I learned nothing of this history in school. The establishment and taking of the Coast Reservation was long forgotten by the writers of Oregon’s school textbooks by the time I grew up on the section known as the Siletz Reservation.

A textbook approved for Lincoln County’s eighth graders in 1949, and still used when I was in that grade eight years later, spoke of Indians as people of the past: “the Indian is known only as he lived and worked and hunted and played when the white man first came.” (Philip H. Parrish, Historic Oregon.)

Parrish painted a grotesque picture of Native life: “The Indians boiled most of their food. They had baskets woven so tightly they would hold water. Into the baskets, filled with water and pieces of salmon, the red housewives would drop hot stones from the fireplace. . . . The men ate first. . . . A white man who knew Indian lodges well wrote that when the fires were lighted and the men, women, and children crowded inside, the place looked like a witches’ cave.”

Parrish concluded with one last insult: “and through all was the smell—the awful smell of the Indian lodge.”

Imagine being a tribal teen in a 1950s public school classroom on a reservation, surrounded by your friends, White and Indian, reading or listening to such descriptions.

My mother’s eldest brother, Mutt, married a Hupa tribal member. Phonola was from a California tribe but had spent most of her adult life in Siletz or north in Tillamook County, where she often was the deckhand on my uncle’s commercial fishing boats, Ella Mae and Phonola. When Dad returned at the end of World War II, he went back to his former job at Boeing, in Washington, and took my mother with him; Auntie Phonola raised me until they returned. According to family lore, they only reclaimed me when my grandfather gave them an ultimatum to either return or “give the baby to Auntie.”

Auntie remained a significant part of my life until she died in a car wreck, years after my own daughters were born. I wonder how much she instilled her culture into me in the years she had me as a tiny child. I know I ate fry bread and fresh or canned salmon at her home. In later years, she often spoke to me about “Indian things” and seemed to believe that I knew what she referenced. I know she was a believer in teaching young babies all that they needed to know for life, so I do not doubt that my lifelong interest in Native culture and history began with her. In later years, she taught me to can tuna and salmon, but never taught me to make fry bread.

One of my mother’s sisters married a Siletz man and learned to make all the fascinating foods I saw at their home: fry bread, smoked fish, wiggly, snakey things Uncle Ed called “eels.” My cousin assured me it was “Indian food.” I never questioned him. Although he was only a year my senior, he had trained me to know there were certain things I couldn’t do because I wasn’t Indian. I could follow him around, but fishing, eating special foods, or touching the water of the Siletz River were not allowed. This auntie, Clara, made fabulous fish head soup and a clam casserole that I’m still trying to duplicate. But she didn’t teach me to make fry bread.

At my family home, we ate venison stew or fried chicken, or a variety of German dishes my father remembered from his maternal grandparents in Iowa. I so wanted to eat the “Indian food” I knew was on the table in my cousins’ home.

I was vaguely aware that something was happening in Siletz in 1954 when Congress passed the Western Oregon Termination Act, ending the government’s recognition of the Siletz tribes, but I was only eleven years old, too young to be told. Adults whispered more, and when school started in September, it felt strange—like everyone knew something that kids weren’t supposed to know. I noticed several families had moved away, but that wasn’t unusual; many came and went depending on whether logging jobs were available or the sawmills were running. Though I saw my cousins every day at school and often on weekends, neither of them ever mentioned that they had been determined by the government to no longer be Indians. It wasn’t until many years later, while helping to initiate the plan to seek federal recognition for the Siletz tribes, that I finally realized the devastation caused by termination.

As a teenager and student at Siletz High School, I became curious why no one talked about the Indian history of the town. Why were we only told about Plains Indians, Sacajawea, and Squanto? What were the old buildings on our town’s “Government Hill” used for in the past, especially the one called “The Old Hospital?” I saw no resemblance to my concept of a hospital. Who were the old women who lived in the tiny houses on that hill? What was the story of the Indian women gathering in the largest remaining building to can vegetables? Why couldn’t I eat “Indian food”?

In response to my questions, Uncle Ed said, “Baby, my family is Molala. We are from Kate Chantell’s family. We are Siletz, but our real tribe is Molala.” It took me years to sort that out.

There were too many unsolved mysteries for me to ignore. In my naivete, I decided to write a book about a young Indian boy who had come to the reservation in the distant past. A friend believed I could and loaned me her portable typewriter—probably the only one in Siletz.

I soon realized there were many ugly topics to explore. Why were my Indian friends and relatives so good to me, while my own father had made unkind comments about my prom date and asked if I was color-blind? I had not yet heard the word “racist,” but wondered at his frequent use of words like “squaw,” “injun,” and “siwash.” I noticed he never said them when my Siletz uncle or Hupa auntie were present. It was all very confusing.

Sometime in the late 1960s, while researching through twenty-one rolls of microfilmed Indian agent reports, I discovered the words of Chief George and others telling of the starving people in the early days of the government mandates to turn hunters and gatherers into potato farmers in an area that had been specifically chosen for its remoteness and reported lack of useful agricultural land. That report still comes to mind, even after years of involvement with the issues that have affected the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

Too few people know the tribe’s history still. Too few people know that, despite their horrendous struggles, despite their loss of hundreds of people to starvation due to the government’s failure to ratify treaties and to provide food and shelter, despite termination, the Siletz have persisted. In the 1970s, they won their battle for restoration of federal recognition and, later, the return of a tiny portion of their reservation lands. Since then, they have built an economic base and established numerous programs, including some that address issues of food sovereignty and justice.

Chief George’s living descendants are not eating dead, rotted horses today. The future looks promising, though work remains. The Siletz River appears to be ill, with crawdads and other small food mysteriously depleted. The tribe has cooperated with a community group trying to stop the City of Newport from dumping sewage waste on fields adjoining the river, a practice currently being fought by concerned citizens across the nation. Fish runs in the river are slow and not nearly as abundant as in prior years.

I miss the smoked and baked lamprey eels of days gone by. Their runs have declined drastically. The tribe has a program to reintroduce them into the Siletz River and its tributaries. Programs have been developed for hunting and fishing on tribal lands and streams. Food distribution programs are in place. A cookbook is helping the nonprofit Siletz Tribal Arts and Heritage Society build funds for “A Place for the People,” where tribal history, culture, and Native foods will be featured. There is a community garden, and land has been purchased for an expanded garden project.

Food sovereignty means the people have the right to healthy and culturally appropriate foods. It is a political, social, and cultural issue that requires time to sort it all out, but this tribe is working steadily on issues of food sovereignty, always aware of food justice—the belief that healthy food is a human right.

Grace Elting Castle, longtime Siletz resident, now lives and writes in Veneta. She still doesn’t know how to make fry bread. She continues to research and write stories of the Siletz people. Her long-planned book, A Time to Wail, An Indian Country Novel, was published in 2018. Rather than her planned the-little-boy-comes-to-the-reservation story, the murder mystery features the culture of the Siletz tribe and issues they faced, including grave robbing. Find her at graceeltingcastle.com.

The parade today (2024) , in Siletz, going up to the Community Building and the Powwow grounds, was a typical floats and wavers kinda small town affair. I took a client there, a fifty-nine-year old who had never been to Siletz or to a Powwow. He lives in Newport, a mere 13 miles from the reservation.

He was blown away with the sights, sounds, smells and the dancers and benedictions to the elders.

The opening procession of the elders, coming to greet us, the onlookers.

This female dancer, an elder, was stupified that she dropped her sacred eagle feather fan. All proceedings were stopped. She raised her hand. I went over to her and asked if all was okay, and I thought she couldn’t bend down to pick up the fan. Wrong, white boy Paulo, wrong.

novelist louise erdrich

Has your writing changed as you’ve aged?​

I’m able to stand back and assess what I’m doing and where I’m going. I have patience that I didn’t have before. One thing about aging is that you have a greater ability to synthesize information. I can finish things now that I started 20 or even 30 years ago but didn’t have the wherewithal back then to complete. For example, my last book, The Night Watchman [based on her grandfather’s battle to save his tribe from being terminated by the federal government]. I had all the information to write it earlier, but I didn’t have the accumulated knowledge or the kind of humor my grandfather had until I was in my 60s.​​

I’m calling on people to think about what’s really important. And what could be more important than having a place to exist? This goes well beyond what you’ve accomplished in life. It’s an identity that goes to the core of who we are as human beings. Are we a people who are going to eat everything up and leave the crumbs? Or are we a people who our children will look at and say, “They gave everything — to their last atom — for us so that we could live now”? ​

Leave the sacred objects to the shaman and elders. Dumb me, forgetting my years reading Louise Erdrich and hanging out at powwows.

See the elder coming toward them, in full chief’s regalia? He was called out to come to cleanse the feathers and to bring the old woman back into the fold of the spirits. He spent ten minutes with the eagle feathers on the ground, wisping his own feathers over the falled ones. He talked to the female elder. Whispered. Asked her questions. He then picked up the fan and gave back to her.

She ended up with her mate, another old dancer, and they both cried and cried, shamed by the accident, happy to have the entire arena there for support.

At the cemetary, there were gravesites, with “whip woman” etched on several tombstones.

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Spokane — Nez Perce tribal culture teacher and whip woman Rena Katherine Wetsesa Ramsey of Kamiah died of congestive heart failure Saturday at Sacred Heart Medical Center. She was 81.

She was born April 22, 1918, in Lapwai to Samuel Many Wounds Lott and Cecelia Sunset Showaway.

Her father was a noted Nez Perce historian and interpreter for Lucullus McWhorter and Yellow Wolf.

She was the granddaughter of Wottolen, a Nez Perce warrior of the 1877 War, and Paul Showaway, the last hereditary chief of the Cayuse Tribe.

She was raised in the Cottonwood Creek area and attended the Slickpoo Mission School and Kamiah public schools.

She moved to Lapwai in 1954 and married Clifton (Butch) Ramsey May 14, 1956, in Lapwai. They lived in Lapwai and Kamiah.

She was a homemaker and was fluent in the Nez Perce language. She also was a cultural instructor for the Nez Perce Tribe.

She enjoyed working with children and taught the Nez Perce language at the Nez Perce Head Start.

She was a consultant for the Harao Aoki Nez Perce Language Dictionary and on cultural history and language for tribal environment and cultural resources departments.

She taught cornhusk weaving and was a member of the Northwest American Indian Weavers Association. Many of her cornhusk bags have been exhibited across the Northwest and she traveled to the Smithsonian Institute in 1990 to demonstrate her skills. She was a recipient of an Idaho Commission on Arts grant in 1999.

She was an accomplished storyteller of Nez Perce legends and a winner in the Lep’way Arts Council Talent Show. She also contributed stories and history to several books.

She was the whip woman for the Chief Joseph and Warriors Memorial and was a member of the Native American Elder Honor Guard for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Phoenix, Ariz., in 1987. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Lewis-Clark State College Native American Program and was Nez Perce Tribe Female Senior Citizen of the year for 1997.

She was a member of St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Kamiah, Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lapwai and a member of the Kateri Prayer Circle.

She enjoyed camping and baking apple pies and bread. She enjoyed cultural activities such as pow wows, root digging and huckleberry picking. She loved being around children, telling stories and sharing her weaving skills. Many children called her Grandma.

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Ceremonial Whips

Ceremonial whips were made as part of the regalia of a warrior. These whips were decorated with symbolic colorings and markings which were significant to the owner. These ceremonial whips were symbols of power and carried into battle for their protective power.

Ceremonial Whips used at Pow-Wows – The Whip Man/Woman

A Ceremonial whip is used by the head organiser of a Pow-wow who is referred to as the Whip Man. The Whip Man is responsible for making sure dancers are dancing during the Pow-Wow. The Whip Man carries a small braided whip he uses to point at flagging dancers. The role of the Whip Man holds considerable responsibility and this ominous title probably dates back to the first roles of the Whip Man – that of the punisher.

The Whip Man and Children

The Whip Man was an official and respected position in many Native American tribes. His status was similar to that of a Medicine Man but his role was to impose punishments where this was necessary. Native Americans were very lenient to their children but should their behaviour warrant it the Whip Man was called who might use a willow switch to punish children. In this role he was also respected for his skills as a teacher who would teach children right from wrong.

The Whip Man and the Akicita – the Punishers

Whip Man were also appointed to undertake the task of punishing adult offenders within a tribe. The instrument of punishment for theft were whips. The number of lashes administered by the Whip Man ranged from fifty lashes for the first offence, one hundred lashes for the second and death by the rifle for the third offence. The American Indian Akicita were the Warriors and Elders who had considerable powers in policing and organizing the tribes. The Akicita had the authority to impose punishment. The punishments included the destruction of the culprit’s personal property and corporal punishment administered by use of the whip.

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Moving toward the real monsters of the world TODAY:

The Biden administration responding to Netanyahu had ordered to cut funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is indelibly slated to result in famine and the total collapse of social services:

UNRWA provides food, shelter, health care, education … for the 5.7 million UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The curtailment of UNRWA funding is an integral part of the Netanyahu government’s carefully designed project to trigger mass starvation throughout the Gaza Strip.

“Gaza is experiencing mass starvation like no other in recent history. Before the outbreak of fighting in October, food security in Gaza was precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – suffered severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind. Today, almost all Gazans, of any age, anywhere in the territory, are at risk.

There is no instance since the second world war in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed. And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.” (Guardian)

Israel was upset that Japan banned it from this year’s Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Memorial so it did what it always does when it wants to make itself feel better: it blew up a school. The horrific massacre killed over 100 civilians so naturally the US and UK governments are extremely mad… at Japan. It’s insensitive to ban Israel from a genocide memorial ceremony, just because it keeps blowing up schools.

If the higher estimates are correct, the Gaza genocide could be close to surpassing the combined death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so as you can see, Japan is being unreasonable here. Thankfully, our governments are boycotting the memorial ceremony because opposition to genocide makes them feel uncomfortable. Genocidaires must stand together.

The bombing of Al-Tabeen school came as Israel was discussing peace with Hamas and assassinating all the people it’s negotiating with. Al-Tabeen is the fifth school Israel has bombed this week, meaning it is more noteworthy when Israel goes a day without bombing a school. When news of Israel’s latest school massacre reached Downing Street, foreign secretary David Lammy immediately condemned Hamas and said it “must stop endangering civilians”

Jews?

