United States | News & Politics
www.aljazeera.com
The university’s hypocrisy became apparent to me and other Palestinian students almost immediately after October 7, 2023. On October 9, students at the Michigan Law School used the public law-open server, an email chain that connects everyone at the law school, to describe Palestinians as “animals” and their Muslim and Arab classmates as “rejoic[ing] in mass murder” and supporting rape. This language was reported to the administration, who took no action. As the greater Michigan student body started organising and protesting on campus, the university’s discrimination against marginalised students became even more apparent. It repeatedly sent campus police to disperse our protests and sit-ins, with students being physically assaulted, pepper-sprayed and arrested, while hijabs of female students were ripped off. It also ramped up surveillance. Police presence and the number of surveillance cameras around the Arab lounge on campus noticeably increased. The administration never issued any apology for nor condemnation of the extreme acts of police violence against students who were protesting a genocide that the university funds.
www.dropsitenews.com
On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York will sentence Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former drug czar, following his conviction for drug trafficking and continuing a criminal enterprise—and an architect of the Bush-era torture program is coming to his defense. As a former cabinet level official and Mexico’s former “top cop,” García Luna collaborated closely with U.S. law enforcement agencies, all while receiving at least $274 million in bribes to help facilitate the Sinaloa Cartel’s cocaine trafficking operations. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a life sentence for García Luna; his attorney is asking for a sentence of 20 years. Late on Tuesday, he submitted a letter to the judge asking for a lenient sentence, and to be allowed to return "as soon as possible" to his family and to society. Yet García Luna still has friends in high places. In mid-September Jose Rodriguez, the 31-year CIA veteran who helped develop and cover up the agency’s torture program during the War on Terror, submitted a letter on his behalf. Typically, defense attorneys submit such letters from those who know the convicted individual and seek to argue for a lighter sentence. In his letter, Rodriguez describes García Luna as a “visionary” who wants only to help Mexico, and suggests that Mexico’s left-wing government may have “framed” him.
theintercept.com
On a chilly, early morning in January 2019, a group of animal rights activists descended upon a poultry farm in central Texas. Donning plastic gloves, medical masks, hazmat suits, and T-shirts emblazoned with “Meat the Victims,” they slipped through the unlocked door of a massive, windowless barn. Inside, they found 27,000 chicks densely packed across the floor, like “just a sea of yellow,” recalled Sarah Weldon, one of the activists. “There were a lot of chicks that were already deceased, in various stages of decomposition,” she said. “Some were so deformed you couldn’t even tell they used to be baby chicks, just fluffs of feathers.” Activists with Meat the Victims, a decentralized, global movement to abolish animal exploitation, later uploaded gruesome photos of injured and dead chicks to social media platforms. This is how, Weldon suspects, the police identified her and issued a warrant for her arrest, along with 14 other activists. She was charged with criminal trespassing, a Class B misdemeanor, and quickly turned herself into jail. The FBI has been collaborating with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, according to agency records recently obtained by the nonprofit Animal Partisan through Freedom of Information Act litigation. The records also show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under federal criminal statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison — including for the “attempted use” of WMD — while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists to its WMD program.
We are constantly told that solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing poor and working class people in the U.S. do not exist. Meanwhile, billions taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the genocide of Palestinians.\ \ That very money could have ended homelessness in the United States.\ \ Money for our needs, not the U.S.-Israeli war machine! ======================================================
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has urged US President Joe Biden to release jailed Pakistani national, Aafia Siddiqui, Anadolu Agency reports. Sharif expressed concern in a letter sent to Biden on 13 October regarding Siddiqui’s fragile mental and physical health in prison, the local daily, Dawn, reported on Friday. Siddiqui is serving an 86-year prison sentence in Texas for attempting to murder an American soldier in Afghanistan. “Numerous Pakistani officials have paid consular visits to Dr Siddiqui […] all of them have raised their serious concerns about the treatment she has received,” Sharif stated, adding that they have expressed serious concerns about her treatment and fear she may commit suicide. Siddiqui, who earned her PhD from Brandeis University, went missing in Pakistan in 2004 with her three minor children before being found in a US military base in Bagram, Afghanistan in 2008. She was accused of attacking a US soldier during interrogation, which she and her family denied. In 2010, she was sentenced to prison by a US court.
