{"id":11300,"date":"2026-03-06T05:31:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T05:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/natharatmouchrika.net\/home\/?p=11300"},"modified":"2026-03-06T05:31:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T05:31:48","slug":"roaming-charges-somethings-gone-wrong-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/natharatmouchrika.net\/home\/?p=11300","title":{"rendered":"Roaming Charges: Something\u2019s Gone Wrong Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in an oligarchy, but with the humidity, it feels like a dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 Judah Friedlander<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ This was the week the worms turned. Some of them, anyway: A\u00a0super majority<\/a>\u00a0of Americans now oppose Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza;\u00a0Bari Weiss<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0admitted Palestinians are starving (if not that they are being starved or pointing the finger at who is starving them);\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>France, the UK and Canada announced they are ready to endorse Palestinian statehood next month at the UN; a majority of Senate Democrats voted to halt (offensive) weapons shipments to Israel;\u00a0Israel\u2019s two leading human rights groups,\u00a0B\u2019Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights<\/a>, finally concluded that Israel is committing genocide (Bernie Sanders still hasn\u2019t); Zohran Mamdani is leading the polls among Jewish voters in the NYC mayoral race; Barack\u00a0<\/span>Obama finally said something, though exactly what isn\u2019t quite clear; Obama\u2019s former fixer and hatchet man\u00a0Rahm Emanuel<\/a>\u00a0put the blame \u201con Israel\u2019s doorstep\u2026where it belongs;\u201d and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0printed a column by acclaimed Holocaust scholar\u00a0Omar Bartov<\/a>\u00a0explaining why Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Impressive. Yet the killing and dying continues.<\/p>\n

+ Despite the impression given by the rush of politicians and pundits this week expressing shock about photos of emaciated kids in Gaza, people do not begin to starve to death in a matter of days. Death by starvation usually occurs over a period of months. So it is in Gaza, where only two days after the attacks of October 13, 2023, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced Israel\u2019s intention to impose a forced famine on Gaza. Gallant said what Israel was going to do, then Israel did it.<\/p>\n

Since then, Israel has tightly restricted the flow of food and water into the Strip, before imposing a total embargo in March of this year. The consequences on the health of Palestinians in Gaza were immediate. By January 2024, UN famine researchers began to detect loss of weight and muscle density in Palestinians across Gaza. In December 2024, desperate to keep its weapons sales to Israel rolling, the Biden administration suppressed a report from its own State Department determining that conditions in northern Gaza exceeded the threshold for famine. Unfortunately for Biden, the report leaked and some of its authors resigned in protest. So people have known the awful truth for more than eight months, even as many continued to publicly deny it.<\/p>\n

Then in March 2025, Israel imposed a total blockade on any food or water entering Gaza.\u00a0 Again, t<\/span>his savage act was no secret. It was publicly announced by Bibi himself, who claimed that forcing Palestinians to go without food would make them more likely to \u201cvoluntarily\u201d leave Gaza. In other words, ethnic cleansing, or genocide, if you will, either by migration or death.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>As a consequence, the warnings from the UN, the World Food Program, the International Red Cross, humanitarian aid groups and medical workers on the ground about the entire population of Gaza\u2013more than two million Palestinians\u2013being in the grip of famine became more and more dire.<\/p>\n

Yet only a couple of weeks ago, 14 US senators\u2013half of them Democrats (Schumer, Schiff, Coons, Cantwell, Rosen, Klobochar, and Booker) feted and proudly stood for a photo-op with Benjamin Netanyahu. (Well, Booker tried to hide his face behind another senator, but that only served to emphasize his consciousness of guilt.) For months, these politicians and policy makers have stayed muted as Israel cut off food, water, and formula to infants, toddlers, and nursing mothers. Now, as their weakened systems shut down and they\u2019ve started dying en masse, as predicted, no amount of performative ass-covering can exculpate them from their deep complicity in one of the most horrific crimes imaginable: children being forced to starve to death while huge stacks of aid pallets and trucks filled with food are only miles away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

+ How long did it take the press to go from helping manufacture a case to invade Iraq into suddenly realizing there was no case for going to war in Iraq and that they needed to start covering their asses for their complicity in the making of a catastrophe? Was Abu Ghraib the turning point (April 2004)? The leaking of the first Torture Memo (June 2004)? The Sunni Awakening (2005)? Now, here we are again.<\/p>\n

+ Maryam Alwan: \u201cAs a student protester who went viral for getting arrested at the Columbia encampment, I am seeing posts saying that we were right\u2014and I don\u2019t want to hear it. The only thing I want to see is everyone mobilizing in the streets right now. We do not have the privilege of despair.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Adam Tooze on Israel\u2019s manufactured famine in Gaza:<\/p>\n

