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November 12, 2024

Trump Isn’t Hiding Plan to Use Military to Quash Protests and Deport Immigrants

“The next time, I’m not waiting” before committing troops to suppress protests, Trump said at a rally in 2023.

Employing federal troops to suppress domestic protests and deport immigrants from U.S. soil en masse would be illegal, but Donald Trump has been pushing to do so since his first administration. The recent Supreme Court decision granting presidents nearly absolute immunity for official acts has created a situation with far fewer guardrails to prevent Trump from abusing his authority in his second presidential term.

Trump and his allies have reportedly drafted plans for him to deploy the military against civil demonstrators on his first day in office, according to a Washington Post report from November 2023. And Trump, who promised to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, has also indicated that he will use the military to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

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November 8, 2024

Palestine Was a Top Concern for Many Voters. Harris Refused to Listen to Them.

After refusing to call for an arms embargo, Harris lost to Trump, to the delight of Israel’s right-wing leaders.

Israel’s right-wing regime is gleeful about Donald Trump’s impending return to power in the United States. Various Israeli officials have hailed Trump’s victory since Tuesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “history’s greatest comeback.” His new defense minister, Israel Katz, stated, “Together, we’ll strengthen the U.S.-Israeli alliance.” “God bless Trump,” national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said. Trump “has the most pro-Israel record of any president,” according to Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to Washington. “The hope is here that there’ll be more of the same.” A majority of Israelis support Trump.

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October 8, 2024

As Israel Extends Its Genocide Into the West Bank, It Targets and Kills Children

Israel is killing scores of Palestinian children, Defense for Children International-Palestine’s Miranda Cleland says.

The Israeli occupation forces have extended their genocidal campaign in Gaza to the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Using drone strikes, troops in armored vehicles and bulldozers, their regular raids since October 7, 2023, have escalated into extensive and deadly attacks. Between August 28 and September 6, Israel launched “Operation Summer Camps,” a major military invasion, in the northern West Bank. “We watched their bulldozers tear up streets, demolish businesses, pharmacies, schools. They even bulldozed the town soccer field, and a tree in the middle of a road,” Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, told The New York Times.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 722 Palestinians, including at least 164 children, in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

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October 4, 2024

Finally Free, Assange Receives a Measure of Justice From the Council of Europe

In his first public statement since his release, Assange said, “I’m free today … because I pled guilty to journalism.”

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Europe’s foremost human rights body, overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on October 2 formally declaring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a political prisoner. The Council of Europe, which represents 64 nations, expressed deep concern at the harsh treatment suffered by Assange, which has had a “chilling effect” on journalists and whistleblowers around the world.

In the resolution, PACE notes that many of the leaked files WikiLeaks published “provide credible evidence of war crimes, human rights abuses, and government misconduct.” The revelations also “confirmed the existence of secret prisons, kidnappings and illegal transfers of prisoners by the United States on European soil.”

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September 25, 2024

Israel’s Tally of War Crimes in Lebanon Increases in Wake of Exploding Pagers

The Israeli bombing of a residential neighborhood in Beirut is also a war crime.

Israel escalated attacks against Lebanon on September 23, marking the deadliest day of Israeli bombings in that country since 2006. Israel’s strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as the capital city of Beirut, left a death toll of at least 274, including women, children and paramedics. The Israeli military targeted “medical centres, ambulances and cars of people trying to flee,” according to Al Jazeera, which cited Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad as the source for the information. Israel also targeted civilian homes, which it claimed were housing Hezbollah weapons.

This latest targeting of Lebanese civilians comes on the heels of Israel’s detonation of hand-held electronic devices in civilian areas of Lebanon on September 17 and 18, when Israeli forces remotely triggered multiple explosions of electronic pagers and walkie-talkies that killed at least 37 people, including a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, and maimed or injured 3,250 people, 200 critically. About 500 people suffered severe eye wounds and others received grave injuries to their hands, faces and bodies. The blasts occurred in residential buildings, barber shops, grocery stores, cars and at funerals. Many civilians, including government and hospital workers, were killed.

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September 12, 2024

US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe

US military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the climate.

This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.

