“New York’s attorney general announced plans Tuesday to deploy legal observers to monitor federal immigration enforcement actions in the state. The initiative will send observers, who will wear purple safety vests, to areas of reported immigration enforcement activity to collect information ‘that may inform future legal action,’ according to Attorney General Letitia James. Tensions remain high nationwide over President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, particularly following the [murders] of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minnesota. Videos of agents conducting immigration [abductions] throughout the country have drawn criticism over heavy-handed tactics, often going viral online. In a statement, James, a Democrat, said she is ‘proud to protect New Yorkers’ constitutional rights to speak freely, protest peacefully, and go about their lives without fear of unlawful federal action’. ‘We have seen in Minnesota how quickly and tragically federal operations can escalate in the absence of transparency and accountability,’ she said.” (02/03/25)
“The Democrats circa 2026 have almost become tax-and-spend parodies of themselves. They used to pretend that raising taxes was a last resort. Now, the left-wing base regards raising taxes as a badge of honor. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani declared last week that he has no other choice but to raise taxes on the rich and corporations because there aren’t enough savings from efficiencies in agency budgets. New York City spends more money per capita than any other major city in the country, but there’s no way to save money. Uh-huh! At least Mamdani was honest and campaigned as a socialist. The Manhattanites are getting exactly what they voted for. But the two new rising stars of the party, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, the newly elected governors of New Jersey and Virginia, respectively, won what were thought to be tight races by comfortable margins.” (02/03/25)
“The criminal case against Nevada’s six so-called ‘fake electors,’ who tried to falsely award the state’s 2020 electoral votes to President Donald Trump, returned to Clark County on Monday after the Nevada Supreme Court ruled it was a proper jurisdiction to hear the case. During Monday’s hearing, lawyers for the fake electors challenged the legality of the two charges facing their clients: offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument. Although no ruling was issued, Clark County Judge Mary Kay Holthus was skeptical of the prosecution’s arguments for the second charge because it requires ‘an intent to defraud.’ Holthus called that intent ‘impossible’ to prove. ‘They’re not really thinking that they’re going to pull one over, that … ‘we’re going to sign this document and make everybody think that Trump was elected when he wasn’t elected,’’ Holthus said.” (02/03/25)
Source: In These Times
by Sarah Lazare, Thomas Birmingham, & Ari Bloomekatz
“Roughly one in four Minnesota voters either participated in the January 23 day of shutdown and protest against ICE, or have a loved one who did, according to new polling data. Of those participants, 38% percent stayed off the job, either because they did not go to work, or because their employer closed for the day of action. The data does not distinguish between those who made the choice to stay out, and those who saw their workplaces close. (Some workplaces were shuttered that day due to worker pressure.) The poll was commissioned by the May Day Strong coalition, a network of local and national unions and community organizations, and was conducted by polling firm Blue Rose Research. McKenzie Wilson, director of external affairs and message strategy at the firm, explained that researchers surveyed 1,940 Minnesotans who voted in 2024.” (02/02/25)
“The pro-democracy protesters in Iran deserved so much better. They deserved the support of a democratic United States that could sincerely urge the rule of law and habeas corpus (allowing people to legally challenge their detentions) be respected, not to speak of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly in accordance with the Constitution. Unfortunately, President Donald J. Trump has forfeited any claim to respect for such rights or a principled foreign policy and so has proved strikingly ineffective in aiding those protesters. The arbitrary arrests and killings committed by agents of Trump’s authoritarian-style rule differ only in number, not in kind, from the detainments and killings of protesters carried out by the basij (or pro-regime street militias) in Iran. In fact, they rendered his protests and bluster about Iran the height of hypocrisy.” (02/02/25)
“In the months before the April 12, 1861, firing on Fort Sumter, there were lots of sharp divisions in the North about the proper reaction to the first seven Confederate states that had already left the Union. Not all Unionists believed that war was inevitable. Some, in fact, were happy to be done with the departing South and thus see their stain of slavery gone from the Union. Similarly, others agreed that the emerging Confederacy was not worth the trouble and costs of war, and the secessionists could just form their own nation and stew in their own backward, servile juice. But after Fort Sumter, Lincoln … gained a consensus that the Constitution had no clauses about any lawful departure from the Union. But it did operate under a clear supremacy clause that made state obstruction of federal law and occupation of federal property veritable sedition.” (02/02/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“‘Government X does bad things’ and ‘therefore the US should forcibly overthrow Government X’ are two completely different claims. Propagandists keep acting like they’re the same claim and like the second claim naturally follows the first, and I’m seeing far too many people accepting this manipulation without question. They are not the same claim. They’re entirely unrelated. It should not be necessary to explain this to grown adults, but here we are. Even if we accept as fact all the claims about how badly the US-targeted government is behaving, and even if we ignore the obvious fact that unilateral US regime change wars are against international law, there is still no valid reason to accept that a government doing bad things justifies US regime change interventionism.” (02/02/25)
“US President Donald Trump announced that he agreed to a trade deal with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where the US will lower tariffs on goods from India to 18% from 25%. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said India will reduce trade barriers to zero and will also stop buying Russian oil. An additional 25% tariff penalty imposed for Delhi’s refusal to stop buying oil from Russia will be dropped. The announcement comes less than a week after India and the European Union announced a landmark trade deal that capped nearly two decades of on-off talks. Modi said on X that he is ‘delighted’ that an agreement with the US has been reached. In the post, Trump said that a morning phone call with Modi included discussions of trade and the Russia-Ukraine war.” (02/02/25)
“Last fall, when New York’s business community warned that the election of a self-described democratic socialist as mayor would trigger an assault on the city’s economic engine, we were waved off as hysterical. The press assured us that Zohran Mamdani was ‘evolving’, that his rhetoric would soften, that we should focus instead on his vague promises of ‘affordability’. That reassurance evaporated almost instantly. Barely two weeks after his swearing-in — amid lofty rhetoric about ‘the warmth of collectivism’ — the Mamdani administration unveiled its real agenda. Sam Levine, the newly installed commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and a veteran of Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission, released a sensational report accusing companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats of ‘diverting’ more than $500 million from delivery workers.” (02/02/25)
“There is a long tradition of painters depicting real people in their religious art, but the appearance in a Roman church of a cherub that bears a striking resemblance to Premier Giorgia Meloni has sparked a minor scandal for both church and state in Italy. The diocese of Rome and the Italian Culture Ministry both announced investigations into the recent renovations at the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, after photographs of the Meloni-esque cherub were published in Italian newspapers this weekend. Their swift and harsh reactions indicated little tolerance for the profane in a sacred place. The ruckus has given the basilica, already well known as one of the oldest churches in Rome, newfound celebrity status. It was jammed on Sunday and Monday with curiosity-seekers straining to photograph the angel in a side chapel up near the front altar, at times disrupting Mass.” (02/02/25)