Q. Across the hot spots of the world in 2025, what is the percentage of the population that is at risk?<\/em><\/p>\n

Adam Tooze: In Nigeria, mainly in the north, it is one-sixth of the population. In Myanmar and the DRC, it is roughly a quarter of the population. In Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, and Haiti\u2013the places most commonly cited in arguments about the application of \u201cspecial standards\u201d to Israel\u2013the share of the population at risk is between 49 and 57 percent. In Gaza, the share is 100 percent. The risk of famine is total.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Of the Palestinians who have starved to death in Gaza since the beginning of the war, 80 percent are children.<\/p>\n

+ There\u2019s nothing left to say\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+\u00a0Mark Brauner<\/a>, an emergency room physician from Eugene, Oregon, who just returned from volunteering in Gaza: \u201cA lot of children have passed the point of no return\u2026The gut lining has started to auto-digest and will no longer [absorb] water or nutrition. Death is imminent for 1000s.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Trump is mad because starving families in Gaza haven\u2019t said thank-you for the pittance of food he\u2019s sent to Gaza\u2026<\/p>\n

REPORTER: Should Israel be doing more to allow food into Gaza?<\/p>\n

TRUMP: Say it, again?<\/p>\n

REPORTER: Should Israel be doing more to allow food into Gaza?<\/p>\n

TRUMP: What is she saying?<\/p>\n

SOMEONE ELSE: Should Israel be doing more to allow food in Gaza?<\/p>\n

TRUMP: We gave $60 million two weeks ago and no one even acknowledged it for food. And it\u2019s terrible, you really at least want to have somebody say thank you. We gave $60 million two weeks ago for food for Gaza. And nobody acknowledged it. Nobody talks about it. It makes you feel bad when you do that and you have other countries not giving anything. None of the European countries, by the way, gave\u2026nobody gave but us. And nobody said, Gee, thank you very much. It would be nice to have at least a thank you. And I took a lot of heat. You know, when I do that, a lot of people aren\u2019t happy about that because they say, Well, why are we doing it and nobody else. But I think we had a, uh, humanitarian reason for doing it. What\u2019s going to happen, I don\u2019t know. I can tell you that Hamas, as I said, would happen at the end. You know we\u2019ve gotten back a lot of hostages, a tremendous number of hostages. Most of them. Now we have dead hostages and the mothers want them back.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Nick Maynard, a surgeon who volunteered at a hospital in southern Gaza, wrote in The Guardian:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just finished operating on another severely malnourished young teenager. A seven-month-old baby lies in our paediatric intensive care unit, so tiny and malnourished that I initially mistook her for a newborn. The phrase \u2018skin and bones\u2019 doesn\u2019t do justice to the way her body has been ravaged. She is literally wasting away before our eyes and, despite our best efforts, we are powerless to save her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Pope Leo from the Southside: \u201cStarving people to death is a diabolical way of waging war. It must end.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ From the findings of a new study on the life expectancy of Palestinians in Gaza reported in\u00a0The Lancet<\/a>\u00a0this week:<\/p>\n

Life expectancy at birth reportedly declined by approximately 35 years in 2024. This represents a greater collapse in longevity than that recorded during the genocide in Rwanda, where life expectancy at birth declined from age 42\u00b79 years in 1993 to age 12\u00b72 years in 1994.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Now that it\u2019s impossible to deny that Palestinians in Gaza are being starved to death, the genocide-deniers have blamed this atrocity not on Israel\u2019s embargo but on Hamas (naturally) stealing the dribble of food that Israel allows into Gaza. Yet, even\u00a0US AID\u00a0<\/a>could find no evidence this is the case, and they had a lot of incentive to find or even manufacture a case against Hamas. Even the Israeli military admitted\u00a0the same<\/a>\u00a0this week.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

+ As a former contributor to the late, lamented Lies of Our Times (LOOT), not much shocks me about the New York Times anymore. But describing the daily massacres of starving Palestinians at food stations as a \u201ccrude form of crowd control\u201d made me gasp in astonishment\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ International Crisis Group: \u201cGaza is tipping from mass starvation toward mass death.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ The NYT has apparently recruited new editors from the ranks of the health insurance industry, who have used their vast experience deny claims to now minimize the import of Palestinian kids who\u2019ve died of starvation by claiming they have \u201cpre-existing conditions\u201d\u2013the same vile assertion made by Holocaust deniers about Anne Frank, that typhus, not the Nazis, killed her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ The NYT\u2019s clarification is a more delicate way of saying what the German journalist Tobias Huch, in a full-frontal embrace of his nation\u2019s Nazi \u201cpast,\u201d said explicitly\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ The\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0published the names and ages of more than 18,500 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Palestinian kids have been killed at the rate of one-an-hour since October 13, 2023. At least 900 Palestinian\u00a0infants were killed before reaching their first birthday.<\/p>\n