Apart from the inestimable Alastair Crooke, who called everyone’s attention to what’s really at stake, only a few people across the collective West have any idea of the “long black cloud” that may be coming down, to quote Dylan.

This goes way beyond the government in Tel Aviv “losing control of the Extreme Right”.

Cue to the key passages of an interview with Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, former Chief of Staff of the IDF and also former Defense Minister.

“When you talk about Smotrich and Ben Gvir: They have a Rabbi. His name is Dov Lior. He is the Rabbi of the Jewish Underground, who intended to blow up the Dome of the Rock – and before that the buses in Jerusalem. Why? In order to hurry up the ‘Last War’.”

Translation: the two most extreme members of the Netanyahu cabinet follow the same rabbi who wants to blow up Al-Aqsa mosque to rebuild the Jewish Temple, expel or kill all Palestinians, and prevail in a coming Armageddon.

Ya’alon then delivers the clincher:

“This concept rests on Jewish supremacy: Mein Kampf in reverse”. In this case, “a war of Gog and Magog”. Ya’alon adds: “This is what goes into the decision-making process in the Israeli government”.

The lowdown: an escathological, ultra-rabid cult is dictating policy in Tel Aviv, the HQ of a genocidal, settler-colonial construct – complete with a massive vigilante militia, or interlocking militias, of hundreds of thousands of settlers, armed to their teeth, uncontrollable, and ready to do anything, even attacking the military and the Israeli state itself.

There’s absolutely no way to talk or to reason with this fanatic mob. They could only be dealt with in one precise way. And the fact is the Axis of Resistance is not there – yet. (The Forever Wars Go Full War of Terror: The Axis of Resistance and Russia Need to Step Up the Game, Pepe Escobar)

Machetes to all rabbis’ heads, unless they can prove signs of life.

Modern perversions, killers one and all, rabbi-loving Talmudists.

Where is “Sicarii” in this verse? It’s what the New Living Translation calls “assassins.” Other translations call them “murderers” or “terrorists.” Why don’t English translations use the word “Sicarii”? It was a judgment call they made to help us understand the verse. They figure modern English readers know what assassins and terrorists are, so instead of unpacking “Sicarii” they go with a word everyone already knows.

“Sicarii” is Latin for the Greek word sikarios meaning “dagger man.” Josephus, the famous first-century Jewish historian, describes them as men who hid small daggers in their clothing, disguised themselves by blending into crowds, and used stealth to assassinate high-ranking government leaders and Roman sympathizers.

If you’re a gamer, just think of Assassin’s Creed—that’s exactly who these guys were. The Sicarii are the earliest known organized group of assassins predating the Islamic Hashishin (who Assassin’s Creed is actually based on) and the Japanese ninjas. To this day, the Spanish derivative of the word sicario is used in Latin America to describe hit men working for drug cartels. YouTube is definitely not going to promote this video.

In his writings, Josephus differentiates between the Sicarii and the Zealots. Until the revolt in 66 AD, the Zealots were demonstrators against the Roman government. The Sicarii, however, were violent from the beginning. And to go even further, they were so inclined to violence, that they would not hesitate to harm or kill their own countrymen if they thought it would further their ultimate goal of Jewish independence. This would ultimately be their undoing.

Sicarii were off-the-chart politically active and a very pro-Jewish culture. No surprises there. The great Jewish Revolt started in 66 AD and the siege of Jerusalem destroyed the city and the Temple in 70 AD. In 66 AD, tension between Jewish people and the Roman government reached a boiling point in Jerusalem. The Zealots took up arms and expelled Roman government leaders and Roman military from the city. This was the moment the Sicarii had been dreaming of for a long time.

But remember how I said that they were not afraid to harm or kill their own countrymen and that would be their undoing?

In the early part of the war, they raided villages near Jerusalem for supplies, killing 700 women and children. Inside the walls of Jerusalem, the Sicarii destroyed the city’s food supply to hasten the inevitable war between its citizens inside the walls and the Roman army outside the walls. This caused a civil war to break out inside of Jerusalem between the radical Sicarii, the more pragmatic Zealots, and the everyday citizens caught in the middle.

When the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem in 70 AD and slaughtered residents of Jerusalem, one group of people escaped? That’s right . . . the Sicarii, who brought so much trouble on the city in the first place. Using stealth, a group of about 1,000 Sicarii escaped Jerusalem as it was falling and retreated to a cliffside fortress – Masada – that they had secured a few of years prior.

In an effort to stamp out all remaining Jewish resistance, the Romans laid siege to Masada in 73 AD with a force of 9,000 soldiers. As the Romans gained access to the fortress, the Sicarii set the compound’s buildings on fire and committed mass suicide. Only two women and five children survived.

Today, though the word sicarii is unfamiliar, the legacy of their last battle at Masada is legendary. Carrying the same significance as the Alamo for Texans, Masada is one of Israel’s top tourist attractions and the place where today’s Israeli Armored Corps are sworn in with the words “Masada shall not fall again.” It is remembered by Jewish-American lightweight boxer Cletus Seldin whose jacket states “Remember the Masada.” (source: Sicarii: Who Were These Assassins?)

Modern fucking sickos:

“To turn the other cheek is not a Jewish concept. Do not listen to the soothing anesthesia of the establishment. They walk in the paths of those whose timidity helped bury our brothers and sisters less than thirty years ago.” —Rabbi Meir Kahane, Jewish Defense League founder

“[I]n the end — with few exceptions — the Jew can look to no one but another Jew for help and … the true solution to the Jewish problem is the liquidation of the Exile and the return of all Jews to Eretz Yisroel — the land of Israel.”— Jewish Defense League’s “Five Principles”

Devastation from an arson attack on the Catholic Church of the Multiplication in Tabgha, Israel, suspected to have been carried out by Jewish extremists.

Catholics in Holy Land Aggrieved by Arson Attack on Monastery in Israel: The Church of the Multiplication had also been vandalized in April, when Jewish extremists destroyed crosses in the monastery’s outdoor prayer area and threw stones at worshippers.

“It was the lack of discipline and Jewish unity that led continually to the destruction of the Jewish people. It is Jewish unity and self-discipline that will lead to the triumph of the Jewish people.” — Jewish Defense League’s “Five Principles”

Over 500 extremist settlers storm Al-Aqsa, raise flags on Israel’s ‘Independence Day’

Among the settlers who encouraged Tuesday’s raid of the Al-Aqsa complex is the Lehava group, known for its Jewish supremacist and anti-assimilation views.

Of course, all these baby-killing, school-bombing Jews and the Zyklon Blinken and the Wailing Wall White House, the lot of them in USA Israel-First Politics, they must be exterminated like plague-soaked fleas.

Nah, not antisemitism at all to see them all burn in a burst of, hmm, love the smell of napalm in the morning glory.

Official statement on Jews? “Fucking megalomaniac perversions of homo sapiens…”

“Suddenly the entire public was our enemy,” said another source who worked on the project, which sought to predict whether someone represented a threat to Israeli security.

Official statement on Jews? Fucking megalomaniac perversions of homo sapiens…

Tracking Everyone, All the Time’: What Americans Need To Know About Israel’s Secret Eavesdropping Program

Unit 8200’s dragnet was designed by a U.S.-trained general, is powered by American-owned cloud computing, and could spell the future for domestic surveillance at home.

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Enough said?

Nowadays, it seems that the limit to government surveillance is neither the law nor technological capabilities; it’s storage space. In the 1990s, the U.S. National Security Agency was “annually converting more than 22 million pounds of secret documents into cheap, soluble slurry” in order to make room for more, according to Body of Secrets by James Bamford. In 2014, the NSA spent $1.5 billion on a massive data center in Utah riddled with electrical problems.

But Unit 8200, the Israeli equivalent of the NSA, seems to have figured out a simple workaround for the problem: Contract it out to private industry. A joint investigative report by The Guardian and the Israeli publications +972 Magazine and Local Call revealed on Wednesday that Unit 8200 has been storing massive amounts of intercepted phone audio on Microsoft’s Azure cloud service.

Microsoft, which pleaded ignorance of what the Israeli government was using its servers for, is not the only American institution involved in setting up the program. Its architect, who trained under U.S. military instructors, may have created a blueprint for future mass surveillance in other countries.

The cloud-powered surveillance program was the brainchild of Brig. Gen. Yossi Sariel, the former commander of Unit 8200. Sariel spent 2019 at the National Defense University, a U.S. Department of Defense academy for American and foreign national security professionals, The Washington Post reported last year. In 2020, he “returned to Israel brimming with plans,” according to the Post, and took command of Unit 8200 from 2021 until last year.

One of those plans, this week’s reporting revealed, was to work with private cloud providers. Under Sariel’s tenure, Unit 8200’s ability to retain and process audio data massively increased. The unit has gone from wiretapping tens of thousands of subjects to recording millions of people’s calls, according to the report.

Unit 8200 officers told The Guardian and +972 that the unofficial mantra of the project was “a million calls per hour.” (The combined population of Israel and the Palestinian territories is 14 million.) Leaked files suggest that Unit 8200 had a goal of storing 70 percent of its data on Azure and that the Israeli military already had 11,500 terabytes of data in total stored on an Azure server in the Netherlands by July 2025.

That would be the equivalent of 200 million hours of audio, although it’s not clear how much of those 11,500 terabytes comes from Unit 8200’s phone intercepts.

Microsoft confirmed that Unit 8200 was a customer of its data security services but said that it had “no information” about the data stored on its servers. After the report was published, the Israeli military put out a statement claiming that “Microsoft is not and has not been working with the [Israel Defense Forces] on the storage or processing of data.”

Even before the surveillance revelations, the relationship between Microsoft and the Israeli government was a subject of controversy. Several Microsoft employees have been fired for publicly protesting over the issue. Most recently, engineer Joe Lopez was fired in May 2025 after shouting “Microsoft is killing Palestinians” during CEO Satya Nadella’s keynote speech.

Jews are warped, man, just look at where they go with Jeff Epstein, and what they do at his Love Pedophile Island. Fucking sick fucks:

This following piece, by Palestinian rights activist, author and translator Yousef Aljamal is crossposted from Politics Today.


Espionage of the Palestinians and their leaders by the Zionist movement is documented to have taken place in the 1930s and 1940s, with the Palmach, an underground force which included the Arab Platoon. The Arab Platoon recruited people who might pose as Arabs, such as Isaac Shoshan, a Syrian-born Israeli undercover operative, who passed away in 2020.

Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister, tweeted about his death, noting that he was one of many people who learnt at the hands of Shoshan, adding that “generations of warriors learned their trade at his feet.” The Haganah also collected information about the residents of Palestinian villages and towns, which paved the way for occupying these villages and expelling their residents throughout 1947-8.

During my conversations with Palestinian Nakba survivor Ahmad Alhaaj, who now resides in Gaza, he told me that the Zionist movement had recruited a Yemeni Jew named Ali to work as a spy and that he posed as a Palestinian imam leading the Muslims of the town of Al-Majdal (today’s Ashkol) in their prayers. Palestinians learnt his origin and that he was a spy when the invading Zionist militias entered the town in 1948 and expelled its population at gunpoint. An officer had hugged the supposed imam in front of the people who were still in shock and had thanked him for his services.

Israel’s espionage and surveillance of Palestinians have only increased over the years, and technology has contributed to making them even more complicated. In the past, it was people on the ground who would do the job, but today, Israel does not stop bragging about its technology. From social media to drones, satellites to monitoring phone calls and the internet, Israel has circled the Palestinians from land, air, and sea, and learns of every step they take.

Artificial intelligence has been increasingly used by the Israeli security, and the surveillance of Palestinians by Israel has become ever more automated. This Israeli surveillance comes as no surprise as Israel learns of the birth of every single Palestinian and keeps record of Palestinian civil records. No ID card is given to any Palestinian that Israel deems unworthy based on the Oslo Accords of 1993, which gives Israel the final say on issuing ID cards to the Palestinians, such as Palestinians who came on family visit permits and stayed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Apple’s recent legal case against the Israeli NSO group for hacking Apple users’ devices does not come as a surprise to Palestinians. Some Palestinians joke that Israeli drones, which fly over the Gaza Strip 24/7, can tell if a Palestinian family is going to cook fresh or frozen meat on a random day. Not only this, but it is also widely believed that Israel plants spy sims in every single phone device brought into Gaza through Israel – this is the main way Palestinians have access to phones and other technologies.

Palestinians know well that the Israeli authorities can listen to every single phone call made in the Gaza Strip – landlines or mobiles. The Palestinian Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) is fully monitored by Israel or it would not be allowed to function. In 2005, Jawwal, the Palestine Cellular Communications Company, made every owner of a sim card officially register it in what was believed to be an Israeli request to know the real owners of these sim cards and who uses them.

Those who refused to do so were threatened with having their lines cut off. During Israel’s repeated offensives against the Palestinians, telecommunication and internet services were allowed to function so as to make the job easy for the Israeli authorities to watch the Palestinians more effectively. This is not to negate that some telecommunication infrastructures have been repeatedly damaged by Israel and that there have been disruptions to the services and lines.

Israel monitors the Gaza Strip through unlimited numbers of cameras planted on the wall it built to keep Palestinians away. The same applies to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who use the same telecommunications companies watched by Israel. In the West Bank, Israeli cameras have been planted on roundabouts, checkpoints, streets, and conjunctions leading to Palestinian towns to make sure that Palestinians are well-watched and that, if necessary, the recordings of these cameras can be retrieved easily.

The recent revelation that an NSO software was used by the Israeli authorities to monitor the phones of six Palestinian human rights workers came as no surprise either. Since NSO is an Israeli company, which works under the watch of the Israeli government and has been used to advance the goals and agendas of the Israeli government in the region, it was almost certain that the Israeli government itself has also used NSO’s Pegasus software, and that the Palestinians were most likely the target in this case as well.

A recent Washington Post article has revealed that, according to former Israeli soldiers, the Israeli security authorities are promoting a software known as “Blue Wolf,” which aims to use facial recognition to further monitor the Palestinians and to keep a database of the data. The former soldiers added that they were given rewards for taking photographs of Palestinians crossing checkpoints using cameras and smartphones.

The program, which was launched two years ago, served as a secret Israeli “Facebook for the Palestinians.” This Israeli software complements the monitoring of Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron, where racial recognition allows Israeli soldiers to recognize Palestinians at checkpoints in the Old City before they even hand over their IDs for regular checks.

