“On May 9, 1959, Aurora Vargas was forcibly carried out of her home by police officers. There was no clear justification for this; Vargas had broken no laws, and her family’s home was not under foreclosure. This clear violation of property rights is common in countries ruled by totalitarian dictatorships, but this scene occurred in Los Angeles, California. Aurora Vargas and her family were evicted from their home by LA County Sheriffs to clear the way for what would become Dodger Stadium. Although the Vargas family was given $17,500 as compensation, few would dare to say that this displacement was just.” (09/30/25)
“On the face of it, there should be no prohibition against the chief law enforcement officer of the country indicting someone he doesn’t like. And as my old boss in the U.S. Attorney’s office, Bob Morgenthau, famously said of his pursuit of Trump’s unsavory mentor Roy Cohn, ‘A man is not immune from prosecution just because a United States attorney happens not to like him.’ Comey’s lawyers will doubtless mount a motion to dismiss on grounds of selective prosecution — that Comey was singled out for prosecution for political or other base purposes. Normally, that’s a hard one to prove, and a harder one to win, but not in this case. It is typically difficult or impossible to prove that the government had some impermissible motive. But here, Trump gave Comey the selective prosecution argument on a silver platter.” (09/30/25)
“One of the first actions President Donald Trump took upon resuming office in January was to sign an executive order that characterized U.S. foreign aid programs as ‘not aligned with American interests’ and marked the beginning of a dramatic reduction in U.S. foreign assistance. Just nine months later however, the Trump administration has committed $20 billion in emergency financial assistance to Argentina in a move that outraged farmers reeling from a collapse in soybean sales to China that Argentina has exacerbated.” (09/30/25)
“Bad Bunny is a bad choice for the Super Bowl halftime performance. Not simply because the Puerto Rican rapper’s politically driven touring choices are incompatible with someone being awarded one of the most prestigious perches of American culture. Or because his songs aren’t in English. But have you heard his autotune racket masquerading as music? Why can’t anyone sing or rap without the assistance of computers these days? I can already see the mute button in my future. Beyond the offensive tunes, the performer, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is taking flak for his hypocrisy. He’s proudly accepting the splashy high-profile gig at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., after explicitly declining to play on the United States mainland for this current tour in protest of President Trump’s immigration policies and ICE enforcement.” (09/30/25)
“The European Union expects Georgia to change radically to accommodate the EU. The Georgian government expects the EU to change radically to accommodate Georgia. The latter may seem an absurd proposition given the relative size of the two sides (and it will certainly be regarded as such by the EU Commission) but as the Georgian President, Mikheil Kavelashvili reminded me in New York last week, Christian Georgia has been around for a lot longer than the EU — almost 1,700 years longer — and confidently expects to be around for a long time after it.” (09/30/25)
“For the third time this month, the Israeli government deployed drones and bombs against the Global Sumud Flotilla, the convoy of 50 civilian boats carrying humanitarian aid as part of a global humanitarian attempt to break Israel’s US-backed siege of Gaza and draw international attention to the famine it has created. Those Israeli bombings – which targeted boats carrying numerous Americans, including an editor from Drop Site News, Alex Colston – are merely the latest affront by the Israelis not only to international law but to that foreign government’s primary sponsors in Washington. Predictably, not a single administration official has said a word about Israel’s recent attacks against the flotilla convoy carrying American citizens.” (09/30/25)
“It began as online outrage. Nepal’s government had banned social media, fearing the extremity of sentiment that might be expressed against the regime, but what followed that ban brought down the government. The general mood of protest escalated into nationwide demonstrations, clashes with security forces, and the storming of government buildings, resulting in at least 74 deaths and over 2000 injuries. But this was not an organized coup. It developed so swiftly from youth protest to the fall of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s government that it sure seemed to be spontaneous, taking just a few weeks’ time (or days’, depending where you set the starting point.)” (09/30/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Israel apologists are probably going to make a much, much bigger deal about the second October 7 anniversary than they did about the first anniversary, because they kind of have to. The world is turning against Israel in unprecedented ways in 2025, and yelling about October 7 is all they’ve got left. They’ve already got a scripted October 7 series coming out on Paramount+, and another, separate scripted October 7 series coming out on HBO Max for the anniversary. … The hasbarists are going to be so obnoxious. They’ll be babbling about Hamas beheading babies and then cooking the beheaded babies in the oven and then having sex with the beheaded babies and then eating the beheaded babies and then playing soccer with the baby heads while singing about how much they love Adolf Hitler.” (09/30/25)
“The folly of assassinations is that they generate the opposite of what the assassin intended. Aside from the tragedy of taking a human life, there is a pattern of how assassinations work against what the assassins aim to accomplish. Perhaps this realization could prevent assassins before they pull the trigger, if even a small amount of thought replaces the emotion driving the act. Here are six assassinations, spanning over 2,000 years to the present, that illustrate how the folly of assassinations has unfolded repeatedly.” (09/30/25)