+ The BBC\u2019s Jeremy Bowen reporting on an Israeli aid drop flight over Gaza: \u201cIsraelis don\u2019t want us to film outside the window at the devastation in Gaza\u2026communities in the north of Gaza are flat, there\u2019s nothing left\u2026Israel will not allow reporters, like myself, to enter Gaza to report the story and they don\u2019t want us to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ More than two-thirds of\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Democratic primary voters in NYC\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>agree with Zohran Mamdani\u2019s\u00a0positions on Israel<\/a>, including arresting Netanyahu. 57% say they might oppose Dems who don\u2019t endorse Mamdani for mayor, including the party\u2019s two Brooklyn-based leaders in Congress.<\/p>\n

+ Trump on the Israeli (no one ever mentions the 3350 Palestinian hostages held by Israel) hostages: \u201cNot one person said there was any love from anybody. In other words, you have hundreds of people, and you see it in the movies where somebody is a prisoner and somebody is helping. You even see it with Germany, where people would be led into a house and live in an attic in secret. I said Did you see anything like did they wink at you, say Don\u2019t worry, you\u2019ll be okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Jonathon Sumpton, a historian and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2018, has written an important legal essay on whether Israel\u2019s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza constitutes the ultimate\u00a0war crimes<\/a>, concluding:<\/p>\n

I sometimes wonder what Israel\u2019s defenders would regard as unacceptable, if the current level of Israeli violence in Gaza is not enough. It is impossible for any decent person to be unmoved by the scale of arbitrarily imposed human suffering, or the spectacle of a powerful army brutally assaulting a population already on its knees. This is not self-defence. It is not even the kind of collateral damage which can be unavoidable in war. It is collective punishment, in other words, revenge, visited not just on Hamas but on an entire population. It is, in short, a war crime.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Note the date on this article in JEWISH CURRENTS by the JEWISH-ISRAELI genocide scholar and historian Raz Segal\u2026The intent (mens rea) to commit genocide was clear a week into the war and no one\u2013not the UN, the US, the UK, France, Russia, or China\u2013has stopped them in the 665 days since.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ An Israeli soldier told the leading Israeli newspaper,\u00a0YNet,<\/a>\u00a0about forces shooting civilians near a hospital and abducting children:<\/p>\n

I was stationed in front of a hospital in Gaza and it took a few days until the company commander ordered not to shoot the elderly and children. For a few days, that\u2019s what happened. It was clear that it was bad. But you are under the influence\u2013some acted out of a sense of revenge, some were very afraid and some were simply tired and when you are tired you don\u2019t think. There was an incident that stuck with me. We took teenagers and used them as human shields. They walked in front of the force, opened doors in case there was an explosive device or terrorists. We just took people from the humanitarian axis. The whole time they were with us, they were blindfolded and handcuffed. You have to take them to the bathroom and open their underwear and you see them shaking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Emnan Abdelhadi: \u201cEvery editor who canceled a story about Palestine brought us here. Every boss who censored an employee. Everyone who said \u201cnot this way\u201d to protesters. Every university admin calling the cops. Bloody. All your hands are bloody, and we will never forget.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ After two years of silence in the face of a genocide, Obama finally offers his version of \u201cthoughts and prayers\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ Mouin Rabbani: \u201cSamantha Power, who has built her career and reputation as a fearless and determined opponent of genocide, has, after almost two years, put out a statement about the Gaza Genocide:<\/p>\n

End of statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Maine Senator Angus King: \u201cI cannot defend the indefensible\u2026I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate\u2014and vote\u2014for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Support for Israel\u2019s genocidal military actions in Gaza has collapsed among U.S. adults, with only about one-third approving, according to Gallup.\u2014 a drop of 20% from the beginning of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, when about half of Americans approved of Israel\u2019s operation.<\/p>\n

+ High school grads: 63%-28% disapprove<\/p>\n

+ <$50k income: 65%-26% disapprove<\/p>\n

+ Non-white: 71%-18% disapprove<\/p>\n

+ Under 35: *82%-9%* disapprove<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ He just can\u2019t say the word\u2026Sen. Bernie Sanders on Gaza: \u201cGenocide is a legal term. What is going on now clearly is absolutely horrific\u2026But the important point is not what you call it \u2014 it is horror \u2014 the answer is what the hell do we do about it? Should the United States taxpayer should your taxpayer dollars go to support a government that is doing it? That is the most important issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Sanders was able to force the Senate to vote on a new bill that would halt US \u201coffensive\u201d weapons sales to Israel. The bill failed, with all Republicans voting against it, but for the first time, garnered a majority of Democrats, including three top recipients of AIPAC largesse: Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Tammy Baldwin, all of whom received over $265,000 in 2024. So, there\u2019s a sliver of hope.<\/p>\n

+ Here are the 14 Democratic senators who voted to continue sending weapons to Israel for use in a genocide:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ My late pal the environmental activist Larry Tuttle grew so disgusted with Ron Wyden\u2019s habitual sell-outs that he started holding weekly \u201cWeenie Roasts\u201d on Friday afternoons outside Wyden\u2019s Portland office.<\/p>\n