The use of artificial intelligence and automation as part of the Israeli mass surveillance of Palestinians and exporting these technologies and software to other countries after testing them on Palestinians and proving they are effective is something civil society across the globe should speak out against. The last thing the world needs is to import Israeli software tested on caged Palestinians whose privacy has been completely violated.

Civil society across the globe should raise their voice against Israeli surveillance technologies which will only serve to violate the privacy of peoples in exactly the same way they violate the privacy of Palestinians. The U.S. government’s blacklisting of NSO over the use of Pegasus to spy on different human rights activists and journalists is an indication of how serious this Israeli software should be taken, and the need to protect other nationals from the violation of their privacy and their subjection to mass surveillance.

It must be very boring and sadistic for Israeli officers monitoring the Palestinians 24/7 as they listen to stories about the devastating impact of Israel’s military occupation and siege on the lives of those being spied on. International civil society must act to end the violations of Palestinians’ privacy and the automation of their surveillance, because no one knows, who will be next. Israelis have no reason to ask a Palestinian crossing a checkpoint out of Gaza the reason his family placed another door in their grandmother’s house. The answer is truly mundane.

The Gestapo • Season 1 - Plex
Stasi - Wikipedia

Nazi, Stasi, Jew!

Mossad - Wikipedia

Schools are using AI to protect students. It also leads to false alarms — and arrests

Surveillance systems in American schools increasingly monitor everything students write on school accounts and devices

Lesley Mathis knows what her daughter said was wrong. But she never expected the 13-year-old girl would get arrested for it.

The teenage girl made an offensive joke while chatting online with her classmates, triggering the school’s surveillance software.

Before the morning was even over, the Tennessee eighth grader was under arrest. She was interrogated, strip-searched and spent the night in a jail cell, her mother says.

Earlier in the day, her friends had teased the teen about her tanned complexion and called her “Mexican,” even though she’s not. When a friend asked what she was planning for Thursday, she wrote: “on Thursday we kill all the Mexico’s.”

Mathis said the comments were “wrong” and “stupid,” but context showed they were not a threat.

“It made me feel like, is this the America we live in?” Mathis said of her daughter’s arrest. “And it was this stupid, stupid technology that is just going through picking up random words and not looking at context.”

Surveillance systems in American schools increasingly monitor everything students write on school accounts and devices. Thousands of school districts across the country use software like Gaggle and Lightspeed Alert to track kids’ online activities, looking for signs they might hurt themselves or others. With the help of artificial intelligence, technology can dip into online conversations and immediately notify both school officials and law enforcement.

Educators say the technology has saved lives. But critics warn it can criminalize children for careless words.

“It has routinized law enforcement access and presence in students’ lives, including in their home,” said Elizabeth Laird, a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

In a country weary of school shootings, several states have taken a harder line on threats to schools. Among them is Tennessee, which passed a 2023 zero-tolerance law requiring any threat of mass violence against a school to be reported immediately to law enforcement.

Gaggle? Here, one of a million similar monster trees:

JEWS:

An Israeli rabbi has blessed the use of female spies in “honeytrap” or “honeypot” stings against terrorists, according to a study called “Illicit Sex for the Sake of National Security.”

The ruling by Rabbi Ari Schvat, contained in a study published by the Zomet Institute, was first reported by the news agency DPA and published by Haaretz.com.

Israeli officials confirmed the rabbinical ruling and the gist of the study for ABC News.

The Zomet Institute studies the intersection of religion and modernity. It examined whether it was acceptable for female agents of Israel’s foreign secret service, Mossad, to have sex with the enemy in so-called “honeypot” or “honeytrap” sting missions.

Israeli intelligence has made repeated use of honeytraps. In 1966, a female Israeli spy convinced an Iraqi pilot to defect to Israel with his MIG. Twenty years later, a female Mossad agent lured Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician who had revealed details of Israel’s nuclear program, from England to Italy, where he was abducted and brought back to Israel.

But according to Haaretz.com, Rabbi Schvat wrote that honeypot missions are “not just a thing of modern-day espionage.”

In fact, honeypot missions are rooted in Biblical lore, according to the report. “Queen Esther, who was Jewish, slept with the Persian king [Ahasuerus] around 500 BC to save her people,” Schvat noted.

And, the report noted, Yael, wife of Hever, slept with the enemy chief of staff Sisra to tire him and cut off his head.

However, there is a catch for married honeypots. “If it is necessary to use a married woman, it would be best [for] her husband to divorce her. … After the [sex] act, he would be entitled to bring her back,” Schvat wrote.

“Naturally, a job of that sort could be given to a woman who in any event is licentious in her ways.”

Rules for male Mossad agents were not mentioned in the writings.

Rabbi Shvat explores the issue of women used to seduce enemy agents in order to cajole information out of them or see them captured.

The use of “Valentine operatives” or “honey traps”, as they are called in intelligence circles, was applied in the case of atom spy Mordechai Vanunu, and according to foreign media reports, in the recent assassination of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, last January.

Shvat cites in his study the biblical cases of Queen Esther, who slept with Persian King Ahasuerus to save her community, and Yael wife of Heber the Kenite, who seduces and killed the Canaanite general Sisera. He notes that the subject of “sleeping with the enemy” evokes heated arguments in the Talmud, as well.

The latter, Shvat argues, ruled that sexual intercourse with a gentile for the sake of a national cause is not only sanctioned, but is a highly important mitzvah.

Jews: Trump Pardons Jared Kushner’s Dad, Who Paid a Prostitute to Seduce His Brother-in-Law

Kushner was a multimillionaire real estate executive and top Democratic donor when he was sentenced in 2005 to two years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to 18 counts, including tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions.

Once Kushner discovered his brother-in-law and former business partner was assisting federal authorities in their investigation, he set out for revenge (and, as prosecutors would argue, witness intimidation).

The wealthy New York real estate magnate hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law in a New Jersey motel, arranging to have the encounter recorded with a hidden camera.

Then, he showed the video to his brother-in-law’s wife: Kushner’s sister.

Adding an interesting twist to the saga is that Kushner’s prosecution was overseen by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who would go on to become a prominent Trump surrogate and the head of his transition team.

Christie’s history with the Kushner family would loom large over his time with the Trump team. In 2016, he was ousted from the campaign, and many blamed Jared Kushner for his firing. Still, Christie has continually defended his decision to prosecute Charles Kushner, even writing a book centered in part on the saga: Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics.

“Mr. Kushner pled guilty. He admitted the crimes,” Christie told PBS in a 2019 interview. “And so what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor? I mean, if a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?”

+—+

Moving on: While we give everything to the Jews, oh no, trouble in Trump the Pedophile Rapist’s Minyan AmeriKKKa.

Haze caused by Canadian wildfire smoke hangs over Boston on an August day in 2025. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

“So the tool that most of us use is the Air Quality Index (AQI), and that’s a helpful tool to say if the numbers above 100, it’s perhaps a day that you know more sensitive groups, those are people like children and adolescents, pregnant people, people with underlying chronic lung diseases or heart diseases might want to be a little more careful about spending a lot of time outside. I’d say once it starts to get above 150 or certainly above 200, even healthy people can start to be affected.”

+—+

Good little fucking Iowa Germans:

The initial policy, originally set to be read and approved in June, had concerned students, university staff, members of the public and Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, speaking out against the harm it could cause, leading the board to slow down the approval process. Board President Sherry Bates announced in July another delay in consideration of the policy, setting a special meeting date for Aug. 12.

As shown in board documents released ahead of the meeting next week, the proposed policy revision has shifted its focus from diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory-related topics to not referring to specific areas of study at all. Instead, it clarifies that controversial topics can be taught as long as they relate to the course and adds guidelines for how instructors should teach these areas.

The original policy restricted requiring students to take classes that include “substantial content that conveys DEI or CRT.” The new proposed addition to the board’s academic freedom policy instead states “faculty are expected to uphold academic integrity, encourage open and respectful inquiry, and present coursework in a way that reflects the range of scholarly views and ongoing debate in the field” when teaching “controversial subjects,” of which no examples are provided.

Trump the Room Temp IQ Genius: The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, CNN has exclusively learned, marking the latest effort by the White House to shape higher education and extract significant concessions from universities.

Last week, the Trump administration began freezing millions in funding to UCLA, with the school’s chancellor Julio Frenk saying in a letter to the university community this week that $584 million “is suspended and at risk” and warning of “devastating” consequences to its research mission.

Officials from UCLA have now returned to the negotiating table, a source familiar with the matter said, and have made clear they would like to reach a deal to restore that funding. The Trump administration, in turn, is laying its marker for a high-dollar settlement.

MAGA MAGA MAGA, help the hicks out!

Rapist and Pedophile Don’t Give a Shit about Old People: Trump is a pussy, but he wants to be a honey badger after getting caught in the honey pot of Epstein.

Give all the fucking little Johnnies and Janes gold stars.

Superintendent Ryan Walters announced on Friday the end of some government mandated end-of-year testing for certain students beginning in the 2025-2026 school year.

Officials say districts will be able to use approved benchmark assessments in place of the end-of-year tests for grades 3-8 in Math and English Language Arts.

According to the Oklahoma State Department of Education, a recent survey showed that 81 percent of nearly 23,000 parents said that state testing may not be necessary when evaluating students.

NPR logo

The FBI is investigating at least 250 people who may be tied to online networks that target children.

These networks encourage kids to hurt themselves, other minors or even animals. In some countries, they have been tied to mass casualty and terrorism plots.

NPR’s domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef has spoken with a family that experienced this firsthand.

Listed under “nihilistic-online-groups-extremism”

[Dana is mom to a son who, when he was 14, experienced a rapid decline in his mental well-being. A few months later, she came to understand that he had become deeply influenced by predatory online networks that encourage vulnerable people, especially minors, to harm themselves and others]

Image of a coral-shaped rock taken by Curiosity at the Gale Crater on Mars.

Can’t teach this in Oklahoma — billions of years old? Jesus, save us!

“Curiosity has found many rocks like this one, which were formed by ancient water combined with billions of years of sandblasting by the wind,” NASA representatives wrote in the statement.

Coral-shaped rocks on Mars started forming billions of years ago, when the Red Planet still had water, according to the statement. Just like water on Earth, this water was full of dissolved minerals. It percolated through small cracks in Martian rocks, gradually depositing minerals and forming solid “veins” inside the rocks.

These veins form the strange branches of the coral-shaped object that we see in Curiosity’s picture today, after millions of years of erosion by sand-laden winds wore away the rock.

Hell to be paid by everyone. Fucking 23 million people just in Cairo.

“The old-rent law gave renters security and the stability of having permanent homes, while now, they have to leave their units in seven years,”

In recent years, entering the rental market in Egypt has become a nightmare. Since the beginning of 2021, the local currency has fallen by 70% against the dollar, while the inflation rate has reached historic highs of 40%. The market has become an incoherent and ever-changing jungle, where no one quite knows how to set prices, or for how long.

As if the situation weren’t unstable enough, the Supreme Constitutional Court dropped another bombshell in November of 2024, by striking down the core of a law that kept old rents frozen for decades, while allowing leases to be inherited. Although the legal battle dates back 37 years, the judges have only given the Parliament of Egypt until the end of June to amend it. Otherwise, those rent caps will be removed.

Fucking AMeriKKKa — A Utah federal court ruled Ammon Bundy cannot use bankruptcy to avoid paying $52 million in a defamation case against him by St. Luke’s.

The case arises from a civil lawsuit filed by St. Luke’s against Bundy and his associate, Diego Rodriguez, who staged protests in March 2022 and launched a social media campaign targeting hospital staff, involving “Baby Cyrus.”

When the child was hospitalized by St. Luke’s staff for health reasons, Rodriguez, Bundy, and his People’s Rights Network gathered in large numbers outside the downtown hospital, asserting that the baby was “medically kidnapped.”

Months later, St. Luke’s and several employees filed a lawsuit in Idaho court for defamation and harassment against Bundy, Rodriguez, and their organizations, the People’s Rights Network and the Freedom Man PAC.

In July of 2023, St. Luke’s won a default judgment after Bundy repeatedly refused to participate. The Idaho court found that Bundy’s statements were knowingly false and intended to cause reputational harm. A jury awarded St. Luke’s and three employees approximately $52.5 million in damages for defamation and related claims.

Gary Raney, the former sheriff of Ada County, where the arrest warrant was issued, believes the chaos of the Bundy standoffs may make anyone with the power to arrest him reluctant to use it.

“Even when he was sort of holed up at his place here outside of Boise, I encouraged the sheriff: don’t do anything, take your time, don’t go create a situation where he can put on a show and have his supporters come defend him, or fundraise for him,” he tells The Independent. “That’s probably what’s happening there in Utah. They probably don’t want to create a situation that could be deadly.”

His first major run-in with the government, in 2014, was sparked by a years-long dispute with the Bureau of Land Management. The government agency said that Ammon’s father, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, had illegally grazed his cattle on public land for some 20 years. When Cliven Bundy refused to pay the $1 million in unpaid grazing fees, the bureau moved in to requisition his cattle.

The elder Bundy summoned hundreds of men, women and militia members to his cause. Armed to the teeth, and promising to use those arms if needed, they forced the government to back down.

Ammon played a key role in that standoff and has often told the story about how he was tasered three times in one confrontation, each time pulling out the barbs from his chest.

“They started killing cattle, shooting them from helicopters, burying them in mass graves, siccing dogs on people, throwing people to the ground, tasing people,” he says. “You know, all those things were going on and they were filmed and people were just like, this is not okay that our government’s acting this way.

Ten years later, Bundy’s cattle still graze the disputed land near the family ranch in southern Nevada.

Bundy’s infamy only grew when he joined another armed standoff less than two years later, again in a dispute over control of federal land. He and hundreds of militants from across the West occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles south of Burns, Oregon, demanding that the land be handed over to local ranchers.

The standoff ended when one of the occupiers was shot dead by police after a car chase. Bundy was arrested, along with 10 of his fellow occupiers.

Authorities tried to throw the book at Bundy. He faced a host of charges for his role not just in the most recent standoff, but for the battle at his family ranch in Nevada two years earlier.

Bundy was jailed for two years while awaiting trial in the two cases, but miraculously escaped conviction on both. In Oregon, Ammon and his brother Ryan were acquitted by a jury of all charges. In Nevada, the case was thrown out because prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense.

