United States | News & Politics

During negotiations with the DNC and the Harris campaign, we were repeatedly told by interlocutors that Harris couldn’t meet any of our basic requests (a policy shift from Biden, a Palestinian speaker at the DNC, a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel, or even a meeting with Michigan families who lost loved ones to Israeli bombs) because of AIPAC-aligned politicians like Fetterman, who might take to TV, rile up suburban white and Jewish voters, and fracture the party’s coalition in a swing state.

That political calculus alienated a key voting bloc, although likely not large enough to have shifted the ultimate election outcomes, that should be part of a durable Democratic majority. But few will ever be held accountable for that choice.

A Fetterman staffer condemning Uncommitted for not advocating for Palestinians 'the right way' is like an arsonist scolding the fire department for using the wrong hose.

Source

Today, after mutual agreement between the plaintiffs and defendants, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Ketelly issued an interim order preventing Elon Musk and any additional Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) employees from accessing sensitive U.S. Treasury data while the case proceeds. Her order ensures that access will not be granted to anyone except for Tom Krause and Marko Elez, two Special Government Employees (according to the Treasury), and regular government employees who need access to do their jobs. Elez and Krause will have read-only access, and that access is limited as needed for performance of their duties. This decision was in response to a motion filed yesterday on behalf of Alliance for Retired Americans, American Federation of Government Employees, and Service Employees International Union, by Public Citizen Litigation Group and State Democracy Defenders Fund (SDDF). The motion requested a temporary restraining order (TRO) against defendants the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Secretary Scott Bessent.

https://archive.is/Z3gCU

News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks. Reports from Massachusetts to Idaho have described agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) spreading through communities and rounding people up. Quick Google searches for Ice operations, raids and arrests return a deluge of government press releases. Headlines include “ICE arrests 85 during 4-day Colorado operation”, “New Orleans focuses targeted operations on 123 criminal noncitizens”, and in Wisconsin, “ICE arrests 83 criminal aliens”.

But a closer look at these Ice reports tells a different story. That four-day operation in Colorado? It happened in November 2010. The 123 people targeted in New Orleans? That was February of last year. Wisconsin? September 2018. There are thousands of examples of this throughout all 50 states – Ice press releases that have reached the first page of Google search results, making it seem like enforcement actions just happened, when in actuality they occurred months or years ago. Some, such as the arrest of “44 absconders” in Nebraska, go back as far as 2008. All the archived Ice press releases soaring to the top of Google search results were marked with the same timestamp and read: “Updated: 01/24/2025”.

The mystery first caught the attention of an immigration lawyer who began tracking Ice raids and enforcement actions when Donald Trump took office. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the administration. At first, she was baffled when she clicked on these seemingly new press releases and they detailed Ice raids from more than a decade ago.

So she set to work doing some digital sleuthing and enlisted a friend who’s a tech expert to help. What they found leads them to believe that Ice is gaming Google search.

(Continue more)

Trump announced on Tuesday the US could "take over" the Gaza Strip and transform it into a premier tourist destination, or the "Riviera of the Middle East" - but without Palestinians.

On social media, many debated the plan, with large swathes of people denouncing it as "ethnic cleansing". Others immediately pointed out the US's long history of "settler colonialism" and "imperialism".

In the US, many liberal commentators, especially supporters of the Democratic Party, said Trump was acting precisely as they had warned ahead of presidential elections in November 2024. They blamed his Gaza takeover plan on Muslims for voting for him instead of Kamala Harris.

Voters in Michigan's Dearborn, the largest majority Arab-American city in the United States, overwhelmingly supported Trump in a clear protest against the Biden administration's handling of Israel's war on Gaza.

In reality, Trump won every swing state in the US election, and had he lost Michigan, Harris still would not have come close to competing in the electoral college.

Trump disbands task force targeting Russian Oligarchs

Shocked Pikachu

https://archive.is/gZvrj

Very fortuitous for the little bigot that the WSJ outed him just in time to get that eight months severance.

Al Green stressed that “ethnic cleansing has always been a crime against humanity”. Then, he quoted Martin Luther King, asserting that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

He’s absolutely right. But Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden presided over 15 months of genocide in Gaza. And genocide sits alongside ethnic cleansing as one of the “four mass atrocity crimes“, with some calling it “the most serious war crime“. So the question is, where’s the movement to impeach both Trump and Biden at the same time?

Excerpt:

Elon Musk’s DOGE team is targeting the Department of Labor, as Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX are under multiple labor investigations by federal agencies.

The scheduled meeting at DOL this afternoon, an initial step in gaining access to the department’s IT systems, has drawn protests from employees arguing that DOGE's incursions at the behest of Musk are unaccountable and threaten workers’ rights. Officials at more than a half-dozen agencies have raised concerns internally that Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)'s actions are illegal, flouting checks on executive branch power.

• In November, SpaceX argued in federal court that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional, a case joined by Amazon. The NLRB, created in 1935, is an independent agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act and decides labor complaints.

• Musk’s companies are facing enforcement actions from a slew of federal agencies, as followed by the nonprofit Public Citizen in its Corporate Enforcement Tracker, many of them over labor protections.

• At the NLRB, Tesla faces seven cases alleging unfair labor practices that would cover more than 140,474 employees. Tesla is also under investigation by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), part of the DOL, regarding a workplace death in an Austin, Texas factory.

• At the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Tesla is amid a civil investigation regarding workplace retaliation and racial discrimination at a California factory, where Black employees allege they were subjected to racial slurs and other harassment.

• SpaceX has 10 open cases with the NLRB covering 9,500 employees, and is litigating a complaint that it illegally fired workers who signed letters criticizing Musk.

Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen, says DOGE’s sights on the Labor Department looks like “a billionaire CEO's attempt to seize the means of worker protection.”

“Is Elon Musk so afraid of the cases SpaceX and Tesla face from OSHA, EEOC, and the NLRB that he is willing to corruptly interfere with law enforcement?,” said Claypool. “If so, the reality that the Trump administration is serving the super rich while screwing workers could not be made clearer.”

from #NewYorkTimes #NYT
[gift article - link can be shared. Expires in 30 days.]

By Erica L. Green
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent. She reported from Washington.
Feb. 3, 2025

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/25667361

By Liam Stack

Liam Stack, who has reported from the Middle East on and off for two decades, was part of the team that covered the war in Gaza for The Times.

Feb. 5, 2025
https://archive.ph/S2pSi