+ In Gaza, no one can hear the shots now, just the screams\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ Bob Vylan: \u201cWatching politicians and mainstream media suddenly change their rhetoric on the genocide makes me feel like I\u2019ve truly gone crazy. Can someone please confirm that a few weeks ago they villainized us on the front pages for being against this while they were very much pro-genocide?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On Monday, Yuval Abraham, co-director of No Other Land: \u201cAn Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy.\u201d A few hours later, Yuval posted that \u201cOdeh died. Murdered.\u201d On Tuesday, Yuval said, \u201cAfter killing Odeh [Hadalin], Yinon [Levi] pointed at his family and instructed soldiers to arrest 4 of them. They are still jailed while he was just released on house arrest. A system which punishes the victims (who are under military law) and rewards the shooter (who is under civilian law).\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Two months ago, Odeh Hadalin was invited to the US at the\u00a0invitation of Jewish groups<\/a>\u2014he was detained at San Francisco International Airport and deported without explanation.<\/p>\n

Odeh\u2019s killer, Yimon Levy, had been removed from the sanctions list by Trump.<\/p>\n

+ US labor leader Christian Smalls, co-founder of the Amazon Labor Union, was seized by the IDF while trying to bring food into Gaza on the latest Freedom Flotilla. After he was taken into Israeli custody, Smalls was beaten by seven uniformed Israelis, who also choked him and kicked him in the legs.<\/p>\n

+ Rep. Summer Lee: \u201cChris Smalls\u2014a Black American labor leader\u2014was trying to feed Palestinians being starved in Gaza. The IDF detained and beat him for it. This assault must not go unnoticed and he must be freed immediately. Israel must be held to account. Let aid through. End the genocide.\u201d (Smalls was finally released by the Israelis on Thursday and is now in Jordan.)<\/p>\n

+ \u201cWow!\u201d 147 out of 193 nations have (or soon plan to) recognized Palestinian statehood, including \u00a0India, Vietnam, the UK, and half the EU nations you just boasted about cutting a trade deal with\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ The countries that haven\u2019t endorsed Palestinian statehood or cut off arms supplies and trade with Israel by this point are the countries most likely to put their own and neighboring populations under military occupation.<\/p>\n

+ Jeff Shuhrke: \u201cFor the crime of being right *all along*, countless young people in the US have been physically attacked, doxxed, smeared, detained, suspended, expelled & denied their diplomas. They\u2019ve more than earned the right to decide who is & isn\u2019t welcome in the anti-genocide \u2018coalition.’\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Everyone opposed the death camps\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0the Soviets liberated them\u2026<\/p>\n

+ In the latest Gallup poll, only 8% of Democratic Party voters support Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza. Meanwhile, 88% of Democratic Party elected officials support Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ The ICE agents who abducted her husband, Darwin Contreras, in a courthouse in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, wore \u201csomething you can get from Walmart,\u201d said Elizabeth DeJesus. They didn\u2019t say who they were or where they were taking him.<\/p>\n

Darwin came to the US from El Salvador 20 years ago in search of his mother when he was seven years old. He was detained at the border instead and spent several years in foster care. Eventually, he was reunited with his mother and they moved to Bethlehem. He was a track star in high school and won a presidential fitness award from Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Since graduating, he has kept steady work and married an American citizen. He was nabbed by ICE after a routine court appearance. DeJesus says that Darwin is suffering mentally and physically while in ICE custody, awaiting a hearing: \u201cWhen he got there, he was not adjusting well. He was not ok. His mental health was not good.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Miguel Angel Ponce, a 33-year-old U.S. citizen born in College Station, Texas, was grabbed by ICE, handcuffed and detained for more than 2 hours. \u201cI felt kidnapped,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just put me in handcuffs and took me to another location.\u201d The ICE agents said he \u201clooked like\u201d someone they were looking for\u2014told him to \u201cshave your beard\u201d to avoid future arrest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Will Kim on the right and his family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