Bundy says that time in jail, with more than a year spent in solitary confinement, cemented his antigovernment views even further. His business collapsed and he felt angry at losing two years of his children’s lives.

RE: Ammon Bundy is a fugitive, hiding in plain sight: ‘I really don’t want to have to make a stand’

billboard

The most contentious wind project in the country arrives—then falters—in Idaho

The Lava Ridge Wind Project was more than just turbines. It was hundreds of good-paying jobs, millions in local tax revenue, and a model for how rural communities can benefit from renewable energy. It would have shown that clean power can coexist with cultural heritage and environmental protection when projects are planned responsibly.

Trump’s cancellation also sends a chilling message to investors and developers that clean energy is not welcome in America if it threatens oil profits. This kind of uncertainty will scare off the very capital we need to build the next generation of renewable infrastructure.

As I write this, there are more clean energy projects being proposed on private lands nearby the Lava Ridge project, and there are more transmission lines being proposed through there. Southcentral Idaho happens to be a geographic triple junction where hydropower from the PNW can move eastward, wind power from Wyoming and Montana can move westward, and solar power from the desert southwest can move northward. They all converge on the Twin Falls area, and that Midpoint Substation will act like a major energy traffic light for the entire Western grid.

In a renewables-centric future, we (all the western states) can share our electrons via transmission lines so we don’t have to overbuild each and every state. If there are regional extreme-weather events that put the grid under immense stress like the January 2024 cold snap, the desert southwest can use its excess solar production and send it northward so we don’t have blackouts. Having an interconnected grid helps with cost savings, grid reliability, and it minimizes how many energy projects we need to build. This does mean, however, that we need to build a lot more transmission lines even if, as the Audubon Society argues, there are some negative impacts to birds. When giving a TV interview to our local news station I was quoted as saying, “Yes, the Lava Ridge Project will kill some birds. But if we don’t stop burning dirty fossil fuels then thousands of birds will go extinct.”

close up of bill mckibben speaking

I listened to Bill on Science Friday. He’s just no fucking friend of mine, both Bill McKibben and Ari:

Here comes the sun book cover

Here’s Bill’s new book excertp:

Sometime in the early part of the 2020s we crossed an invisible line where the cost of producing energy from the sun dropped below the cost of fossil fuel. That’s not yet common knowledge—­we still think of photovoltaic panels and wind turbines as “alternative energy,” as if they were the Whole Foods of power, nice but pricey. In fact—­and more so with each passing month—­they are the Costco of energy, inexpensive and available in bulk. We live on an earth where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun; the second-­cheapest is to let the breeze created by the sun’s heating turn the blade of a wind turbine. Beginning about the middle of 2023, we entered the really steep part of this growth curve that could redefine our future, crossing another invisible line, this one marking the installation of a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels on this planet every day. (A gigawatt is about the output of a typical coal-­fired power plant or nuclear reactor.) By the fall of 2024 that gigawatt was going up every 18 hours. We’re still in the early days of this transformation—­right now only about 15 percent of the planet’s electricity comes from sun and wind, and only about a quarter of the energy we use comes from electricity. But exponential growth changes numbers like that very fast—­in 2024, 92.5 percent of all new electricity bought online around the world came from renewables; in the US the figure was 96 percent. By April 2025, fossil fuel was producing less than half of American electricity, for the first time ever. There’s no longer a technical or financial obstacle in the way; we already have the factory capacity, mostly in China, to produce as many solar panels as the climate scientists say we need. In May 2025 came the news that China had used 5 percent less coal in the first quarter of the year to produce electricity than it had in 2024—­despite a surging economy, Chinese emissions were actually dropping.

The suddenness of this moment is startling. The solar cell was invented in 1954, and it took from then until 2022 to install the first terawatt worth of solar power on this planet. It took two years to get the second; the third will be quicker still. It’s all brand new.

But there are a few places that are running far ahead, showing what’s possible. China is well on its way to being the earth’s first “electro-­state”; something like half of all clean energy has been installed within its borders. And 2024 was a breakout year in California: there were finally enough solar panels that for parts of most days the state could produce from renewable sources more than 100 percent of the electricity it used; at night great batteries that had spent the afternoon soaking up sunshine often became the biggest source of supply to the electric grid of the world’s fifth-­largest economy. As a result, in 2024 California used 25 percent less natural gas to produce its power than it had in 2023, which is a big number. Through mid-­April of 2025, as more panels and batteries came online, the numbers got even better: California was using 44 percent less natural gas to make electricity than it had just two years earlier. On the other side of the world, in Pakistan, a flood of cheap solar panels from China let homeowners and storekeepers and factory managers build the equivalent of a third of the country’s electric grid inside of a year. Peasant farmers, often just laying the panels on the ground, started pumping their irrigation water with electricity instead of generators powered with fossil fuels; diesel sales dropped 30 percent in the course of a year.

Those kind of shifts, replicated quickly in many more places, could take a real bite out of the grim predictions of climate scientists; the sun burns so we don’t need to. We are in a desperate race; those scientists have told us that to stay on anything like a survivable path we must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half before the decade is out. That target is on the bleeding edge of the technically possible, and this book is an effort to shove us toward that deadline.

Related Segment

Can The Rise In Solar Power Balance Out Clean Energy Cuts?

But I hope that this book is timeless as well—­that it’s anticipating a shift that will play out over many lifetimes, and in ways that diverge dramatically from our recent history. That’s because energy from the sun is not just cheap. It’s also diffuse, available everywhere instead of concentrated in a few places. And that prefigures a different world with a more localized and more humane geopolitics; indeed, the sun works more reliably toward the equator, which could allow the redress of some of earth’s great inequities. In February 2025 the energy analysts at the Rocky Mountain Institute reported that renewable energy was growing twice as fast in the developing world of the Global South as in the developed world of the Global North. Relying on energy sources that are abundant instead of scarce—­the sun and the wind each day produce thousands of times as much energy as we could ever use—­could even reconfigure our ideas of competition and conquest. Unlike oil and gas, sun and wind can’t be hoarded. If fascism scares you the way it does me, figuring out how to break the centralized power of the fossil fuel industry is a key form of resistance.

And for a species that has become almost fatally disconnected from the natural world, the sun offers a way back into a relationship with reality. We were all sun worshippers once; it’s not perhaps too much to imagine that we might someday soon gaze up a little more often, maybe even breaking a little of the enchantment woven by the glowing lights in our palms. This is not, I think, a “technofix,” but something far more fundamental. We have the chance to join in a great global project, providing affordable energy to every human community even as we stave off our greatest threat. It could prove a unifying mission for a divided world. The last remotely comparable project was the moon shot of the 1960s, but that involved one nation putting two men on an orbiting rock. This quest involves bringing our star down to earth to make that earth work—­what could be more quintessentially human?

All this hope risks sounding giddy; let my dark realism reassert itself for a moment and offer up some caveats and cautions. I’m not overly concerned about the things people usually point to. As I’ll make clear, we’re not going to run short of minerals to build batteries or land to put panels on. Instead, my worries stem from hard realities both physical and political.

First, this definitely comes too late to “stop global warming.” We’ve already done fundamental damage to the planet’s physical systems, to the point of altering the jet stream and weakening the Gulf Stream; we’ve already raced past the 1.5 degree Celsius rise in global temperature that we pledged in Paris to avoid. (In April 2025, the Trump administration fired most of the American scientists who monitor this increase, perhaps reasoning that what we don’t know can’t hurt us.)

Our best hope now is simply to stop the heating of the earth short of the point where it cuts civilization off at the knees, and even that will be a very close call. I will return to the question of pace over and over in these pages, because it’s what matters most. I have little doubt we will run the world on sun and wind 40 years from now, but if it takes us anything like 40 years to get there then it will be a broken planet; our energy sources will hardly matter. The march of history won’t get us where we need to go fast enough; we need to force that march.

Second, there’s no guarantee that the momentum of the last few years will continue. The fossil fuel industry has read the numbers too, and so they’ve girded for the fight. As the chairman of one big oil company said in the fall of 2024, the industry thinks we should keep burning gas and oil until “every last molecule” had been sucked from the earth. If you think that capitalism guarantees we’ll pick the lowest-­priced option, think again: In certain ways, solar and wind power are almost too cheap for our economy. Investors who have gotten rich controlling the hoarded “reserves” of fossil fuel are scared of the fact that the sun delivers energy for free each time it rises above the horizon, and in their fear they’re massively gaming our political system. The worldwide elections of 2024 saw setback after setback, with oil-­soaked populists winning control in too many places. Just as they played the game of climate denial with real success for three decades, they now engage in a kind of solutions denial, claiming we’re not ready for clean energy, or offering up substitutes closer to the status quo. Some of these substitutes (geothermal power and nuclear energy, if the cost ever comes down) may offer useful side dishes to the main course of sun, wind, and batteries; others (carbon capture from power plants, biofuels) are just expensive efforts to extend the business model of this industry a little longer. All of the substitutes are effective at distracting us, especially in the distorted infosphere of greenwash and spin we inhabit.

Nowhere, of course, is that distortion more powerful than the United States, where Trump rode back into office vowing to “drill, baby, drill” and to crash the electric vehicle (EV) industry. He’d been in office four hours when he signed an order ending all federal support for wind power. (As for solar energy, the week before the election he said, “It’s all steel and glass and wires. It looks like hell. And you see rabbits get caught in it.”) By April, just three months into his second term, Trump was announcing plans to revive the coal industry, and his bizarre tariffs were making life harder for renewable energy developers; he cut off funding to Princeton’s climate modelers on the grounds that their findings were causing “climate anxiety.” All of which is to offer a third caution: Just because the world goes in one direction, that doesn’t mean every nation will follow. Yes, there’s enormous momentum behind this transformation; on the last day of February 2025 the federal Energy Information Administration predicted that 93 percent of American electric generation built in Trump’s first year would be carbon-­free, mostly from solar. In the first month of 2025, as Trump was taking office, sun and wind combined made up 98 percent of new generating capacity in the States. But clearly the Trump/Musk team will try to break that momentum; already-­high tariffs on Chinese solar panels are being increased again even as I finish this manuscript, and the administration is embarked on a sprawling effort to achieve “energy dominance” based on oil and gas. It’s an effort to stuff the solar genie back in the barrel, and we don’t know yet to what degree it will succeed. The Biden administration, with the Inflation Reduction Act, set in motion transformative spending on clean energy technology, and spread the money carefully around the red states; Texas, home base of the hydrocarbon industry, is now outpacing even California in clean energy (though the state legislature, as of spring 2025, was engaged in an all-out effort to sabotage that growth). Power from the sun can appeal to conservatives (“my home is my well-­wired castle”) as powerfully as it does to liberals. But the addiction to fossil fuels and all its accomplices (the giant SUV, say) runs deeper here than anyplace else; it will be a fight to turn the American page.

I’m ready for that fight. Even as I write these pages, I’m helping organize what we’re calling Sun Day, set for the autumnal equinox in September 2025. Indeed, some of the proceeds from this book are supporting that organizing process, because its goal is the same: to help people understand the possibility of our moment. As we shall see, much of the progress that engineers have made has come on the back of inspired activism, something we need more of. In this fight, the solar panel and the wind turbine are both the crucial machines and also the symbols of potential liberation.

And in true Hollywood fashion, our liberation and our destruction are arriving at precisely the same time, offering us a remarkable choice. Everything is going wrong, except this one big thing. Our species, at what feels like a very dark moment, can take a giant leap into the light. Of the sun.

Excerpts from the McKibben’s Divestment Tour: Brought to You by Wall Street series by Cory Morningstar:

Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) is a partner of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). CERES funders are associated with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.

WBCSD is part of a Wall Street strategy to dislodge the United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations, and prevent enforceable rules governing the operations of multinational corporations.

One third of the CERES network companies are in the Fortune 500. Since 2001, CERES has received millions from Wall Street corporations and foundations.

CERES president Mindy Lubber promotes “sustainable capitalism” at Forbes. Bill McKibben (founder of 350) was an esteemed guest of CERES conferences in 2007 and 2013.

1Sky, which merged with 350 in 2011, was created by the Clinton Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Betsy Taylor of 1Sky/350 is on the CERES board of directors.

In 2012, Bill McKibben and Peter Buffett (oil train tycoon Warren Buffet’s son) headlined the Strategies for a New Economy conference. Between 2003 and 2011, NoVo (Buffet’s foundation) donated $26 million to Tides Foundation, which in turn funds CERES and 350.

Suzanne Nossel, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton, is on the Tides board of directors.

McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street Cory Morningstar

Part I of this series, McKibben’s Divestment Tour – Brought to You by Wall Street, can be found herePart IIPart IIIPart IV]

“Of all our studies, it is history that is best qualified to reward our research.” — Malcolm X

Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of GreenThe Art of AnnihilationPolitical Context, Counterpunch, Canadians for Action on Climate Change and Countercurrents. You can follow her on twitter: elleprovocateur

350.org front man, Bill McKibben tells us that “It’s not all right to be profiting from the wreckage of the planet” yet he will not tell us that the unparalleled violence upon the planet and its most vulnerable peoples is inherently built into the system of industrialized capitalism. He will not tell you the simple fact that every day this system is allowed to continue represents one more day of profiteering from the wreckage of the planet and brings us one day closer to our shared global annihilation. Further, McKibben undermines any campaign that attempts to bring this most critical issue to the forefront of the global debate.

Many inadequacies in both the science and the logic have already been made clear by many reputable activists. On July 24, 2012, three responses to McKibben’s July 19, 2012 article in Rolling Stone magazine [“Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math: Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe – make clear who the real enemy is”] by Anne Petermann, Dr. Rachel Smolker, and Keith Brunner were published on Global Justice Ecology Project. Selected excerpts are as follows:

Anne Petermann writes:

“Can the very markets that have led us to the brink of the abyss now provide our parachute? McKibben points out that under this system, those with the money have all the power. Then why are we trying to reform this system? Why are we not transforming it?” “… if you focus solely on eliminating fossil fuels without changing the underlying system, then very bad things will take their place because it is the system itself that is unsustainable. It is a system designed to transform ‘natural capital’ and human labor into gargantuan profits for an elite few: the so-called ‘1%.’ Whether it’s driven by fossil fuels or biofuels or even massive solar and wind installations, the system will continue to devour ecosystems, displace forest-based communities, Indigenous Peoples and subsistence farmers from their lands, crush labor unions and generally make life hell for the vast majority of the world’s peoples. That is what it does.”