According to Bernie SSanders every IDF nazi who was running the Gaza concentration camp was actually innocent. And he is still hallucinating 61 dead people. > [The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as **373 security forces** and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139.](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths) While pretending to care about Palestinians, Bernie SSanders continuously inserts every genocidal propaganda hoax he can find in his statements.
_Much credit to [this post.](https://politijohn.tumblr.com/post/186036319237/get-to-know-kamala-harris)_ - [Under her jurisdiction, in "progressive" San Francisco, 56% of all inmates in SF jails were black, along with 40% of all arrests (Only 5.8% of the population is black).](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/04/san-francisco-police-department-scandal-racist-texts) [Ignores police brutality](https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/kamala-harris/they-shot-at-little-kids-too-when-kamala-harris-tu/), protected [14 of her officers](http://sfpublicdefender.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/04/Letter-to-Attorney-General-Kamala-Harris.pdf) who were caught sending extremely racist text messages. [Oversaw San Francisco’s felony conviction rate rising from 52% to 67% in only 3 years.](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general) - [As part of her tough on crime approach she assigned senior prosecutors to misdemeanors like graffiti and vandalism, tripling the number of cases brought to trial.](https://twitter.com/walkerbragman/status/1146176227797032960) - [After a federal judge orders California to expand prison releases to reduce crowding, her office argued in court that if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool.](https://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-ff-federal-judges-order-state-to-release-more-prisoners-20141114-story.html) - Spent years jailing [disproportionately black nonviolent cannabis users](https://afropunk.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-has-been-tough-on-black-people-not-crime/) while [opposing taking cannabis off DEA’s list of most dangerous substances](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general) and [literally laughing at the idea of legalizing it](https://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/08/06/kamala-harris-laughs-at-pot-legalization/) multiple [times](https://twitter.com/WalkerBragman/status/1146174630648057859), even as her [Republican opponent ran to the left of her on the issue.](https://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2014/10/08/marijuana-advocates-ditch-kamala-harris-for-weed-friendly-republican) She then tried to pander [by admitting to smoking herself despite prosecuting others, but got her story all wrong.](https://www.marijuanamoment.net/kamala-harriss-snoopgate-is-what-a-political-marijuana-controversy-looks-like-in-2019/) [Drug convictions under her office soared, convicting more people of marijuana possession than her predecessor (she also admitted to smoking marijuana)](https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/11/kamala-harris-prosecuting-marijuana-cases/) [2](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/kamala-harris-marijuana-policy-tulsi-gabbard-debates-866102/) - [Laughs about threatening parents with jailtime for truancy.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=DhJwmIPRmYk) [2](http://archive.is/Hkqdd). [The stories of several mothers she jailed.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-truancy-arrests-2020-progressive-prosecutor_n_5c995789e4b0f7bfa1b57d2e) - [Pushed a law that forced schools to turn over undocumented students to ICE.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-san-francisco-immigrant-policy_n_5c758153e4b0bf166204509b) - [Opposed reforming California’s three-strikes law](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/reforming-three-strikes/), which is the only one in the country to impose life sentences for minor felonies and incarcerates black people at 12x the rate as white people, [three different times](http://archive.is/I2QPh), even while her [Republican opponent supported reform.](http://archive.is/GZtet) - [Tried to deny a transgender inmate healthcare and endangered trans women by forcing them into mens prisons](https://www.washingtonblade.com/2015/05/05/harris-renews-effort-to-block-gender-reassignment-for-trans-inmate/), leading to [the rape and torture of at least one trans inmate.](https://theappeal.org/incarcerated-transgender-womens-lives-must-matter/) - [Appealed a judge ruling that the death penalty was unconstitutional and won on a technicality, resulting in continued executions.](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/kamala-harris-touts-her-opposition-to-the-death-penalty-her-track-records-more-complicated/) - [Supports the controversial DNA search technique that can be used on people