+ Will Kim came to the US from South Korea when he was five years old. He\u2019s had a Green Card as a lawful permanent resident of the US for many years. Currently, Kim is a PhD student at Texas A&M, where he\u2019s researching a vaccine for Lyme disease. Last week, he was detained at San Francisco International Airport. The feds have offered no reason for his arrest and have denied Kim access to his attorney, Eric Lee. Kim was allowed only a single brief call to his mother. The only blemish on his record is a minor marijuana possession charge, which was settled in a diversion program and should have been expunged. \u201cMy client Will Kim has a green card, grew up in the US, became a scientist & is researching Lyme disease vaccines,\u201d Eric Lee wrote on Twitter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u201cHe has spent more than 7 days in a CBP airport detention ctr w\/ no daylight, sleeping in a chair, no access to a lawyer. Another brutal attack on immigrants & science. Free Will!\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Jon Luke Evans, the only black police officer in the town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was detained by ICE after he attempted to purchase a gun for his job. After Evans\u2019s arrest, Patricia Hyde, a spokesperson for ICE\u2019s Boston office, smugly quipped: \u201cThe fact that a police department would hire an illegal alien and unlawfully issue him a firearm while on duty would be comical if it weren\u2019t so tragic.\u201d But Evans isn\u2019t an illegal alien. He has a valid work permit that doesn\u2019t expire until March 2030 and Maine is one of the states that allows immigrants to work as police officers. \u201cWe rely on the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s E-Verify program to ensure we are meeting our obligations,\u201d said the town\u2019s Police Chief Elise Chard. \u201cWe are distressed and deeply concerned about this apparent error on the part of the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ Kenny Laynez is an 18-year-old American citizen living in Palm Beach, Florida. On his way to work on a landscaping crew, Kenny\u2019s van was pulled over ICE, because he \u201clooked like an illegal.[sic]\u201d His mother, who is not a US citizen, was driving. Kenny was yanked from the van and held for more than 6 hours by ICE, after providing proof of his citizenship. During the arrest, Kenny\u2019s cellphone recorded the giddy, juvenile banter of the ICE agents:<\/p>\n

Agent 1: You got hit?<\/p>\n

Agent 2: Nah, didn\u2019t get hit, bro.<\/p>\n

Agent 1: Oh, okay.<\/p>\n

Agent 2: No, once she got the proper spread on, she was gone.<\/p>\n

Agent: 1: You are funny, bro.<\/p>\n

Agent 2: It was funny.<\/p>\n

(Agents laughing.)<\/p>\n

Agent 1: They\u2019re starting to resist more now.<\/p>\n

Agent 2: We\u2019re going to end up shooting someone. If it keeps going like this because they\u2019re going to end up fighting.<\/p>\n

Agent 1: This kid goes like, this guy here: \u201cYou can\u2019t do this. I\u2019m not doing shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agent 2: We told you already to get out. You either get out or I am going to pull you out.<\/p>\n

Agent 1: Right. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Agent 2: God damn! Wow!<\/p>\n

Agent 1: Nice!<\/p>\n

Agent 2: Just remember, you can smell that with a $30,000 bonus.<\/p>\n

Agent 1: Yeah! (agents laugh)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Jose Osman Gutierrez has been working for more than 7 years to support his family in Houston, Texas. He had no criminal criminal record when ICE raided his home at 7:13 in morning, with four young children inside. He was grabbed, roughed up and hauled off by the neck, eventually losing consciousness. All of this happening in front of his wife, Jennifer Garcia, who is 9 months pregnant. Jennifer, distraught at the prospect of giving birth alone to her fifth child, was pushed and shoved by ICE officers as she pleaded for her husband. As Jennifer crumpled to the street, her children and neighbors screamed: \u201cShe\u2019s nine months pregnant! Call a doctor!!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ According to the Migration Policy Institute, around 41% of the US population now lives in a jurisdiction where local officers have been deputized by ICE to carry out immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

+ After Trump and Kristi Noem made a huge deal about Alligator Auschwitz, both ICE and the federal immigration courts are distancing themselves from the unfortunate people being held in these brutal, inhumane conditions, saying their detention is purely up to Florida and the feds don\u2019t have jurisdiction, so no one being held there can seek bond. \u201c\u2018This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,\u2019 argued attorneys for the American Civil Rights Union Foundation and Americans for Immigrant Justice in federal court.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ Rep. Nancy Mace: \u201cOne of my favorite things to watch on YouTube these days are the court hearings where illegals are in court and ICE shows up to drag them out of court and deport them. I can think of nothing more American\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

+ A GAO study found that ICE deported at least 70 American citizens from 2016 to 2021.<\/p>\n

+ ICE\u2019s targeting of foreign students is having its predictable effect: talented foreign students are avoiding the US. A report by the National Association of International Educators estimates that the US will see a 30-40% decline in new enrollment, at a cost of a loss of $7 billion in revenue and 60,000 lost jobs in higher education.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

+ ICE has exploited a legal loophole in HIPAA to spy on your medical records\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ Andry Hern\u00e1ndez entered the US legally. He waited in Mexico, then went to a port of entry. While there, a cretinous CBP officer thought his \u201cmom\u201d and \u201cdad\u201d tattoos were gang signs and sent him to ICE detention. Then Trump had him deported to El Salvador\u2019s torture camp prison, where he was regularly beaten and forced to perform oral sex on a guard. Hern\u00e1ndez, who is finally out to tell his horrifying story, says prisoners at CECOT were routinely dragged to a small windowless cell called the Island for complaining about conditions at the prison, where they were beaten with police batons. He called CECOT \u201chell on Earth.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

