Reader Comments: Latest Trump Shit Show and War Crimes Made Public; Resistance Alive, Growing; Bernie-AOC Anti-Oligarchy Tour; ICE Abductions; Trump’s Anti-Voter Executive Order; Massive Palestinian Demonstrations for Peace Against Israel and Hamas;
Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, Shorts, AND cartoons - Mar. 27, 2025, xxxxxx
During Senate hearings today, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe asserted that the group chat with The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg did not contain any classified information. Meanwhile, late Monday, the Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege in its court battle over the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants, once again refusing to disclose details about the flights to the judge. What a shit show.
Protests of Trump may not look like the mass marches of 2017, but research shows they are far more numerous and frequent — while also shifting to more powerful forms of resistance.
Sanders is doing some things that Democrats ought to pay attention to. He is using the theme of oligarchy and class domination as an overarching message. “We are here to say loudly and clearly that in our great nation we will not accept oligarchy.”
Great new sort-of Left mag I just found out about. At least progressive on many fronts-- we need everyone! Take a look--- good reading on a great variety of topics. Check it out at the website--
I've been reading xxxxxx a few years now and usually find it topical. But I just read Zeeshan Aleem's Article about the Bernie tour -- and he absolutely ignored the fact that Alejandra Ocasio Cortez was part of the show. I call out extreme patriarchal bias.
All the other articles, coverages, etc. of the tour have included AOC. The invisibility of Women's work and contribution to our world is not something I expect from xxxxxx.
Shame
A reader in Texas
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Moderator Response:
This was the second article on the Anti-Oligarchy Tour of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that xxxxxx posted on Friday night, along with a third, one of the Friday Nite Videos - the other two prominently featured Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Re: AOC, on Fight Oligarchy Tour, Gives Speech of the Year
It’s weird living in a time when the party that’s supposed to be the opposition has decided that they would be more useful as human doormats, but I suppose that’s to be expected from a septuagenarian with a net worth of $60M for whom the status quo is simply too precious to oppose.
Project 2025 puts forward a total attack on education, closing the Dept. of Education, including book bans and curricular limitations on classes. They want to cancel the federal student loan program; revoke Title IX policies; and end faculty tenure.
But resistance to these potentially devastating incursions on human and civil rights is growing, and unions, including the 110-year-old American Association of University Professors (AAUP), are strategizing, organizing and fighting back in the streets and in courtrooms and statehouses across the country.
Under the guise of “fighting antisemitism,” Trump is shredding our rights and telling us we are safe. "The truth is that they hate us. We should have some pride and return the favor. Jew, not a Jew? Once a joke. Now an open threat."
“Trump in one fell swoop used Palestinian as a derogatory slur and—as a non-Jew—elevated himself to arbiter of who is the right and wrong kind of Jew,” Rabbi Wise said.
The choice now for American Jewry is clear: We can cower in the clutches of an administration that treats us like trash, or we can stand with those outside our faith pleading for us to call out the latest set of Big Lies.
Thank you: this is a useful article that explains the sometimes seemingly contradictory bits and pieces we read in the media on the subject.
Marina Coblentz
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Dave Zirin, already a great sports writer, lashes out at those who accommodate Trump's 'fighting anti-Semitism' BS. This is one of the most anti-Semitic periods in US history, and it's not because many, including Jews, are speaking out against Palestinian genocide.
Zirin: 'The people whom Trump has chosen to run the military are telling us what they think through their silence. They are saying that their Christian-nationalist acceptance of us is conditional upon fronting for the lie that this group of antisemites are shredding the Constitution to fight antisemitism. That is why it’s so threatening to their project when Jews refuse to have our faith weaponized, and we chant, “Not in our name!”'
Protesters are burning Teslas, and that is totally wrong. Violence of any kind is unacceptable. However, when compared to how Trump and Musk are burning down the entire government, it feels like small potatoes.
I submitted this to the NYT as a response to the Michelle Goldberg article but they didn't publish it.
The arrest and revocation of Mahmoud Khalil's green card, apparently without due process, are indeed frightening. But is it "the Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare" https://xxxxxx.org/2025-03-10/greatest-threat-free-speech-red-scare as Michelle Goldberg's column (March 10) claims? There are so many grave and varied threats to free speech it is hard to choose: intimidation and coercion of TV networks, SLAPP lawsuits, efforts to overturn SCOTUS's Sullivan v Times ruling, a president who fantasizes about reporters being killed, the government threatening law firms because of the clients they serve, state laws restricting speech and public assembly.
We need to see the forest, not the trees. The Media and Democracy Project would assert that the greatest threat to free speech is not any one action but the collective efforts by the MAGA movement to silence dissent.
m-f@#kers -- Wells Fargo - can't think of a more rapacious bank.
A newly released memo from the banking giant Wells Fargo outlines a predatory scheme to dismantle the USPS: sell off profitable parts, slash union jobs, and raise prices by up to 140 percent.
The administration is attempting to incapacitate the redistributive and social protective arms of the state, while exploiting its vast bureaucratic powers to silence, threaten, and deport.