even if they’ve not been charged with a crime](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general). - [Supported the discriminatory practice of cash bail in court, until 2016.](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Harris-shifts-says-bail-system-isn-t-fair-to-10787472.php) - [Protected serial child rapists by refusing to prosecute in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.](https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/kamala-harris-san-francisco-catholic-church-child-abuse/) - [Lied about her state’s solitary confinement to block a suit by inmates, claiming there was none in California](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general) when there were about [6,400 victims of the practice](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/scaling-back-solitary/403441/), which is [considered torture.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/solitary-confinement-is-torture-will-the-bureau-of-prisons-finally-stop-using-it/2017/07/15/f719de20-68c6-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html) - [Opposed legislation that would require independent investigation of fatal police shootings](https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-senate-harris-milestones-20160706-snap-htmlstory.html) despite criticism from [many civil rights](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-takes-measured-approach-to-probing-7955937.php) advocates including California’s Legislative Black Caucus. - [Opposed statewide implementation of police body cameras](https://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-ca-harris-police-shootings-20160118-story.html) and [ignored police brutality](https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/kamala-harris/they-shot-at-little-kids-too-when-kamala-harris-tu/), multiple officers raping a teenager, and other officers sharing racist and homophobic messages, despite multiple requests from the public defender. - [Stood by silently as $730 million was spent on moving inmates to for-profit private prisons.](https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/08/29/mercury-news-editorial-kamala-harris-needs-to-tackle-prison-standoff/) - [Fought to uphold wrongful convictions from her office,](http://archive.is/nqODY) in one case, she witheld information about a police lab tech who was fabricating evidence (and a judge admonished her for it). She refused DNA testing to prove the innocence of a man on death row. Defended Johnny Baca’s conviction for murder even though judges found a prosecutor presented false testimony at the trial, to which she relented only after a video of the oral argument received national attention and embarrassed her office. She hid evidence of exculpaltory evidence of a man who was convicted solely by one witness (he is still serving a 70 year prison sentence). [When evidence pointed towards a black defendant being framed by police, Harris avoided DNA testing to keep him on death row.](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/kamala-harris-touts-her-opposition-to-the-death-penalty-her-track-records-more-complicated/) - [Used a technicality](https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/08/man-ruled-innocent-by-judge-still-rotting-in-prison-backers-say.html) to [stop the release of a man serving 27 years-to-life after being wrongfully convicted](https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/08/kamala-harris-trump-obama-california-attorney-general) of possession of a knife under the three-strikes law she supported. [When civil rights groups](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/daniel-larsen-murder-conviction-overturned-innocence-project/2058098/) and nearly 100,000 petition signatures got him released after 14 years [she took him back to court again for a crime he didn’t commit.](https://www.scpr.org/news/2013/07/31/38460/san-fernando-valley-man-s-freedom-hangs-in-appeal/) - [Protected several of her officers with records of misconduct, by refusing to provide their names to defense attorneys, so that their convictions would be upheld and people would stay in prison.](https://www.sfgate.com/crime/amp/Kamala-Harris-accused-of-withholding-vital-info-3186525.php) - [“Systematically violated defendants’ civil and constitutional rights” in crime lab scandal.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/crime-lab-scandal-rocked-kamala-harriss-term-as-san-francisco-district-attorney/2019/03/06/825df094-392b-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html) - [Kept her Orange County DA office from being charged](https://www.ocweekly.com/kamala-harris-president-campaign-2/) for running an unconstitutional [jailhouse informant program they tried to cover up.