+ According to interviews by\u00a0Pro Publica<\/a>, Venezuelans deported by Trump to El Salvador\u2019s notorious torture-prison were subjected to months of physical and psychological abuse and torture that began the day they arrived and continued until the day they were sent to Venezuela in a prisoner swap. They said that the Salvador guards beat them with their fists, boots and batons, shot them with rubber pellets, and forced them to lick other men\u2019s backs.<\/p>\n

+\u00a0Spencer Chretien<\/a>, the highest-ranking official in the State Department\u2019s refugee and migration bureau, admitted last week that the Trump administration\u2019s refugee program for South Africa is intended exclusively for white people. Will they all be relocated to the two \u201call white communities<\/a>\u201d in the Ozarks (one in Arkansas and one in Missouri) established by the ethno-nationalist group, Return to the Land.<\/p>\n

+ Speaking of South Africa, the world\u2019s richest person, who was allowed to ransack the US government from the inside-out for five months, retweeted and endorsed this racist bilge\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ On Thursday, Federal Judge Trina Thompson of the Northern District of California blocked DHS Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s attempt to terminate temporary protected status for Nicaraguan, Honduran and Nepali immigrants. Judge Thompson found that the cancellation was likely rooted in\u00a0\u201cracial animus<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n
+++<\/div>\n
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\n

+ Jeff Bearadelli:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think you can understate just how impressive this heat dome is. It covers 2\/3 of the nation, in which 80% of the country\u2019s population over the 7-day heatwave period will hit 90+ for a high temperature (~260 million people). The peak intensity of the heat dome was record-breaking for the SE US in late July. It peaked at 3.7 standard deviations, based on statistics from the past climate records we have, which means this heat dome is rare, if not virtually impossible, in our former climate of the 1900s. But human-caused climate change now makes these extreme heat domes much more likely.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>From the climate scientists at World Weather Attribution:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u2018Every heatwave in the world is now made stronger and more likely to happen because of human-caused climate change.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

+ According to the energy statistics group Ageb, German hard coal-fired power generation increased by 23.3% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n

+ A new study from the UK finds that being hit by an SUV (as compared to a regular car) \u201cconsiderably\u201d increases the risk of death for children, and even more so for young children.<\/p>\n

+ Marine heat waves in 2023 covered at least 96% of the Earth\u2019s oceans and lasted\u00a0four times longer<\/a>\u00a0than normal. The heat waves of 2024 were just as bad.<\/p>\n

+ The 2025 fire season in Canada is already the third worst in history and will almost certainly become the second worst. A study from 2018 found that over the last six decades, the fire season in Canada is starting one week earlier and ending one week later. The fire season is likely even longer now.<\/p>\n

+ India is on track to meet its\u00a02030 renewable targets<\/a>\u00a0and will exceed the US in the deployment of new wind and solar generators this year.<\/p>\n

+ Trump in Scotland this week: \u201cAnd the other thing I say to Europe: we will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. They\u2019re killing us. They\u2019re killing the beauty of our scenery. Our beautiful plains. I\u2019m not talking about airplanes\u2026 they won\u2019t let you bury the propellers.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Under its most conservative estimates, the Department of Energy says the US needs to build 5,000 miles of new transmission lines a year to transport renewable power across state lines.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>In 2024, the entire US built 322 miles of them.<\/p>\n

+ Only 474 out of more than 90,000 oil slicks from ships around the world were reported to authorities over a five-year period\u2013that\u2019s less than 0.5 percent. Carrie O\u2019Reilly, marine ecologist at Florida State: \u201cEven trace quantities of oil are damaging to planktonic organisms, which form the base of the marine food web\u201d.<\/p>\n

+ Bruno Ma\u00e7\u00e3es: \u201cStunning to look at Europe today: if China sells us ultra cheap solar panels, effectively subsiding our energy transition, that\u2019s the threat of autocracy. If the US uses coercion and blackmail to sink our economies, that\u2019s working together.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ In terminal decline since 1969, when it fired my mentor David Brower over his opposition to nuclear power, the Sierra Club is now on life support. Earlier this month, it placed its executive director, Ben Jealous, on leave after a vote of no confidence by the staff. This came on the heels of the Club\u2019s chief political strategist being chased out of the organization after staffers learned he\u2019d been moonlighting as a lobbyist for the energy-devouring crypto industry.<\/p>\n

+ A new study in the journal Science Advances finds that the unregulated pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live.<\/p>\n

+ Air pollution is a major risk factor for dementia. For every 10 micrograms per cubic meter (\u03bcg\/m\u00b3) increase in PM2.5, the relative risk of developing dementia rose by 17 percent.<\/p>\n