After the U.S. invaded Iraq, an estimated half a million Iraqis were killed and at least 9.2 million were displaced. From 2003-2011, more than 4.7 million Iraqis suffered from moderate to severe food insecurity. Over 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone since 2001, more than 70,000 of them civilians. Between 4.5 and 4.6 million people have died in the post-9/11 wars.

The U.S.’s “war on terror” also escalated the climate catastrophe, resulting in local water shortages and extreme weather crises that are only getting worse. In 2022, Afghanistan had its worst drought in 30 years and it is facing a third consecutive year of drought. “The war has exacerbated climate change impacts,” Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah, a professor of hydrology at Kabul University, told the New York Times.

Meanwhile in the current moment, U.S. military assistance to Israel’s genocidal campaign is also intensifying the climate crisis.

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August 28, 2024

Refusing to Certify Elections Isn’t About Fairness. It’s Aimed at Sowing Doubt.

New rules in Georgia are worrisome but safeguards prevent rogue election officials from refusing to certify the results.

After the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his allies denied that Joe Biden had won. To this day, election deniers refuse to accept that Trump lost the election. Efforts to thwart Biden from becoming president, including the Trump-inspired insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were ubiquitous. Trump’s supporters filed dozens of lawsuits to stop the certification of Biden’s win, none of which was successful.

One of the tactics the election deniers used was the refusal of local officials to certify the results of the 2020 election, based on the false claim that there was widespread voter fraud. Fortunately, safeguards built into state laws held, and they prevented Trump from stealing the election from Biden.

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August 11, 2024

Trump 2024 Victory Would Lock in Far Right SCOTUS for Generations to Come

Biden and Harris favor term limits and an ethical code for the Supreme Court and elimination of presidential immunity.

The infamous 920-page Project 2025, which provides a blueprint for a radical right-wing agenda under a second Donald Trump presidency, doesn’t recommend any reforms to the Supreme Court — and for good reason. The conservative extremists who seek to install Trump have already taken over the high court. But the reforms President Joe Biden advocates — and Kamala Harris endorses — could go a long way toward diluting the court’s unrestrained power. This also highlights the Supreme Court as a critical voting issue in the presidential election.

Trump and his supporters know that to secure and maintain power, a strongman must control the courts. During his presidential tenure, Trump solidified the radical conservative majority on the Supreme Court by appointing three right-wingers to solidify a six-person supermajority. He also installed 231 federal district court and appeals court judges. They are all serving life terms.

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August 2, 2024

Harris Must Commit to Ending Biden’s Support for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

Nearly 1 million voters cast their primary ballots for “uncommitted” in protest of Biden’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, he repeatedly capitulated to Israel’s Zionist regime. He illegally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, illegally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, and declared Israeli settlements on Palestinian land lawful despite international law to the contrary.

As Israel continues its 10-month genocidal campaign in Gaza, there is no doubt that if he were president now, Trump would give Israel everything it wants to “finish what they started” and “get it over with fast,” that is, ethnically cleanse all of the Palestinians from Gaza.

But this genocide is happening on Joe Biden’s watch. His administration has aided and abetted Israeli genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, killing more than 40,000 Palestinians according to the official Gaza Health Ministry count, although the real death toll is likely much higher. Besides the $3.8 billion the U.S. sends annually to Israel, it has furnished an additional $15 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023. And the U.S. has provided political and diplomatic cover to Israel by vetoing three Security Council resolutions that would have required a ceasefire in Gaza.

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July 26, 2024

Netanyahu’s Visit to Congress Underscores US Contempt for International Law

Netanyahu is getting cozy with Congress, just days after the ICJ told UN members to stop aiding the Israeli occupation.

The U.S. has long ignored many commands of international law, but its casual disregard of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has come into sharp focus this week as the U.S. Congress extends a warm welcome to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just five days after the ICJ notified all UN member states that they have a legal “obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The World Court’s historic 83-page advisory opinion, which was issued on July 19 and held that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, was quickly hailed by Middle East political expert Nomi Bar-Yaacov as a “legal earthquake” and the strongest decision that the court had ever issued.

Unsurprisingly, however, both the Israeli and U.S. governments denounced the ICJ’s ruling and proceeded with their plans — including Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C. — as if it had never occurred.

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