Why do we have governments, in the first place?. In my opinion we organize in order to find efficient ways to work together so that all of us can survive. BUT ... some people have decided that ONLY the ones THEY pick should have the ability to survive. That's an "antisocial state"... Wow. How totally sad and sick.
Matthew Hallinan wrote about the Ukrainian war: "the thoughtless expansion of NATO..." No it was a THOUGHTFUL expansion. The idea behind: Either Russia should capitulate in the long run - or attack. Russia attacked.
In the case of Claudia Jones, it was a gain for England. She became a noted activist, starting the Notting Hill Carnival in London that put Caribbean culture on the map.
Today the new documentary 'The Encampents', about the protests last year at Columbia had its U.S. premiere and it will be playing for the next week at the Angelika Theaters on Houston St. This wasn't supposed to come out until late this year for Oscar season but it was moved up for an urgent reason The narrator of this is Mahmoud Khalil. The director, producers and others involved will be at many of the screenings over the weekend doing Q&A's discussing Mahmoud's incarceration and giving info on various protests. We can show solidarity by supporting this movie which shows the inside story of the protests and that they were not hateful or violent Check the Angelika 's website for screen times and Q&A schedules Surely there is not more important movie you could see in town this week
Thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip went out yesterday to demonstrate against the war, for peace, and against Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip, and this isn’t the first time this has happened. Doing this takes a lot of courage–not only are they going out to protest amid Israeli bombardment, but they are also standing up against Hamas’ regime that suppresses all protests. We admire their bravery and stand in solidarity from inside Israel.
Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza must end. The bombs must stop, the siege on Gaza must stop, and the collective punishment and weaponization of starvation must stop. The people of Gaza deserve to live safely, without fear for their lives under constant Israeli bombardment and siege, and without Hamas’ authoritarian rule.
The American Civil Liberties Union condemns President Donald Trump's executive order signed today, which aims to upend U.S. elections and disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. This directive represents a significant overreach of executive power and poses a direct threat to the fundamental right to vote.
The executive order directs the Election Assistance Commission to change the national mail voter registration form to require documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport, to register to vote. The order also attempts to force states to enact documentary proof of citizenship requirements and to stop counting absentee and mail-in ballots received after Election Day in accordance with state law by threatening to withhold federal funding.
Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, released the following response:
“President Trump's executive order attempting to require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration and restrict the acceptance of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, among other measures, is a blatant overreach that threatens to disenfranchise tens of millions of eligible voters. This measure will no doubt disproportionately impact historically-excluded communities, including voters of color, naturalized citizens, people with disabilities, and the elderly, by pushing unnecessary barriers to the fundamental right to vote. We deserve better than elected officials weaponizing xenophobia and the myth of voter fraud to jeopardize our rights. We will do everything in our power to stop this unconstitutional attack on the right to vote to ensure that every eligible American can participate in our democracy. We will see President Trump in court.”
A new documentary about the 2024 student protests at Columbia University, narrated by activist and recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil, has bumped up its release date by months in response to Khalil’s detainment and will have its U.S. premiere in Manhattan on Thursday.
The Angelika Film Center on Houston Street will host dozens of screenings of “The Encampments” over the film’s weeklong engagement, including several with post-screening Q&As or pre-film introductions by the directors and producers.
“The Encampments” had its world premiere on Tuesday in Copenhagen at CPH:DOX, an international documentary film festival.
“We had not planned on doing the North America release so soon, but given what happened, we felt that we had a duty to get this film out there,” producer Munir Atalla said, referring to Khalil’s detention by ICE agents earlier this month and the Trump administration’s attempt to deport him, which thrust Khalil and Columbia alike into the global spotlight.
The documentary, which was directed by Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker and executive produced by the rapper Macklemore, follows four pro-Palestinian student activists, including Khalil, through the encampment and monthslong protests on Columbia’s campus last spring.
Atalla, who was an adjunct assistant professor in the university’s film and media studies program at the time, said the team made the film to “dispel the hysteria around the encampment movement and portray it how it actually was.”
“It was so striking to me the difference between this incredibly peaceful, inclusive, accepting encampment space … contrasting that with the absolute hysteria coming from the university administration, the mayor, all the mainstream news networks,” Atalla said.
Columbia has not yet returned a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
In the spring of 2024, Columbia closed its campus to nonaffiliated people during the protest, which meant journalists were often relegated to the campus's surrounding streets. The documentary covers the tent encampment on Butler Lawn inside the campus, the media circus outside the campus, the student occupation of Hamilton Hall and the arrests that happened after the NYPD's subsequent arrival on campus.
The directors embedded with students throughout the protests, gaining access rarely granted to journalists. Atalla said the result is a portrait of the movement shaped collaboratively with the students themselves, many of whom appear masked or blurred to protect their identities.
“Student safety has been at the forefront of our thinking around this film,” Atalla said. “It’s a scary moment where it makes sense to be afraid. It’s perhaps even rational to be afraid.”
Khalil, the film’s narrator, had planned to travel to Copenhagen for its world premiere, Atalla said. He remains in detention in Louisiana, with his legal team pursuing his release.
“The Encampments” screens at the Angelika Film Center from Thursday, March 27 through Thursday, April 3. Tickets are around $21 and available here.