Keith Brunner writes:

“Bill offers divestment campaigns, à la South Africa, as a favored strategy to hit the fossil fuel companies financially. Sounds great, except when you look at the trends over the past few years of big institutional investors – like pension funds and university endowments – to move their money (often through a private equity intermediary) into, amongst other things, ’emerging market’ natural resources and infrastructure funds, facilitating land and resource grabbing across the South. It’s what the ‘progressive’ climate-aware fund managers (like the CERES folks) are advocating, and it’s a problem. And that’s another place where he misses the point: Yes, the fossil fuel corporations are the big bad wolf, but just as problematic is the system of investment and returns which necessitates a growth economy (it’s called capitalism). That Harvard University endowment fund manager has a ‘fiduciary responsibility’ to get a certain annual return, which means they have to put their money into growing, profitable funds or firms or states (what’s the difference anyhow), which grow through exploiting people and dismantling ecosystems. We aren’t going to invest our way to a livable planet. We need to focus on the root causes and false solutions, lift up the community solutions, and push the big green groups to become more holistic in their analysis so they don’t shoot us all in the foot.”

I tried to be a guiding force in Spokane: Eighteen Years Ago, and a whole universe away!

Inlander

Economies of Stale By Paul K. Haeder

Unless we change our basic economic playbook, Bill McKibben says we may be doomed

Small is beautiful” is an axiom lost on many Americans bent on acquiring more material goods at the expense of nature. For journalist and author Bill McKibben, the best way to live that way is centered on building upon and maximizing our local economies. That’s the message of his new book, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. McKibben will be in Spokane Tuesday to discuss his book and the sad state of the planet.

McKibben, whose work on global warming precedes anything Al Gore may have conjured up recently, uses a broad paintbrush to give the reader a sense of our current economics of pain, exploitation and competition. Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, LBJ, Bill Clinton and the Bushes have all proposed that our society is uniquely entitled to absolute, unrestrained growth — in fact, many purport we’re divinely hardwired to feed the engine of resource hoarding and untamed capitalism, the rest of the world be damned.

McKibben says that’s the problem: “The median predictions of the world’s climatologists — by no means the worst-case scenario — show that unless we take truly enormous steps to rein in our use of fossil fuels, we can expect average temperatures to rise another four or five degrees before the century is out, making the globe warmer than it’s been since long before primates appeared.

“We might as well stop calling it Earth and have a contest to pick some new name, because it will be a different planet,” McKibben adds from his home in Vermont. “Humans have never done anything more profound, not even when we invented nuclear weapons.”

To combat all that history and dread, McKibben suggests a turn to “deep ecology,” which is best defined by contrasting what it isn’t. “Shallow ecology” is what we have now, a human-centered way of putting nature last in every equation. Deep ecology, on the other hand, defines the world not as a hierarchal collection of objects but as a network of phenomena that are interconnected and interdependent. Deep economy, then, recognizes the intrinsic value of all life within a strong web of local economic life.

The concept of ecology and environmentalism, barely articulated starting in the 1930s, has always taken a back seat to the grip of power held by churches, kings, despots and now societies that have vaulted corporations to a level of final arbiter of values and common destiny. And economics has been the Achilles’ heel of social activists, ranging from civil rights workers to environmentalists. They have just never understood the language or thinking of economists.

And that’s why McKibben’s voice is so powerful — he uses economics to prove his points. In Deep Economy, for example, he looks beyond the subject of economics to pose a key question: What is the economy for? Experts in so many fields — and activists tied to such local groups as the Lands Council, Futurewise and Save Our Wild Salmon — realize that there are few outcomes from our relentless push for growth that don’t speak of a monumental environmental disaster.

In his provocative 1989 book, The End of Nature, McKibben illustrated that the changes humankind has made and is continuing to make to the atmosphere’s chemistry are not the kind of environmental disruptions we have experienced in the past. His message honed in on the fact that we can’t escape the climatic effects by fleeing to some solar-powered cabin in the woods; we’ve begun to alter the global processes that define our environment.

For McKibben, the human hand acting on the Earth is not a guiding hand but one that’s inherently clumsy. The truth is that most of our influence on climate has been unintentional. It’s now a less predictable world, fraught with a violence staged by the triumvirate of colliding forces: changing temperatures, sea levels and mutating atmospheric chemistry.

This mess is largely based on capitalism and greedy economics of resource exploitation, and on our own propensity to separate humans from nature.

“In the 20th century, two completely different models of how to run an economy battled for supremacy,” says McKibben. “Ours won, and not only because it produced more goods than socialized state economies. It also produced far more freedom, far less horror. But now that victory is starting to look Pyrrhic; in our overheated and under-happy state, we need some new ideas.”

In this new stage in McKibben’s journalistic journey, we see the natural outgrowth of dealing with our ecological stressors and impending collapses through a new lens, one that most every economist has missed — through local interdependence and sustainable use of resources.


“We’ve gone too far down the road we’re traveling,” McKibben adds. “The time has come to search the map, to strike off in new directions. Inertia is a powerful force; marriages and corporations and nations continue in motion until something big diverts them. But in our new world, we have much to fear, and also much to desire, and together they can set us on a new, more promising course.”

Bill McKibben will be in Spokane on Tuesday, April 3, first at a reception at 5 pm at the Community Building (35 W. Main Ave.), and later at 7 pm at Gonzaga University’s Globe Room of Cataldo Hall. Both events are free and open to the public. Paul Haeder is the sustainability liaison at Spokane Falls Community College, where he also teaches English. His KYRS radio show, Tipping Points: Voices on the Edge, covers sustainability issues. Check out http://www.stepitup07.org for more information.

… Jews and the Death of Thinking . . . AI, Antisemitism is Anti-Genocide, and Judaism Never Killed Their Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, that cuntt-tree under Epstein:

Trump is now remodeling the Oval Office to cover it in gold after ordering a $200 million golden ballroom.

All after cutting 17 million Americans’ health care and taking food away from hungry children.

I doubt Israel is doing that bad:

On this episode of the Project Censored Show, Dr. Shir Hever joins us to discuss Israel’s disinformation economy, the zombie economy that is held together by nothing more than lies and deception, and how the ongoing genocide in Gaza has made clear that for most Israelis, the need to oppress is greater than the need to make ends meet. Dr. Hever also highlights the journalistic malpractice of Israel’s propaganda machine, the impressive and vital progress of the BDS movement and how politicians are now leveraging Palestine for personal political gain.

May be an image of 1 person, studying and text that says 'ጥ And even what is really glaring is Andevenwhatisrealyglaringst the stock exchange in Israel, which is rising.'

Ahh, the disinformation — lying, scamming, grifting, thieving, smash-and-grab, death cult society.

Headlines that should make your MAGA family and friends and loved ones and colleagues HAPPY.

Air Force denies early retirement for group of transgender service members

The move is the latest escalation by the Trump administration as it seeks to bar transgender people from joining the military and remove all who are currently serving.

And so the Epstein Boy, Pedophile and Rapist Trump, always always wondering if he should have had sex with Roy Cohn.

The Apprentice' Movie: How Roy Cohn Influenced Donald Trump

Speaking of this racist and bigot’s HIV thing:

Last week, the office of management and budget (OMB) revealed plans to freeze all outside funding for National Institutes of Health research this fiscal year, but reversed course later that day, leaving the scientific community in a state of whiplash. A senior official at the NIH who spoke on condition of anonymity said this was just the latest in a “multi-prong” approach by the Trump administration to destroy American scientific research.

In July, the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the NIH, updated its website to reflect Trump administration plans to significantly cut cancer research spending as well. Since January, the administration has been cancelling NIH grants, in some cases targeting other specific research areas, such as HIV treatment and prevention.

a person holds a sign that reads 'save our science'

And, drum roll:

Yeah, that fucking misanthropic Jew Tech War Cunt doesn’t want scrutiny and people doubting the entire “science” thing, or the “military” thing, or his fucking Dystopian “thing.”

University of Michigan — explore all what the liberal arts could-should-may never now deliver under the Jewish Regime of Karp-Ellison-Altman-Zuckerberg-Fink-Schwarzman!

Christ:

Beyond Hope: Wilson, Robert: 9780999231302: Amazon.com: Books
Beyond Hope by Bariz Shah | Goodreads
Beyond Hope (Short 2024) - IMDb
Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse
Beyond Hope: Philosophical Reflections - Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Beyond Hope, by Derrick Jensen | Ekostories by Isaac Yuen

“But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.” (Derrick Jensen, Beyond Hope)

Goddamn, this headline times a million is my wet dream: Wealthy Texan Trophy Hunter Killed by Buffalo He Was Tracking

Asher Watkins died in a “sudden and unprovoked attack,” the safari company said.

Unprovoked? All fucking millionaires need to go this way:

Hero WITH THE BIG ASS HORNS deserves five medals of honor!

While Trump and MAGA and Company Jerk Off, the reality is as old as:

“As the country at large grows more stressful as a dwelling place, the quiet, remoteness, and solitude of a week on a wild river become more and more precious to more and more people.” ― Wallace Stegner, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs

UnUnited Snakes of AmeriKKKa — Snowfall in Western mountains, including the Flatirons outside Boulder, Colo., is the primary source of water for the Colorado River Basin.

The seven Colorado Basin states have been grappling with how to deal with declining Colorado River supplies for a quarter century, revising usage guidelines and taking additional measures as drought has persisted and reservoir levels have continued to decline. The current guidelines will expire in late 2026, and talks on new guidelines have been stalled because the states can’t agree on how to avoid a future crisis.

Snow sits on steep rocky slopes.

Ahh, cut cut cut, and then there is Karp Jewism

Some Philadelphia-area scientists have gotten federal research funding back, after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration could not give any reason for taking away their grants in the first place.

A few months ago, hundreds of researchers around the country learned that the National Institutes of Health had cancelled their already approved research grants.

Delaware, New Jersey and 14 other states joined professional organizations like the American Public Health Association to sue the Trump administration over those cuts.

Getty Images A woman in a black cardigan and white shirts holds a baby with a pink t-shirt and a strawberry hat on, in the hot spring town of Arima Onsen on the outskirts of Kobe

Fornication and contraception HELL: Almost a million more deaths than births were recorded in Japan last year, representing the steepest annual population decline since government surveys began in 1968.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described the demographic crisis of Japan’s ageing population as a “quiet emergency”, pledging family-friendly policies such as free childcare and more flexible work hours.

But efforts to reverse the perennially low birth rates among Japanese women have so far made little impact.

Magaret?

Margaret Atwood on Christianity, 'The Handmaid's Tale,' and What Faithful  Activism Looks Like Today | Sojourners

Praise be: unburnable copy of The Handmaid’s Tale fetches $130,000 | Margaret Atwood

Praise be: unburnable copy of The Handmaid's Tale fetches $130,000 | Margaret  Atwood | The Guardian

One small small step for Gaza? Slovenia on Wednesday introduced a ban on imports of goods produced in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and approved an additional aid package for Palestinians in Gaza, the government said in a statement.

“The government today banned the import of goods originating from settlements in the occupied territories, including a ban on circumventing the ban on these imports,” the statement on the government website said.

Image

And so, the Cunt-Tree’s Punk Boy Hegseth, spending MAGA money wisely: Restoration of torn-down Confederate monument will cost $10 million over 2 years, military says.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday on social media that the statue in Virginia “never should have been taken down by woke lemmings.”

Designer babies, conceptual illustration.

We starve and die of thirst, but this is back on — CRISPR. The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot

Trump orders new census excluding undocumented immigrants amid redistricting  battles - ABC News

Mushroom dick and mushroom brain:

Trump orders new census excluding undocumented immigrants amid redistricting battles – ABC News

Ahh, the green pornography hot and steamy!

The green revolution, at least for the biggest names in the energy sector, is gone baby gone. Instead, multinational companies that have suffered in the stock market while pushing renewable energy have opted to zag back to “drill baby drill.” This week, one of those entities scored arguably its biggest fossil fuel find in years.

The British company BP, which maintains its U.S. headquarters in Houston, announced Monday it may have found a staggering amount of oil and gas in the Santos Basin oil field about 218 nautical miles from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the south Atlantic Ocean. BP drilled to a depth of more than 19,000 feet below sea level; a spokesperson told Reuters the find likely rivals a 1999 discovery in the Caspian Sea, making it the biggest oil score in at least 25 years.

Ahh, that black crude, or light crude, ready for drinking! US-German Water Satellites Show Continental Dry Spots Are Getting Drier

Minnesota pollution agency could have alerted people whose health was at  risk from lead exposure sooner - CBS Minnesota

Always, like I said, ALWAYS for the profiteers: Investigates discovered the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) could have alerted people whose health was at risk from lead exposure sooner.

In late May, the MPCA issued a notice of violation to Gopher Resource in Eagan, Minnesota, for exceeding lead air quality standards from January through March. People living nearby weren’t told about the pollution problem until July.

The state pollution control agency has the authority to notify people when there’s a health risk. The Environmental Protection Agency told WCCO the agency doesn’t have to wait three months to do so per federal law — as the MPCA told concerned residents.

People who live in the area of impact voiced their concerns at a community meeting last month, and expressed frustration about how the meeting was handled.

The battery recycling business released excessive lead emissions for three months earlier this year. The company says it became aware of the elevated readings in early 2025 and alerted the MPCA. The state health department says there’s no safe level of lead exposure.

Fed official says last week's jobs revisions could signal an economic  turning point - CBS News

And fucking Putin met with this Epstein Character for a Truth Telling?

A Federal Reserve official on Wednesday called last week’s tepid jobs report “concerning,” and said its significant downward revisions could signal an economic shift in the U.S.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook highlighted the report’s sizable downward revisions to jobs created in May and June, saying that they are “typical of turning points” in the economy.

Friday’s report showed that employers added a weaker-than-expected 73,000 jobs in July. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, also sharply revised its job estimates for May and June, saying that the U.S. added 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.

After Friday’s report, President Trump fired the BLS commissioner of labor statistics, claiming that the revisions undermined the data’s accuracy. He added that “Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’.”

Five Fucking Years Ago, Mr. Fish!

