“The U.S. military said Wednesday it has started transferring detainees from the Islamic State group being held in northeastern Syria to secure facilities in Iraq. The move came after Syrian government forces took control of a sprawling camp, housing thousands of mostly women and children, from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which withdrew as part of a ceasefire. … U.S. Central Command said the first transfer involved 150 IS members, who were taken from Syria’s northeastern province of Hassakeh to ‘secure locations’ in Iraq. The statement said that up to to 7,000 detainees could be transferred to Iraqi-controlled facilities.” (01/21/25)
“Socialism pretends to be all warm and cuddly, but Sen. Bernie Sanders is showing how heartless it can be. He’s been the sole lawmaker blocking legislation to speed up cures for kids with cancer and nudge drug makers to develop new pediatric therapies. And on Tuesday, he joined nurses who’ve abandoned their hospitalized patients to strike for fat pay hikes. For cold-blooded socialists like Bernie, ideology clearly trumps compassion. Start with the bill he’s blocking: the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, recently renamed for a 16-year-old who died of cancer last year while lobbying for the measure. Sanders (I-VT) says he himself backs the bill, except it doesn’t push other health care measures he wants, such as funding for community health centers — so he’s holding the cancer kids hostage.” (01/20/25)
“Oh-no, Canada! The number of Canadian tourists and other visitors traveling south into upstate New York plummeted a whopping 21% through the first 11 months of 2025, according to new data from the governor’s office. Gov. Kathy Hochul released figures as part of her $260 billion budget plan that showed there were 3 million few travelers crossing from Canada into the Empire State – blaming President Trump for his tariff standoff and confrontational stance with the US’s northern neighbors. The number of Canadian tourists and other visitors traveling south into upstate New York plummeted a whopping 21% through the first 11 months of 2025. ‘The adverse effects on the protectionist trade environment are adversely impacting New York’s economy,’ the report out of Hochul’s office said. ‘Costs to manufacturers in New York have risen directly or indirectly.'” (01/21/25)
“From Greenland to Ukraine to Venezuela, President Donald Trump has relied on a dizzying diversity of definitions for peace over the past year. They range from ‘peace through strength’ (using tariffs or troops) to temporary and shaky ceasefires. He has brokered deals that offer security if the United States gains natural resources or that assume economic integration between rivals can alone ensure tranquility. He overarchingly sees his role as a ‘president of peace’ (an allusion to ‘prince of peace’) and as deserving of winning a Nobel Peace Prize or, at least, an actual winner’s gold medal given to him this month as a gift of gratitude. Lately, however, he’s warned that he does not feel ‘obliged to think purely of Peace.'” (01/20/25)
“Gov. Gavin Newsom was scheduled to speak during the World Economic Forum on Wednesday morning in Davos, Switzerland, but was barred from speaking at the very last minute by the White House, according to his office. ‘Under pressure from the White House and State Department, USA House (a church acting as the official US pavilion) is now denying entry to Governor Newsom after Fortune — the official media partner — invited him to speak,’ the governor’s office said in a text to the governor’s press corps and later posted to the governor’s official X account. The USA House is the collection of official U.S. venues during the World Economic Forum.” (01/21/25)
“Around the United States, the rebellions against President Donald Trump’s militarized Immigration and Customs Enforcement invasions (bolstered by other agencies including the National Guard and, at least in one case, actual Marines) continue. National headlines have mostly skipped over Memphis, perhaps because it’s a smaller city in the South, far from the headquarters of national media. On the ground in Memphis, local policy organizer Amber Sherman explained, the fear (and resistance) are similar to what we see in bigger cities. It’s not so much the National Guard, she said, but around the city, there are some 1,500 federal agents from the so-called Memphis Safe Task Force working alongside existing police and using traffic stops (reportedly more than 35,000 in two months) as a way to get their hands on people. This is the very issue (pretextual stops) that Memphis activists organized against so effectively after police killed artist and skateboarder Tyre Nichols two years ago.” (01/21/25)
“The European Parliament is planning to suspend approval of the US trade deal agreed in July, according to sources close to its international trade committee. The suspension is set to be announced in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday. The move would mark another escalation in tensions between the US and Europe, as Donald Trump ratchets up his efforts to acquire Greenland, threatening new tariffs over the issue on the weekend. The stand-off has rattled financial markets, reviving talk of a trade war and the possibility of retaliation against the US for its trade measures. Shares on both sides of the Atlantic were lower on Tuesday, with European stock markets seeing a second day of losses. In the US, the Dow Jones slid more than 1.7%, while the S&P 500 dropped more than 2% and the Nasdaq closed about 2.4% lower.” (01/21/26)
“Writers often try to gild their tawdry times or dignify their flawed leaders with lofty literary analogies — notably, America as the New Jerusalem; Lincoln as Moses leading his people through the wilderness of the Civil War; the Kennedy White House as an incarnation of King Arthur’s ‘Camelot,’ or Lyndon Johnson living his last years as a latter-day King Lear, cast off by his ungrateful children into the moors of south Texas. But what are we going to do with Donald Trump? Wouldn’t his vanity, his vulgarity, and his relentless pursuit of money and minerals in every corner of the globe turn any literary analogies into soggy clichés? Like the showman P.T. Barnum, Trump is an American original, whose true metaphors can be found only in comic books (America’s one true art form), not literature.” (01/20/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Everyone hates Israel now, and what’s funny is this wouldn’t have happened if our society had been the tiniest bit normal about Gaza. If everyone wasn’t constantly being forcefully told they’re not seeing what they’re seeing, it wouldn’t have become so personal for them. If western governments had just said ‘this is bad’ when news came out about Israel bombing a hospital instead of ‘THIS ISN’T WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE THERE’S A HAMAS BASE IN EVERY HEALTHCARE FACILITY YOU ARE BEING ANTISEMITIC.’ If the news media had just said ‘this is bad’ when Israel systematically exterminated journalists in Gaza instead of reporting ‘three killed in what IDF describes as strike on terrorist vehicle’ over and over again.” (01/21/25)
“You probably haven’t thought about Don Lemon in, well, ever. Why would you? No one watched him when he was on CNN, which is a big part of the reason he’s no longer on CNN, and he’s only doubled down on everything people found annoying about him when he was easy to find. And the only time you’re likely to have thought about Ilhan Omar is when she’s doing something racist, stupid or both – which is a lot, actually. … Some people live lives of example, others are destined to be a cautionary tale. Make all these leftists into examples that serve as warnings to others that lawlessness will not be tolerated.” (01/20/25)