+\u00a0Dr. Solomon Hsiang and Dr. Marshall Burke<\/a>: \u201cHumans are highly adaptable and Americans are particularly so, but the data and evidence indicate that climate change will cause many Americans to die earlier than they otherwise would.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ This month Trump\u2019s EPA\u00a0proposed gutting<\/a>\u00a0two major clean air rules that will cost thousands of lives, emission limits on hazardous air pollutants like mercury and other toxic metals from coal- and oil-fired power plants and limits greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new and existing fossil fuel-fired power plants, arguing against all\u00a0evidence to the contrary<\/a>\u00a0that that power plants do not \u201ccontribute significantly\u201d to dangerous pollution under the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n

+ MAHA-Ha-ha-ha!<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

+ Sen. Mike Lee (2018): \u201cUltimately, this will come down to a binary choice: Federalism, or violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Charles Gasparino, Fox Business on Trump\u2019s EU trade deal: \u201cThe stuff they are buying from us, they probably would have bought anyway. And when you say we get 15%. True. But that means U.S. Consumers are paying 15% more too. It\u2019s kind of like a tax increase on U.S. Consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Cameron Johnson: \u201cIt depends on who you talk to, but my personal belief is that China is ahead on AI and it\u2019s not even close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

GOP: You must work for your Medicaid and SNAP benefits.<\/p>\n

CEOs: Don\u2019t knock on our door, we\u2019ve got a software program that does that job.<\/p>\n

+\u00a0Elijah Clark<\/a>: \u201cCEOs are extremely excited about the opportunities that AI brings. As a CEO myself, I can tell you I\u2019m extremely excited about it. I\u2019ve laid off employees because of AI\u2026AI doesn\u2019t go on strike. It doesn\u2019t demand a pay raise. These things that you don\u2019t have to deal with as a CEO.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ San Jose State University study: 9 households control 15% of all wealth in Silicon Valley, with just 0.1% of residents owning 71% percent of all Silicon Valley wealth.<\/p>\n

+ Peter Ryan, writing in\u00a0Compact<\/a>: \u201cThe top 1.86 percent of Bitcoin addresses controlled more than 90 percent of Bitcoin\u2019s supply. By comparison, the top 1 percent of America controls just 31 percent of wealth. How is Bitcoin decentralized, again?\u201d<\/p>\n

+ According to Fortune, bots now account for more than half of all internet traffic.<\/p>\n

+ In his meeting with Keir Starmer and other leaders of the Labour government today, Trump, the guy who redecorated the Oval Office furniture in gold lam\u00e9, went off on the Fed: \u201cThe new ceiling had no opulence to it, or they fixed the ceiling. But I would say that all I need is a good plaster and a can of paint, and they spent 3.9 billion, and I spent a lot of money, too. I would say 3.8 billion less, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

+ In Trump\u2019s great trade deal with the EU, consumers in the EU will pay a 1 percent tax on most US goods, while consumers in the US will pay a 15% tax on goods made in the EU. Strange victory\u2026<\/p>\n

+ Under Jair Bolsonaro, the proportion of Brazil\u2019s population suffering from food insecurity reached 23%. Today, 19 months into the 3rd Lula administration, the UN has announced this proportion has dropped\u00a0below 2.5%<\/a>. Brazil has been removed from the FAO UN World Hunger Map.<\/p>\n

+ In his meeting with Keir Starmer and other leaders of the Labour government today, Trump, the guy who redecorated the Oval Office furniture in gold lam\u00e9, went off on the Fed: \u201cThe new ceiling had no opulence to it, or they fixed the ceiling. But I would say that all I need is a good plaster and a can of paint, and they spent 3.9 billion, and I spent a lot of money, too. I would say 3.8 billion less, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Hencefoth, the numbers shall be what I say they are\u2026or better!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+\u00a0Dr. Danielle Ofri,<\/a>\u00a0author \u201cWhen We Do Harm\u201d: \u201cMedical professionals can no longer fully trust federal health guidance, and our patients are the ones who will suffer the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ In a huge gift to the insurance cartels, RFK Jr plans to remove all members of an expert task force that decides which preventive health measures insurance must cover for cancer screenings and HIV medication because he believes they\u2019re too \u201cwoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

+ We have entered the age of the Health Care shooters. First Luigi Mangione, now Shane Tamura, a former football player and \u201csurveillance professional\u201d in Las Vegas with probable brain damage who walked into a Park Avenue skyscraper in NYC intent on shooting up NFL HQ but instead, perhaps because of his mental deterioration, got on the wrong elevator and opened fire with an AR-15 on a real estate management company, gunning down four people. Before killing himself, Tamura left a note explaining his actions:<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease study the brain for CTE. I\u2019m sorry. The league knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximize profits. They failed us.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ A rational society would respond to the\u00a0falling fertility<\/a>\u00a0rate in the US (1.6 kids per woman) by encouraging immigration instead of orchestrating a pogrom against it\u2026<\/p>\n