NOW:

World-renowned political cartoonist Dwayne Booth, more commonly known as Mr. Fish, has found himself in the crosshairs of the new McCarthyist assault on free expression and higher education. While employed as a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, Booth became a target of Zionist and pro-Israel critics, and his work became a flashpoint of controversy in the months leading up to his firing in March. Facing charges that certain cartoons contained anti-Semitic tropes, J. Larry Jameson, interim president of the University of Pennsylvania, denounced Booth’s illustrations as “reprehensible.”

In a statement about his firing, Booth writes: “The reality – and something that, unfortunately, is not unique to Penn – is that colleges and universities nationwide have been way too complicit with the largely Republican-led efforts to target students and faculty members engaged in any and all speech rendered in support of trans/black/immigrant, and women’s rights, free speech, the independent press, academic freedom, and medical research – speech that also voices bold criticism of right-wing nationalism, genocide, apartheid, fascism, and specifically the Israeli assault on Palestine.”

In this special edition of The Marc Steiner ShowMarc sits down with Booth in the TRNN studio in Baltimore to discuss the events that led to his firing, the purpose and effects of political art, and how to respond to the repressive crackdown on art and dissent as genocide is unfolding and fascism is rising.

“they are free subscribers coming over to Paulokirk, and then fucking want way the fuck off . . . .

Jews: So, 730 Days is the Magic Minyan Number?

Not enough food, fuel, blood, doctors – everything: War on Gaza Day 670

Not enough food, fuel, blood, doctors – everything: War on Gaza Day 670!

AT LEAST 25 CRUSHED TO DEATH BY OVERTURNED AID TRUCK: Medical sources said that 25 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured when a truck carrying aid overturned on top of a crowd of people seeking relief in the central Gaza Strip. Local sources indicated that the aid truck overturned after the occupation forces forced it to enter through an unsafe road.

An injured boy lies on the ground in al-Shifa hospital. While doctors are still doing surgery, blockades, bombing, and starvation have all but dried up life-saving blood supply

Dire blood shortage in Gaza as deaths from Israeli attacks, starvation grow

An IDF soldier receives blood.

Jewish Blood First — Israel’s New National Blood Center Takes Shape

Atlanta philanthropists Bernie and Billi Marcus donate $25 million to support the world’s first underground blood processing, testing, storage and distribution facility.

[Blood center land excavation, located in Ramla, Israel.]

War crime: Israeli army stole donkeys from Gaza, transported them to Europe

Fucking shit-licking Jews! War crime: Israeli army stole donkeys from Gaza, transported them to Europe

The Israeli army has reportedly stolen hundreds of donkeys from the besieged Gaza Strip, smuggled them to Israel, and transported them to Europe to prevent their use in the reconstruction of Gaza, Israeli Channel Kan reported.

According to Kan, the organized looting of dozens of donkeys from the Gaza Strip in coordination with Israeli organizations and the complicity of European institutions, most notably French and Belgian ones.

According to the report, Israeli soldiers have looted the donkeys from areas they invaded within the Gaza Strip, under the pretext of “rescuing them from sickness and neglect”.

Israeli media reported the looting as a “veterinary rescue operation,” neglecting to mention their Palestinian owners, who mainly relied on the animals as an essential means of transportation to escape Israeli genocidal attacks in Gaza.

Under international law, the forced confiscation of civilian property during an armed conflict is classified as a war crime.

Displaced Palestinians leave the southern neighborhoods on donkey carts following Israeli military orders to evacuate parts of the city in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Oklahoma!!

At Thursday’s OSDE meeting, Walters brought up the memo in his opening remarks.

“You’re not going to go into a classroom and promote violence towards Jewish people. Violence towards the Israeli country, saying things like Israel shouldn’t exist. We’re not going to tolerate that,” said State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R-Oklahoma).

Jeff Berrong with the Oklahoma Policy Institute and a frequent guest commentator on KFOR’s Flashpoint believes Walters has no place sending memos like this one.

“He continually tries to raise all these scare tactics about left-wing indoctrination in schools, which is not, I mean, that’s not happening,” said Berrong.

In the memo, Walters also points to the newly adopted 2025 Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies.

“It is very specific on the way that you’re going to teach these things. It’s going to be about fact,” said Walters.

He says the following standards are especially relevant, as they ensure that instruction on Israel is historically grounded and balanced: Modern World History Standard 7.2, United States History Standard 8.1, and History of 20th Century Totalitarianism Course Standards.

Walters is urging all districts to review their instructional materials, ensuring they align with the standards.

“We need to teach true history, and that means all of it. That means every single thing that the United States has gone through, the indigenous, the BIPOC, slavery, all of it. Not just, you know, the great White America.

Read the full memo from Walters below:

Dear Oklahoma Educators,

The tragic events of October 7, 2023 — when Hamas militants launched a brutal surprise attack on Israeli civilians, killing over 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage — marked a turning point in modern Middle Eastern history. This massacre, widely condemned as one of the deadliest attacks on Jews since the Holocaust, ignited a broader regional conflict that now includes direct hostilities between Israel and Iran. In recent weeks, Israel has launched preemptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, while Iran has retaliated with ballistic missile attacks, including strikes near civilian hospitals.

These developments are not just headlines, they are history in the making and highlight the urgent need for educators to present global conflicts with clarity, accuracy, and moral responsibility.

In Oklahoma, we are committed to ensuring that our students receive a fact-based education free from ideological bias. The newly adopted 2025 Oklahoma Academic Standards for Social Studies reflect this commitment by requiring instruction grounded in primary sources and historical evidence and guarding against antisemitic or politicized narratives in the classroom.The following standards are especially relevant, as they ensure that instruction on Israel is historically grounded and balanced: Modern World History Standard 7.2, United States History Standard 8.1, and History of 20th Century Totalitarianism Course Standards: These standards provide essential context for understanding modern threats to Jewish communities and democratic nations and require students to think critically while ensuring the instruction of Israel is historically grounded and balanced

The recent controversy in New York where a Regents Exam study guide described Zionism as a “colonial” movement and included misleading references to terrorism serves as a staunch reminder that there exists ideology and educational materials not only distort historical fact but risk promoting ideologies that are inconsistent with Oklahoma values. Oklahoma’s standards are designed to prevent this by setting clear expectations for content accuracy and instructional integrity.

As Superintendent Ryan Walters has affirmed, “Oklahoma kids will be taught facts, not indoctrination.” That means presenting the history of Israel and their fight to rightly exist in the world, including the atrocities of the Holocaust and the current struggle with Iran, in a way that is historically grounded, intellectually honest, and free from antisemitic bias.

We urge all districts to review their instructional materials and professional development programs to ensure alignment with the 2025 standards. The Oklahoma State Department of Education stands ready to provide guidance, resources, and any other assistance needed.

For Oklahoma,

Signature

True stripped of truth History! Guatemala? Gaza?

Oklahoma's top educator requires schools to play video of him praying for  Trump

The Guatemalan genocide — preceded by a CIA-instigated coup d’état of the Guatemalen government in 1954 and the ensuing civil war — saw hundreds of thousands of the Mayan Indigenous peoples and alleged communists massacred or disappeared. Lawyer Jennifer Harbury, who exposed many of the war crimes committed by the Guatemalan Army during the genocide, discusses the gruesome details of the conflict, and the role the CIA and Israel played in facilitating the brutality.

Twenty three years ago.

Still Searching: Jennifer Harbury Takes Her Ten-Year Odyssey for Justice to the Supreme Court

by Barbara Belejack/ June 7, 2002, 12:00 AM, CDT

Every year on the twelfth of March, Jennifer Harbury sends a dozen roses to the Guatemalan Embassy. This year she was in Washington, preparing to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, and delivered the bouquet on her way to the law library. It was exactly 10 years ago to the day that the Guatemalan army captured her husband, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, after a minor skirmish in a war that had gone on forever and taken a dreadful toll: 200,000 people—most of them Mayan Indians—killed or disappeared; one million people displaced; 626 massacres; 440 villages wiped off the map in the worst episode of genocide in the Western Hemisphere in the twentieth century.

At the time he was captured, Bámaca, whose nom de guerre was Comandante Everardo, was not yet 35. He had spent 17 years as a guerrilla in the mountains and was one of the highest-ranking Mayan leaders of the rebel forces known as the URNG (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca). He knew precisely the kind of things his captors would want to know—as well things in which they would probably have no interest at all. He spoke Mam and Quiché, as well as Spanish, and although he had had no formal schooling, was a voracious reader who sometimes wrote poetry. As Harbury stood on the sidewalk outside the Embassy, the Ambassador suddenly came running out the door. He asked about her case before the Supreme Court; she filled him in on the latest developments in Costa Rica, where she had won a major decision against the Guatemalan military at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He said there was something he was curious about and had wanted to know: His staff told him that every year she sent a dozen roses—every single year. Why was that?

She explained that March 12 was the anniversary of Everardo’s capture; she still didn’t know the date of his death. The Ambassador asked about the colors. She sent different colors every year—was there a significance? No, she replied. They were just the colors that she liked. (This year they were peach.) And then he had one more question: “So why do you send them here?”

“You won’t give the body back, ” she replied. “I can’t take the flowers to a grave site, so as far as I’m concerned, this is the grave site until you give him back.”

And then he stood there staring at me for a while, and just wished me well,” Harbury recalled not long ago, when we met in the Rio Grande Valley town of Weslaco, not far from the Legal Aid office where she represents migrant farmworkers. “I expect nothing but more smoke.”

For the past 10 years, Jennifer Harbury has been slogging through lies, dodging the smoke and mirrors trying to find out what really happened to Everardo. She stood by as bodies of victims of the Guatemalan army were exhumed; lobbied endlessly for answers at the U.S. Embassy, the State Department, and in Congress; brought witnesses out of Guatemala to testify before the Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States; and sat in the office of the Guatemalan Minister of Defense, attempting to negotiate Everardo’s release. She conducted one hunger strike in front of the Politécnica, Guatemala’s National Military headquarters, and then another for 32 days in front of the National Palace. It was not until November 1994, when the television show “60 Minutes” aired a broadcast revealing that the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala did, in fact, possess information indicating that Everardo had been captured alive, that the State Department acknowledged that it knew he had not been killed in combat or committed suicide—as the Guatemalan army had initially reported—but had been captured and held in a clandestine military prison. On the third anniversary of Everardo’s capture, she began a hunger strike in front of the White House. She was repeatedly told by the American Ambassador in Guatemala and other officials that they had no further information about what had happened to her husband. Then in March 1995—on the twelfth day of her third hunger strike—she was summoned to the office of then-Congressman Robert Torricelli. It was there that she was told the truth—or as much of the truth as Torricelli had pieced together—that Everardo was dead, his killing ordered by Julio Roberto Alpírez, a colonel in the Guatemalan Army, a graduate of the School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia, and a CIA asset who was also linked to the 1990 murder of American citizen Michael DeVine, an expatriate innkeeper.

Torricelli’s revelations caused an uproar. The Clinton Administration should “announce that America will no longer train and encourage Latin American thugs,” thundered The New York Times. “It can make an even stronger case for thorough, systemic reform of the CIA to make it lean, honest, less wasteful and more accountable for the millions of taxpayer dollars it spends.” The President ordered an investigation and in June 1996, the Intelligence Oversight Board released a 61-page document, which stated that the CIA had a relationship with Guatemalan military intelligence and criticized the CIA for failing to properly inform Congress about human rights violations. It concluded that Alpírez had taken part in a cover-up of DeVine’s murder and participated in Everardo’s interrogation. “We believe, but lack definitive proof,” the report continued, “that interrogation included torture.” As to Everardo’s fate, the Board concluded that he had been killed within a year of his capture and offered three possibilities: He had been flown in a helicopter and dumped at sea; he had been dismembered and his remains scattered so they would never be found; or he had been buried at a military base known as Las Cabañas. “Although the Board believes that assets or liaison contacts were likely involved or knowledgeable,” the report stated, “it found no indication that the CIA was aware of these links at the same time.”

Among the documents made public at the same time was a September 1993 Department of Defense intelligence report that noted that clandestine military prisons had always existed in Guatemala, and that guerrilla prisoners were commonly held incommunicado in isolated military zone locations, interrogated, and killed after the army had extracted all useful information from them.

Meanwhile, Harbury had begun piecing together documents released from her own Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the CIA; from the National Security Archive, a non-profit research organization based in Washington, D.C.; and from information from witnesses inside and outside of Guatemala. Slowly she was cross-referencing the facts, working her way through the courts in the United States and in Central America. In addition to her FOIA suit, she filed a federal civil rights suit in Washington, D.C. against former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, former National Security Council chief Anthony Lake, former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Marilyn McAfee, several former directors of the CIA and other high-level Clinton Administration officials. The case has never gone to trial; in March 1999 a district court judge dismissed most of her claims. In December 2000, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed the dismissal on one key claim, holding that Harbury’s right of access to the courts had been violated. “If her allegations are true,” wrote Judge David Tatel, “then the defendants’ reassurances and deceptive statements effectively prevented her from seeking emergency injunctive relief in time to save her husband’s life.”

Christopher and the other government officials petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case, and it was argued last March. Sometime this month the Court is expected to issue a decision in the case of Christopher v. Harbury, addressing a deceptively narrow question of constitutional law: Did Warren Christopher, Anthony Lake, and other high-level Clinton Administration officials deprive Jennifer Harbury of her right to access to the courts by repeatedly lying to her, withholding information about her husband’s secret detention, torture, and eventual murder?

About a year ago, I started following Harbury’s cases as they made their way through two very different court systems. I began wading through transcripts filled with characters like Asisclo Valladares, the middle-aged, heavy-set Attorney General with manicured nails and an expensive suit, who 10 years ago rushed off an army plane to stop an exhumation that would have proved that the Guatemalan army had committed a hoax and substituted the body of another man for that of Everardo. Or Simeón Cum Chuta, a military intelligence “specialist,” with a buzz cut, dark glasses, and barely audible monotone voice, who was one of Everardo’s torturers. Over and over again I read through the baroque prose of the Intelligence Oversight Board, along with the declassified memos made public by the National Security Archive’s Guatemala Project. From time to time I was reminded of a lawyer I know who likes to quote Leonardo Sciascia whenever the subject of “political crimes” is mentioned. Sciascia is a brilliant Italian writer who chronicles the murky world of politics and mafia in his native Sicily. Sciascia’s rule number one is that political murders are never solved; occasionally a name and a face are attached to the trigger man, the sicario, the low-life paid to do the dirty work, but never the asesino intellectual.