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/orange-county-jail-scandal_n_5a833276e4b02b66c512a049) - [Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence](http://inlandpolitics.com/blog/2015/03/05/ny-observer-california-prosecutor-falsifies-transcript-of-confession/), upheld a conviction secured by a prosecutor lying under oath, and [oversaw the framing of another man.](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/03/19/jamal-trulove-framed-murder-case-sfpd-13-1-million/) The officers were not fired, but the state was forced to pay out ~13M USD. - [She fought against providing compensation to those her office wrongly convicted.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/kamala-harris-offices-fought-payments-to-wrongly-convicted) - [Sponsored a bill allowing for prosecutors to seize profits before charges are even filed](https://www.montereyherald.com/2015/02/23/luis-alejo-kamala-harris-back-asset-seizure-before-criminal-charges/) and [opposed a bill that would reform civil asset forfeiture](https://twitter.com/cjciaramella/status/888055742745518080). - [Defended a prison’s religious discrimination in hiring policy](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-calif-sikh-barred-from-job-over-beard-settles-2011oct27-story.html) - [Refused to review a case in which a pharmaceutical CEO killed his wife but made it look like a suicide](https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/california-ag-wont-review-suicide-findings-in-bizarre-death-of-rebecca-zahau-6630223) after [their son died under mysterious circumstances as well.](https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2018/04/04/rebecca-zahau-verdict-adam-shacknai-responsible-coronado-mansion-death/486598002/) - [Refused to prosecute PG&E for its massive gas pipeline explosion](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/pge-california-politics.html). - [Claimed to be unaware of sexual harassment and retaliation by her top aide over a 6 year span](https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-kamala-harris-attorney-general-settlements-20190301-story.html). - [Refused to investigate Herbalife’s exploitation and fraud](https://freebeacon.com/politics/kamala-harris-accused-of-letting-company-exploiting-latinos-off-the-hook/), received [donations from people connected to the corporation.](https://www.pastemagazine.com/politics/kamala-harris/documents-show-san-diego-prosecutors-told-kamala-h/) - [Refused to prosecute Trump's treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, despite his bank's illegal forelosure practices, which ruined thousands of lives.](https://theintercept.com/2017/01/03/treasury-nominee-steve-mnuchins-bank-accused-of-widespread-misconduct-in-leaked-memo/) She also was [the only democratic presidental candidate](https://www.rollcall.com/2017/02/14/harris-was-only-2016-senate-democratic-candidate-to-get-cash-from-mnuchin/) to get money from him. - [A favorite candidate of wall street.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/politics/2020-democratic-donors-wall-street.html) Helped raise money [with a former wells fargo banker who defended the fake accounts scandal.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-wells-fargo-miguel-bustos_n_5d1545fde4b07f6ca57ab47e?fli) - [Backtracks on medicare for all, says she doesn't want to do away with private insurance.](http://archive.is/kqfm9) - [Accepted thousands of dollars of campaign funds from Donald and Ivanka Trump multiple times.](https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article226975319.html). [Accepted money from Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO and a charter school magnate.](https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/01/19/california-senator-kamala-harris-enter-democratic-presidential-primary-mlk-day/2455046002/) [2](https://capitalandmain.com/reed-hastings-the-disrupter-1101) - [Voted to give Trump increased military spending](https://justfacts.votesmart.org/bill/23430/61033/120012/national-defense-authorization-act-for-fiscal-year-2018#.XQQgLtNKifQ) two [different times.](https://justfacts.votesmart.org/bill/25215/64284/120012/department-of-defense-and-labor-health-and-human-services-and-education-appropriations-act-2019#.XQQhV9NKifQ) - [Supports Trump escalating the war in Syria](https://thegrayzone.com/2019/05/24/bipartisan-war-congress-trump-syria-iran-russia-hezbollah/). [Co-sponsored a "destabilize Iran" bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/722/cosponsors?searchResultViewType=expanded).