+ From the Minnesota Tribune\u2019s investigation into the shootings of the Minnesota legislators and their spouses, it appears as if cops did a Uvalde by waiting outside the Hortmans\u2019 door for more than an hour after Mark Hortman had been shot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

+ A Wall Street Journal poll finds the Democratic Party\u2019s approval rating has cratered to merely 33%, the lowest in decades and below the Republicans.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll blame it on, Mamdani, Sanders and Sarandon, of course, then tell the troops (ie., anxious funders) not to worry: Help is on the way. Trickle-down for Hipsters (Abundance theory) will save them!<\/p>\n

+ Uh, well, perhaps not\u2026<\/p>\n

+ Reporter: \u201cIs every member of the Democratic caucus fit mentally and physically to serve another term in Congress?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hakeem Jeffries: \u201cThat\u2019s not a discussion that we have had at the moment\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Chuck Schumer\u2019s pick to run against Susan Collins next year is the current governor of Maine, Janet Mills. Mills will soon turn 78.<\/p>\n

+ Ravi Mangla: \u201cDemocratic Party leaders who are polling lower than the Antichrist telling Zohran how he should govern.\u201d<\/p>\n

+\u00a0CNN<\/a>\u00a0reporting on Andrew Cuomo\u2019s man of the streets campaign strategy:<\/p>\n

A man who pulled Cuomo in for a handshake, took out his phone for a selfie, and as the former three-term governor of New York smiled for the camera, he told him, \u201cI can\u2019t wait to watch you lose again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ An analysis of election data found that\u00a070 percent<\/a>\u00a0of voters who filled out their ballots in full left Andrew Cuomo off entirely.<\/p>\n

+ Meanwhile, Mamdani is stretching his lead with Jewish voters in NYC, despite weeks of sliming from the press and the Democratic Party elites, another demonstration of their political impotence<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

+ The Trump White House has been saying for two weeks that Trump cut off relations with the pedophile and sex-ring trafficker Epstein because he was a \u201ccreep.\u201d But for two days in a row now, Trump has said that he sent Epstein into exile because he poached young women workers from Mar-a-Lago by offering them more money. I guess that\u2019s what he means by \u201ccreep,\u201d not the rape stuff. That\u2019s some sick shit, all around\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

+ Here\u2019s Trump in Scotland on Monday:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, I wouldn\u2019t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. Because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, Don\u2019t ever do that again. He stole people that worked for me. I said, Don\u2019t ever do that again. He did it again and I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it. I\u2019m glad I did, if you want to know the truth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald investigative reporter whose dispatches did the most to expose Epstein\u2019s crimes: \u201cFirst time I ever heard that their falling out was over Epstein hiring Trump\u2019s employees. One learns something new every day!\u201d<\/p>\n

+ Then, not knowing when to stop digging, Trump was back at it on Air Force One on Tuesday, babbling to reporters:<\/p>\n

Reporter: I was just curious. Were some of the workers taken from you? Were some of them young women?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump: Were some of them?<\/p>\n

Reporter: Were some of them young women?<\/p>\n

Trump: Uh, well, I don\u2019t want to say, but, uh, everyone knows the people that were taken and, uh, it was the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story\u2019s been pretty well out there, and the answer is yes. Yes, they were young women.<\/p>\n

Reporter: What did they do in the spa?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Jobs?<\/p>\n

Trump: Yeah. And, uh, other people would come and complain, \u201cThis guy is taking people from the spa.\u201d I didn\u2019t know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, \u201cListen, we don\u2019t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa\u2026.And he was fine. And not too long after, he did it again. And I said outta here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporter: \u201cWas one of the stolen people Virginia Giuffre?\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump: \u201cI don\u2019t know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. Yeah, he stole her.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

+ Giuffre died by suicide in April. She was 16 when Epstein \u201cstole\u201d her from Trump.<\/p>\n

+ Trump on a potential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: \u201cI\u2019m allowed to do it.\u201d (The right is calling her a \u201cvictim\u201d now, a scapegoat, someone whose virulent reputation can be redeemed solely for the service of clearing Trump. She was convicted of sex trafficking and there was testimony that she\u2019d participated in the sexual abuse.)<\/p>\n

+ Trump on Epstein Island: \u201cI never had the privilege of going to his island.\u201d Over to you, Dr. Freud\u2026<\/p>\n

+ Statement from the family of Virginia Giuffre on Trump saying he knew Epstein \u201cstole\u201d Virginia from Mar-a-Lago and that he might consider pardoning Maxwell:<\/p>\n

.. It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been \u2018stolen\u2019 from Mar-a-Lago. It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey \u2018likes women on the younger side\u2026 no doubt about it.\u2019 We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this..If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer. A woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position. Ghislaine Maxwell is a monster who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life for the extraordinary violence and abuse she put not just our sister Virginia through, but many other survivors, who may number in the thousands. A predator who thought only of herself, she destroyed the lives of girls and young women without conscience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n