The larger truth in Guatemala is the one that scholars and independent journalists had been telling for years about the scope of the atrocities and the role of the United States. But it was not until a U.N.-sponsored truth commission issued its final report in 1999 that the full extent of the horror was known. The Guatemalan army and other state-sponsored forces were responsible for 93 percent of all the atrocities committed during the 36-year civil war. The Commission found that the military had committed genocide, and it found that the United States shared in the responsibility for what had happened in Guatemala. In 1954, a CIA-sponsored coup toppled the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz and went so far as to provide the military government that followed with a list of assassination prospects. The United States subsequently funded, trained, and collaborated with the Guatemalan army and military intelligence.

“We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it,” a U.S. diplomat named Viron Vaky wrote in an uncharacteristically frank 1968 memo made public by the National Security Archive. “Is it conceivable that we are so obsessed with insurgency that we are prepared to rationalize murder as an acceptable counter-insurgency weapon?”

The worst of the atrocities took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s, under General Fernando Romeo Lucas García and later under General Efraín Rios Montt, the current president of the Guatemalan Congress. Most of the victims were Mayan civilians. Twenty years ago, Rios Montt defended his scorched earth policy with the phrase: “The guerrillas are the fish; the people are the sea. If you want to catch the fish, you have to drain the sea.” And so men like Julio Roberto Alpírez, “matured,” to borrow a term from CIA intelligence reports, in the killing fields of Guatemala, “where he participated in special intelligence operations which were tasked with eliminating insurgents and insurgent sympathizers.” And Ronald Reagan defended his good friend Efraín Rios Montt, saying that he had gotten a “bum rap” on human rights.

As a lawyer in Texas, Harbury began to come in contact with Guatemalan refugees in the early 1980s. No matter what had happened to them, no matter how awful their stories, there was little that a lawyer could do. Not only did INS routinely deny their applications for political asylum, INS translators in South Texas frequently had trouble with the phrase “escuadrón de muerte;” they were either unable or unwilling to call a death squad a death squad. Somewhat naively, as she would later write, she left Texas, where she had worked for Texas Rural Legal Aid and clerked for Judge William Wayne Justice, and in 1985 went to Guatemala. Intending to stay several weeks to document human rights abuses, she stayed two years. In 1990 she returned to Guatemala determined to write a book about the war and to interview guerrilla combatants in the mountains. It was then that she met Everardo, whose life she has described as “almost the mathematical inverse of my own, the other side of the looking glass.” She was a Harvard-educated lawyer, who had studied Chinese and traveled widely—Afghanistan, Africa, and Mongolia. Her father was a biochemistry professor who had come to the United States as a child from Holland, escaping the Nazis. The women in her family, she wrote in Searching for Everardo: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala, were “strong, bright, mulishly stubborn, and fiercely noncomformist.” Everardo was born on a coffee plantation, the eldest child of two Mayan peasants, and joined the guerrillas while he was still in his teens. He had been recruited by guerrilla leader Gaspar Ilom, who taught Everardo to read and regarded him as a son. Ilom, whose real name is Rodrigo Asturias, is the son of Guatemalan writer and Nobel laureate Miguel Asturias.

The couple fell in love, married in Texas, and in the fall of 1991 were living in Mexico City, where Everardo worked on the indigenous rights agenda to be presented during peace negotiations and Harbury worked on her first book, a collection of oral history.

But the negotiations had reached a stalemate, and in early 1992 he returned to Guatemala and soon after disappeared. At first the Army reported that he had fallen in combat and had committed suicide to avoid capture. A detailed description of a body that had been found in a river and buried by the army was sent to the URNG. In May 1992, Harbury traveled to Guatemala to exhume the body, only to be stopped at the last minute by Attorney General Valladares. In early 1993, a former guerrilla who had escaped from a clandestine military prison told her that he had seen Everardo being tortured in an effort to break him psychologically to collaborate with the army; he could identify about 30 other former guerrillas who had also been tortured and were being held clandestinely. Until that time, human rights organizations believed that Guatemala had no political prisoners—anyone captured by the army would be summarily executed. Armed with the names of both prisoners and military officials, Harbury approached the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala in March 1993. In August of that year, she was finally able to open the grave and discover what Valladares had tried to prevent her from learning—that there had been a hoax, that the body was not Everardo’s but that of a much younger, shorter man, who had been killed to provide a corpse. It was precisely the kind of scenario predicted in a CIA memo issued just six days after Everardo’s capture and distributed to the State Department, White House, and other government entities—the Guatemalan army would likely fake his death, the memo stated, “to maximize his intelligence value.”

“Señoras y Señores, La Corte.” The Court is the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, located in a pleasant hillside suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica. It has no street address and when I call for directions, I am told with typical tico, or Costa Rican informality—to look for a building 100 meters from a coffee shop called Pastelería Spoon. The building is one that would not be out of place in any wealthy suburb south of the Rio Grande; the courtroom itself looks more like a simple chapel with its wooden beams and whirling ceiling fans.

The Court, to which the United States has never belonged, is part of the Organization of American States. It is not a criminal court; its goal is to protect and promote human rights and it can only accept cases that cannot be prosecuted in domestic courts. In her search for Everardo, Harbury began with the Guatemalan courts, but was thwarted by judicial officials who spent most of their time trying to invalidate her marriage, or alternately trying to prevent her from leaving or entering the country. She was repeatedly threatened, as was an independent prosecutor who was finally forced to resign. His successor, whom the army had blocked from carrying out any further exhumations, was shot to death in May 1998. Like so many killings in Guatemala today, the prosecutor’s murder could easily be attributed to common crime and was never solved.

In November 2000 the Court issued an 80-page decision that found the Guatemalan military guilty of the secret detention, torture, and execution of Everardo, of the violation of the civil rights of Jennifer Harbury and Everardo’s father and sisters, and of obstruction of justice. Human rights activists in Latin America heralded the decision as a message to military officials throughout the region; the tactics of the “Dirty Wars,”—secret detention, torture, and extra-judicial execution—had been officially declared illegal by a panel of Latin American judges.

The decision was the culmination of an extraordinary war crimes trial that had taken place in June 1998. Among the witnesses was Helen Mack Chang, who had been trying for years to have her sister’s killers brought to justice. Myrna Mack, a leading Guatemalan anthropologist, was stabbed to death in 1990 because of her work with rural communities displaced by the violence. Testifying as an expert witness, Helen Mack described justice in Guatemala as inefficient, slow, and plagued by impunity. She pointed to the recent murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi, the founder and director of the Guatemalan Archdiocese’s Office of Human Rights. On April 24, 1998, Gerardi had presented Guatemala: Nunca Más (Never Again), a 1,400-page report of the atrocities committed during the war, which concluded that the army was responsible for the vast majority of them. Two days later he was bludgeoned to death. His murder sent a chilling message to human rights advocates and those seeking to use the judicial system to end impunity. Mack told the Court that despite the peace accord that went into effect in 1996, a “parallel” power structure continued to operate; until that parallel structure was dismantled, nothing would change.

The Court also heard from two former guerrillas who had been taken prisoner, tortured, and forced to collaborate with the army as they were moved from one clandestine location to another, a practice that had been pioneered in Argentina during the Dirty Wars of the 1970s. Former guerrilla Santiago Cabrera López testified that he had last seen Everardo in July 1992; Everardo was half-naked, tied to a bed, his body swollen, his arms and legs bandaged, a cylinder of some unknown gas next to his bedside.

Although Harbury had written two books on Guatemala and told her own story countless times, she had never told it in a court of law until the trial in San Jose; it was the only time she had ever broken down in public. “You try 20,000 things, but it’s never enough,” she told the Court. “You feel, ‘Why aren’t I more intelligent or why aren’t I more creative, why aren’t I stronger, why am I failing this person, my husband?’ And learning that’s he’s dead, I’ve failed him again. I can’t even give him a decent burial… So, I’ve failed him twice.”

Former Attorney General Valladares, Colonel Alpírez, and other Guatemalan government and military officials had been subpoenaed, but did not show up. Instead, five months later another hearing was held and several of them—but not Colonel Alpírez—came to Costa Rica. (Some first called the court to ask whether they would be arrested and jailed when they stepped off the plane. That October, General Augusto Pinochet had been arrested on human rights charges while visiting England; the Guatemalan military officers feared meeting a similar fate in San Jose.)

One by one they told the same story: They worked in military intelligence, but knew nothing about Everardo except what they read in the news. There had been no clandestine prisons in Guatemala. There were former guerrillas (guerrillas were sometimes described as delincuentes terroristas) who gave themselves up voluntarily and worked on the military base. There had been some sort of military trial in Guatemala, but they knew nothing about it and there were no charges against them. (A military court had indeed found them not guilty; neither Harbury nor her witnesses were ever questioned.)

By the time the Court issued its decision, the findings of both Bishop Gerardi and the U.N. Truth Commission (in which the case of Efraín Ciriaco Bámaca Velásquez is discussed at length) had been released and were later introduced into the record. The Court did not have to make individual findings of guilt—the pattern and practice of forced disappearance committed by the army had already been well established. Harbury and her witnesses were deemed to be credible and the Court issued its landmark decision.

In November 2001, she was back in Costa Rica for a hearing on reparations, along with Everardo’s father, sisters, and baby nephew—also named Everardo. Harbury had told me that she thought the proceedings were likely to be dry and technical, but they were not. Despite the grim subject matter, the hearing seemed to restore the judicial process to its most basic ritual function—telling a story, bearing witness, and educating us about the past. One of the justices acknowledged that the Court was grappling with complex philosophical questions present in any case of wrongful death—How do you value a human life? What might Everardo’s life have been like in post-war Guatemala? They were uncomfortable questions, as the Court itself recognized. (One of the judges was so taken with the moral and cultural issues that he wrote a separate opinion with a side discussion of Sophocles’ Antigone.)

Harbury had long ago signed away her own right to any monetary damages, which would all go to Everardo’s family in Guatemala. She went through her story one more time, and the attorneys for the government of Guatemala expressed little interest. In fact, in two days of testimony, with expert witnesses on conditions in Guatemala, Mayan culture and the significance of burial rites, and the effects of post-traumatic stress, the only time the attorneys for the Guatemalan government seemed to come alive was during the testimony of Manuela Alvarado, who had served as a deputy in the Guatemalan Congress.

Just a decade ago it would have been unthinkable to imagine a Quiché woman dressed in her traditional huipil, or blouse, and skirt, elected to serve in the Guatemalan Congress. That had changed with the signing of the peace accords, which went into effect in December 1996. But overall the accords had failed to live up to the expectations they had generated. “They disarmed us, but they never inserted us into society,” Alvarado said, a capsule description of the first five years of the peace accords, as well as the current state of indigenous rights.

During the trial, in the presence of Everardo’s father, the attorneys for the Guatemalan government suggested that Everardo’s hypothetical life earnings would have been minimal, since he had been a campesino with no formal schooling who joined the guerrillas. Now they were trying to distinguish his hypothetical post-war career possibilities from those of Alvarado, a nurse and teacher, who had never joined the rebel forces. They were not quite ready to see Everardo as she did—a natural leader.It was still another variation on a theme played often by the Guatemalan military, which had urged that a different standard be applied to rebel combatants. But the Court hadn’t bought the argument during the trial, and ruled that it didn’t matter whether someone was “metido en algo”—mixed up with something, a catch-all phrase the military had used for so long to justify its conduct.There were minimal human rights standards that applied to everyone.

The strategy didn’t work in the reparations hearing, either. In February the Court issued a decision requiring the government of Guatemala to pay approximately $500,000 in damages and legal fees to the family of Everardo. Compared to U.S. damages awards, it was a modest amount. (And somewhat less than the $540,000 the Guatemalan Defense Ministry had paid to a Washington, D.C. public relations firm in 1995, in a futile effort to boost its image.) But the award was consistent with what the Court had ordered in other cases and in keeping with its mission. It also ordered the government to publish its original decision in a major daily newspaper, and gave the military six months to produce Everardo’s remains—the first time the Court had ever made such a demand in a case of forced disappearance. Finally, it ordered the government to hold judicial proceedings to investigate his murder and punish those responsible. The decision all but guaranteed that Harbury would return to Costa Rica for endless enforcement hearings. But first there would be a trip to Washington, D.C.

On the morning of March 18, the visitors’ line at the U.S. Supreme Court was unusually long. Only a handful of those who had been waiting for hours in the cool, gray drizzle of late winter would make it up the stairs, into the building, through the multiple security checks, and into the crowded courtroom. The Court would hear two cases that morning. The first involved securities law and fiduciary duties and inspired a lively round of questioning. The petitioner’s attorney had barely finished his first sentence when Justice Scalia interrupted. Scalia seemed to take great interest in the case, as did the other justices, with the exception of Justice Thomas, who characteristically said nothing the entire morning.

At 11 a.m. sharp, Richard Cordray, an Ohio attorney who specializes in government immunity cases, stepped up to the podium to argue that Warren Christopher and other former government officials had not violated Jennifer Harbury’s rights. Or if they had, they were protected by qualified immunity. Cordray had filed his petition for Supreme Court review in early September, just days before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the aftermath of September 11, the case had taken on a different dimension. In the best of times, federal courts are wary of encroaching upon foreign policy and national security arenas. These were not the best of times. Moreover this was a Court that had not hesitated to designate a president after the 2000 election; it was unlikely to do anything that might remotely infringe on his conduct of foreign policy. Cordray’s job had unexpectedly become much easier.

Because of the way the case had moved procedurally, Cordray had not yet raised a “foreign affairs” or “national security” defense. But the Pentagon had been attacked, the nation was at war, the Solicitor General—who had argued the President’s election case before the Supreme Court and would be joining Cordray as a friend of the Court in oral argument—was a recent widower. Ted Olson’s wife, Barbara, had perished on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Two former CIA directors—former President George Bush and James Woolsey—had been quick to blame the 1995 human rights reporting regulations imposed on the CIA following revelations about Guatemala for the intelligence failure that led to 9/11.

“What’s at stake is covert operations,” Cordray argued in his brief to the Supreme Court, “and that has direct ramifications for Afghanistan,” an argument he hammered home before the Court. “We’re in the sensitive context of foreign policy and the oversight of covert operations in a foreign country.” He described Harbury’s claim as a “long skein of hypotheticals,” at the end of which was “a notion that an American court order would somehow have prevented the Guatemalan military from executing her husband.”