[2](https://thinkprogress.org/media-outlets-lawmakers-us-violated-iran-nuclear-deal-5907a0e5743a/) - [Supports Israel’s right-wing government and cozies up to AIPAC](https://archive.ph/fbiyz), co-sponsored resolution against Obama in [support of illegal settlements, does not support Palestinian rights](https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/31/kamala-harris-and-israel-taking-the-aipac-line/), and [calls BDS “anti-semitic”](https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/1146595730489876480). [Another Anti-Palestine rant at AIPAC](https://twitter.com/acsofian/status/1351928124209045507?s=20), [2](https://thegrayzone.com/2020/08/11/netanyahu-top-cop-kamala-harris-israel-racism/). Condemned pro-palestine protestors of Netanyahu's July 2024 visit to the US congress as ["despicable, hateful, and anti-semitic"](https://xcancel.com/VP/status/1816490945501708660) - [Is against open borders, opposed calls to tear down 700 miles of border fence.](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-says-we-cant-have-open-borders-as-she-swipes-at-beto-orourke-far-left-dems) - [Fought to limit amount of land indigenous tribes could place in trust and tried to take reservation land away from a tribe just to keep them from evicting a non-indigenous man who had lived there without paying rent for 24 years.](https://www.indianz.com/News/2017/10/10/supreme-court-puts-end-to-case-challengi.asp) - [Mocks the activist call to “build more schools, less jails”.](https://twitter.com/_waleedshahid/status/1090067362907340800?lang=en) [Mocks criminal justice reformers as unrealistic.](https://twitter.com/WalkerBragman/status/1089984902706200576). - [Says that Kaepernick's take-a-knee protest in support of black lives matter, was a russian op. Claims that "russian bots" are targeting her.](https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1293286190892888067?s=20) - [Laughs out loud when its suggested that she's a progressive.](https://twitter.com/colbyhall/status/1320522050902122497?s=20) - [Voted two different times to block federal funding for abortions.](https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2019/06/06/guess-who-else-voted-against-federal-funding-for-abortion-443667?cid=su_tw_pb) - [Wants to use solar panels and green energy... to make war. ](https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1398339644144721934?s=20) - [Tells guatemalan immigrants: "don't come here"](https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1401980300847161349?s=20) - Appoints a [communication director who was outraged that ICE didn't pick up two undocumented commentators on MSNBC.](https://lemmygrad.ml/pictrs/image/61a1b6a7-05d4-4c9b-9a08-f96972019e69.jpeg)
WASHINGTON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. auto safety regulator on Friday opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the automaker's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software after four reported collisions, including a 2023 fatal crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) preliminary evaluation is the first step before the agency could seek a recall of the vehicles if it believes they pose an unreasonable risk to safety. The new scrutiny of the advanced driver assistance system comes as Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks to shift Tesla's focus to self-driving technology and robotaxis as it faces growing competition and weak demand in its auto business.
www.mintpressnews.com
One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak.” So reads the title of a recent Axios article describing the Israeli prime minister riding on an unbeatable wave of triumphs. These stunning military “successes,” its author Barak Ravid notes, include the bombing of Yemen, the assassinations of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and the pager attack against Lebanon. But what almost everybody missed is that Barak Ravid is an Israeli spy – or at least he was until recently. Ravid is a former analyst with Israeli spying agency Unit 8200, and as recently as last year, was still a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces group. Ravid has quickly become one of the most influential individuals in the Capitol Hill press corps. In April, he won the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage”—one of the highest awards in American journalism. Most of these stories consisted of simply printing anonymous White House or Israeli government sources, making them look good, and distancing President Biden from the horrors of the Israeli attack on Palestine. As such, there was functionally no difference between these and White House press releases. Ravid has made a name for himself by uncritically printing flattering information given to him by either the U.S. or Israeli government and passing it off as a scoop. In April, he wrote that “President Biden laid out an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their call on Thursday: If Israel doesn’t change course in Gaza, ‘we won’t be able to support you”. In July, he repeated anonymous sources that told him that Netanyahu and Israel are striving for “a diplomatic solution” – another highly dubious claim.
www.theguardian.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/21396125 > Stephen Starr in Hamtramck, Michigan > Mon 14 Oct 2024 11.00 EDT
The cost of the THAAD missile defense system the U.S. just sent to Israel to continue its genocidal war on the Middle East cost almost double the dollar amount FEMA paid out to victims of natural disasters last year. MONEY FOR OUR NEEDS, NOT THE US-ISRAELI WAR MACHINE!
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