First Cordray and later Olson argued that a ruling in favor of Harbury would stifle communication between government officials and ordinary citizens, thousands of communications that take place every day. One of the most common forms of communication, as Olson described it, was the “equivocal and innocuous ‘I will get back to you.’” That, he insisted, was the essence of Harbury’s case—a half-hearted promise on the part of Marilyn McAfee, the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala and other State Department officials, to look into things; an innocuous, “I’ll get back to you,” should not result in a lawsuit. Furthermore, Olson maintained that the government had an inherent right to lie: “There are lots of different situations where the government quite legitimately may have reasons to give false information out.”

And then it was time for Harbury. Until recently she had been represented by a team of pro bono lawyers, but when the Court agreed to review the case, she decided to argue it herself. Her decision sparked the interest of the press, which over the years seemed to have trouble grappling with the fact that it was possible to be a Harvard-trained lawyer, political activist, and the widow of a Guatemalan guerrilla leader at the same time. Perhaps the justices—who were not used to hearing directly from the parties before them—would be equally perplexed.

She began by telling the Court that the case turned on “a very narrow question of law,” a long opening statement that ended with the words “secret cell,” “severely tortured,” and “imminent danger of imminent execution.”

“Ironically I note that today this case is in the highest Court of the land,” she told the Court, “but it is exactly 10 years and six days too late,” a reference to the first CIA memo about Everardo’s capture. Denial of access had proven fatal.

“Access to court to do what?” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked in a hesitant voice. “What claim could you state?” Harbury took that as her cue to argue her case within a case, to outline the kind of relief she would have asked for years ago if she had had the information she needed. She would have asked for an order prohibiting the CIA from requesting and paying for information obtained through torture, an order prohibiting the agency from failing to supervise its Guatemalan employees, prohibiting CIA officials from failing to disclose what they were required to disclose to Congress. “Any court faced with torture and the possibility that someone tomorrow may be literally thrown from a helicopter,” she told the Justices. “I do not believe that any court in this country could not have acted swiftly to redress that situation.”

She fielded questions on a wide range of case law and procedure, but in contrast to the previous case, the response from the bench had slowed considerably. Scalia limited himself to a paltry few questions, as did Chief Justice Rehnquist. Justice Breyer asked a long and winding question that began with “obviously reading your story, one is immediately sympathetic,” and ended with a variation on the issue of executive branch responsibility for foreign affairs. “When there’s egregious behavior throughout the world,” he asked Harbury, “How can we distinguish this case from the general problem of foreign relations, from the general problem of the CIA, from things that courts by and large don’t get into?”

This was not a case about sensitive, national security information, she told the Court. (Indeed officials later indicated that much of the information that it took so long for Harbury to receive was not “sensitive” and could have been provided much sooner.) Nor was this a case that asked the Court to interpret the U.S. government relationship with the Guatemalan military. (But even if it wasn’t, she made sure that the Justices knew that the United Nations had later determined that the Guatemalan military had engaged in genocide against Mayan peasants during the war.)

Finally, she insisted that the facts in her case would not result in a flood of litigation; this was not about an innocuous promise to get back to her.This was a case about government officials who had repeatedly lied to her. Had they not lied to her and assured her there was no further information, she would have gone to court years ago and made the same argument she was making now: “When you have an extremely close and supervisory relationship with a given informant for years, you know that they are notorious as a torturer and that, in fact, they were engaged in a liquidation campaign against civilians, and you say, ‘We want more information from the living prisoner in that room. You have the cattle prod and the pliers, here’s a check for several times–maybe ten or 20 times your annual income–would you please get that information for us?’ That is crossing the line. That’s crossing a very bright line that our government has never permitted. Our government has allowed under certain circumstances to take life, never to torture.”

It was an image that provoked a long and awkward silence from the Court; it was a different perspective from the one that the Justices were accustomed to hearing.

A month later I met with Harbury in Weslaco. and asked her about the awkward pause that silenced the Court at the end of her oral argument. It was a good pause, she told me, an intelligent pause: “They should think about taking out a checkbook for a cattle prod. It’s all too easy to sanitize documents and language so that you can come up with a quick and easy decision without having to worry too much about it. It’s like calling Auschwitz ‘the final solution’ instead of ‘the death camp’… If there’s going to be a ruling from the Court making conduct like that legal, I want it to be very clear what that conduct really is.”

She had no illusions about which way the Court would rule–they would throw out her case, saying the facts weren’t pleaded sufficiently, or that questions of foreign affairs are outside the purview of the Court. Rehnquist, she suspected, would just as soon get rid of the whole body of law on access to the courts. The consequences to her pending claims (only the Constitutional claims have been decided so far; there are still pending tort claims in the district court) would depend on the way the Court writes its decision. But Harbury was also thinking in Mayan time; she had her eye on the long run. “It matters to me what goes on the record 100 years from now. Someone can read that transcript and it’s clear as a bell–that people working for the CIA and other branches of our military overseas are out of control. They have their own political agenda. They consider themselves above the law and they do carry out de facto terrorist-like actions on many occasions.”

Meanwhile, there were still wage and hour cases to do for migrant farmworkers in Weslaco. And there was also a box of de-classified intelligence documents that had appeared out of nowhere just before she went to Washington. There was no time to review them while she was preparing for oral argument, but now she was slowly working her way through heavily redacted reports, most of which held nothing of interest. Two documents, however, referred to Colonel Alpírez and drug-trafficking. The allegations themselves were nothing new, but these documents also linked Alpírez to a Guatemalan military officer and drug trafficker named Carlos René Ochoa Ruiz. Ochoa Ruiz had been indicted by a grand jury in Florida in 1990 in what was supposed to be a major DEA test case, and was also linked to the murder of a Guatemalan judge who had tried to extradite him. It was all part of an endless chain that very likely had begun with the death of expatriate innkeeper Michael DeVine in 1990 and led to a very deep black hole.

I once asked Harbury if she thought she was ever going to run out of options. She didn’t think so.

“Someone got real creative with Pinochet and started new ways of dealing with human rights problems,” she noted. “We’ve slid backwards awfully far since September 11. We need to pick up the pieces and rebuild. All of us–people in the Chilean movement, and the Argentine and the Salvadoran movement–we need to figure out a forum where the U.S. will not be above the law. If the Supreme Court comes out and says this case can’t go to trial, then they’ve said that U.S. officials in this kind of case are above the law,” she said. “The U.S. has always been very careful not to subject itself to jurisdiction in any court. They’re not subject to jurisdiction in the Inter-American court, but people have to be responsible for what they do. It may take me a few years.” But she had lots of company–Helen Mack and so many others in Guatemala, the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, the people who had “gotten creative with Pinochet” in Chile.

She is 50 now, a milestone she cursorily marked with a birthday cake after speaking at an anti-war rally. (The best birthday, she wrote in Searching for Everardo, was the one she spent camped outside the National Palace in Guatemala during her 32-day hunger strike.) When I suggested that she would be working on these cases forever, she looked at me as if I had just announced that the world was round.

“Of course,” she said. “I’m a lawyer. What else would I do?”

Genocide Trial in Guatemala Brings Memories of Israel’s Role in the Killings

Along with the United States, Israel provided weapons and training to Guatemala’s military and their campaign against Indigenous Maya civilians from 1974-1996.

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation  Around the World: 9781839762086: Loewenstein, Antony: Books - Amazon.com

But there was another source of weapons and advisors: Israel, “the only country that gave us support in our battle against the guerrillas,” Benedicto Lucas said, as foreign correspondent Yoav Karni reported in 1986 in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz.

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Two members of the prosecution team listen to a witness during the genocide trial of former Guatemalan General Benedicto Lucas Garcia, architect of the counterinsurgency program in which witnesses say their entire villages were burned to the ground after families were killed. The trial took place at the Tribunals Tower in Guatemala City, 2024.

Yet Israel should not be considered a mere proxy for the United States during Lucas’s genocidal sweeps through the Ixil. Israel was a war machine on its own, searching for arms markets and anxious for allies. Tel Aviv supported the brutal Guatemalan army in Lucas’s day and beyond.

Israel began selling weapons to Guatemala in 1974: armored personnel carriers, military communications equipment, light cannons, machine guns, Uzis, and thousands of Galil assault rifles, which became the Guatemalan troops’ standard weapon. In the 1980s Israel built a factory inside Guatemala to produce the Galils and bullets to go with them. Tel Aviv made deliveries of its signature short take-off and landing aircraft, the Arava, several of which were later equipped with gun pods.

“The planes came over us,” testified Caterina Rodriguez, now seventy-one, recounting the year she spent sheltering in the mountains with her husband and a brother, watching others die of starvation, eating grass after Guatemalan soldiers wiped out residents of their village and burned its houses to cinders. “The planes dropped bombs . . . we were like animals looking for places to hide,” she said in the courtroom.


Various news media reported that Lucas said Israeli advisors were teaching locals how to use the Israeli equipment the army had purchased. But they did much more. By 1983, when the regime of Lucas’s brother had given way to another autocrat, General Efraín Ríos Montt, the EGP said there were 300 Israeli advisors in the country, “in the security structures and in the army.”

“Israeli advisers—some official, others private—helped Guatemalan internal security agents hunt underground rebel groups,” reported correspondent Ed Cody for The Washington Post that year.

An Israeli company, then called Tadiran, designed and financed the Guatemalan army’s school of transmission and electronics. At the school’s opening celebration, Lucas thanked the Israeli ambassador for “the advice and transfer of electronic technology” which brought the country up to date, and the ambassador called Guatemala “one of our best friends.” A computer supplied by Israel and housed in a former military academy became “the nerve center of the armed forces, which deals with the movements of units in the field and so on,” Lucas said. Once the army’s presence was secure in an area, Maya were concentrated into controlled settlements. Israelis advised on those as well.

Dr. Milton Jamail, a scholar who has examined the Israel-Guatemala connection and traveled in the country during the war, wrote in the 1986 book It’s No SecretIsrael’s Military involvement in Central America that the Guatemalan government, “in facing a broad based popular movement, has come to resemble the Israelis on the West Bank and Gaza: They are an occupying army.” To stop dissent, “they must use force, but also need to plan for the more long-range effort of social control. Thus the Israeli plans at home provide a prototype for solving Guatemalan problems.”

Comments:

Mayan Genocide

Thank you for helping shed light on this most pertinent and shameful chapter in our collective history. Most Americans are completely unaware of the U.S. involvement in the Mayan Genocide, not to mention Israel’s involvement. Tragically, most Americans are not even aware of the gruesome, inhumane mass slaughter, rape, torture and disappearance of thousands upon thousands of Indigenous Guatemalan men, women, and children to begin with, and even more tragically, most do not even care.

I was in my junior year in college when I had first learned of the genocide. It was 1996, and a woman who had managed to survive the massacre of her village as a young girl, including the brutal machete slayings of her entire family, visited my campus and delivered the most impressive, poignant, soul-gripping testament to the human experience I had ever heard to this day. And since that night nearly 30 years ago, I’ve shared hers and others’ stories to as many people as I can so that their voices shall never be forgotten. The woman, of course, was Rigoberta Manchu, and for those not familiar with her mind-blowing heroic journey from a displaced sole survivor of a brutal massacre of her village to a 12-year old Mayan warrior who helped defend her people from a U.S. and Israeli – funded, armed and trained right-wing paramilitary coups, I strongly advise you to Google her name and experience her story for yourself as well as the stories of over 250,000 Indigenous Mayan Guatemalans who gruesomely and mercilessly lost their lives due to America’s and Israel’s insatiable hunger for money and power.

I have devoted years trying to educate the public about this and other crimes against humanity carried out by the US – particularly against the Indigenous peoples throughout the world – partly in hopes that Americans will begin to understand and empathize with the plight of Central and South Americans and Caribbeans who are so desperately seeking asylum in the United States as a last hope to save theirs and their children’s lives from violence and poverty caused largely in part to our nation’s pivotal role in the Mayan Genocide which in total left nearly 2 million innocent men, women and children dead or disappeared. Maybe this knowledge will help foster a greater sense of compassion and empathy for those struggling to cross the border, and inspire folks to band together and help convince our government to take some accountability for their actions and help devise a plan to provide refuge for these people either here or elsewhere in a safe, healthy and accommodating environment, as well as initiate a campaign to restore power back to the people of the nations we helped devastate and protect them from the death squads who continue to roam the streets and villages, evoking fear and torment and destroying lives.

William Thompson

Guatemala – CJA

Israel in Central America

In 1980-1983 while Resident Engineer on the construction of the hydroelectric construction project on the Rio Lempa upstream of the Panamerican Highway bridge, I would see, far below, new, American-issue army trucks, said to be of the Atlacatl Brigade, traveling at night during the “toque de queda” (shoot-on-sight curfew). They were strewing limbs, heads, and torsos that would be found in the morning. I observed a few such body parts on the road toward San Miguel, including two heads, once, upright that seemed to be in holes in the highway until closer inspection. The military protecting our camp were armed with a variety of weapons of which many were rifles by Galil and Uzi, two Israeli manufacturers. During the Christmas break of 1980 or 1981 my wife and I visited Guatemala and drove into the mountains north of Guatemala City. Near one mountain top, there was a roadside area of pavilions for indigenous sales of artifacts to tourists. It was entirely empty excepting one woman, working a loom, with a baby on her back. I asked her; “Where is everybody?” Obviously frightened, she repeatedly referred to “El Silencio,” saying that only she and one man had survived a visit by the soldiers and their ametriadores (machineguns). She indicated the nearby thatched hut of the surviving man, and we went to it, but he did not respond to us.

Christopher Fogarty

The Guatemala Genocide Case – CJA

200,000 Dead or Disappeared!!!!!!!

Enriqueta Rodriguez-Maroni, Founding Member of the Mayo Square Mothers, Dies at 98

This teacher became a symbol of resistance to the Argentine dictatorship.

On Tuesday, Enriqueta Rodriguez-Maroni, former president of the Mayo Square Mothers–Founding Line, died at the age of 98 after decades of activism in Argentina’s fight for memory, truth and justice.

Cry cry cry for me, PauloKirk, cuz I only got a coupla paid subscribers, and the rest of them out there who hate me disable me!