"I never imagined that my government would so blatantly lie like this," said one author and attorney.
By Julia Conley
As Americans have continued to document federal agents violently pushing a bystander to the ground during an arrest, handcuffing a screaming mother, and demanding to see citizenship papers of people of color, observers said the US Department of Homeland Security’s latest video about a federal officer’s killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week showed it has resorted to “blatant propaganda” to shape public opinion on the Trump administration’s violent crackdown on immigrants and dissenters.
“This agency, and the way it now speaks, is the most repulsive and un-American things I have ever seen,” said one writer of a video featuring Lauren Bis, the deputy assistant secretary of homeland security, that was released four days after Good was fatally shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
The video was posted to social media Sunday, accompanied by the text: “Defend the Homeland. Protect the American way of life.” Bis presented footage of Good’s vehicle before and after she was shot while sitting in the driver’s seat of her car by an ICE agent who had approached the driver’s side of the front of the vehicle.
Bis repeated claims that have been pushed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Vice President JD Vance, and President Donald Trump: that Good was a “rioter” who “weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.”
She said that “the American people can watch this video with their own eyes and ears and judge for themselves,” but legal experts, news outlets, and members of the public have already spent the past several days doing just that.
Experts and media organizations have extensively analyzed footage of the killing and said that despite the administration’s repeated claims, there is no evidence that Good was part of any riot. As the Guardian reported last week, “The officer who fired the fatal shots walked up to the front of Good’s car, which was turning away from him as it began to move forward, and he remained on his feet as the vehicle passed him.”
Author and University of Missouri law professor Thom Lambert said that the government “may argue that the ICE agent feared for his life, perhaps even reasonably, but the video CLEARLY shows that Good had turned away from the officer.”
“I never imagined that my government would so blatantly lie like this,” added Lambert, who also took issue with Bis’ insistence that the administration “pray[s]” for Good and her family—even as another White House official, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, called the victim a “lunatic” in comments to reporters on Monday.
Despite DHS’ display of footage that many observers have said proves Good’s wheels were turned away from the ICE agent when she began driving, David J. Bier of the libertarian Cato Institute said: “They are still using verbatim the utterly inaccurate statement from the first day. This is pathological.”
Another critic noted that the video was edited by DHS to make it appear that Good “weaponized her vehicle” by “speeding across the road”—“obviously failing to mention that footage is of when she had just been shot in the fucking face and her dead foot hit the pedal.”
Jessica Simor, an expert in human rights law in the UK, said that Joseph Goebbels, the architect of Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine in Nazi Germany, “could not have improved” on Bis’ video.
As the video circulated online Monday, ICE and Border Patrol agents were seen in numerous new footage treating people in Minneapolis and elsewhere violently and appearing the warn them against even acting as bystanders to their enforcement actions.
Federal agents were seen chasing and tackling a man to the ground, apparently for filming with his cellphone as they carried out an arrest at a gas station in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In another video, a federal officer approached a woman who was filming him and said, “Listen, have you all not learned from the past couple of days?” before snatching her phone.
It is legal under the First Amendment for bystanders to film ICE and other federal agents as long at they are not obstructing their operations.
Organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg said in response to that video that the US will ultimately “need some serious Truth and Reconciliation/Nuremberg shit for every fascist scumbag member of this administration.”
"We must not allow our great country, the United States of America, to become an authoritarian society."
By Brad Reed
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday warned that the Trump administration’s targeting of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for criminal investigation was part of a broader pattern of intimidation aimed at quelling dissent.
In a prepared statement, Sanders (I-Vt.) acknowledged that he had his own disagreements with Powell, a conservative Republican who was first appointed by President Donald Trump to be chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2017.
However, Sanders said political disagreements had nothing to do with the Department of Justice launching a criminal probe of Powell.
“In a democracy, debate and disagreement are normal,” Sanders said. “But Donald Trump does not ‘disagree’ with his opponents. In his pursuit of absolute power, he attempts to destroy anyone who stands in his way. He’s actively prosecuting Powell not because the Fed chair broke the law, but because he won’t bend the knee to Donald Trump.”
Sanders noted that Powell was only the latest target of the Trump administration’s vindictive retribution.
“When Sen. Mark Kelly (R-Ariz.) spoke out against Donald Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric and threats toward political opponents, Trump didn’t agree,” Sanders explained. “He had his Defense Department investigate Kelly for misconduct and threatened to have him executed.”
Sanders also pointed to the prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, as well as his threats against assorted other critics, as evidence that Trump seeks to “intimidate and destroy... as part of his march to authoritarianism.”
“We must not allow our great country, the United States of America, to become an authoritarian society,” Sanders concluded. “Trump’s persecution of his political opponents must end.”
The co-chairs of the Not Above the Law coalition–Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen; Praveen Fernandes, vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center; Kelsey Herbert, campaign director at MoveOn; and Brett Edkins, managing director for policy and political affairs at Stand Up America—also denounced the investigation into Powell as politically motivated on Monday, while arguing it was part of an effort to stifle dissent in the US.
“Whether targeting federal judges, members of Congress, civil society organizations, or now the chair of the Federal Reserve, Trump weaponizes the full force of government against anyone who won’t submit to his will,” they said. “Undermining the Federal Reserve
The Pentagon chief's "unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military," said the former Navy captain.
By Jessica Corbett
US Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, announced Monday that he “filed a lawsuit against the secretary of defense because there are few things as important as standing up for the rights of the very Americans who fought to defend our freedoms.”
The Arizona Democrat is suing not only Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth but also the US Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and Navy Secretary John Phelan over the DOD leader’s effort to cut Kelly’s retirement pay over a November video in which he and other veterans of the military and intelligence community reminded troops that they “must refuse illegal orders.”
Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and Reps. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) released the short video as Hegseth and President Donald Trump were in the midst of their deadly boat-bombing spree and ramping up threats against Venezuela, whose leader they have since abducted to put him on trial in the United States.
Of the six Democrats in the video, Kelly is the only one still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Given that, Hegseth initially launched a probe into the senator and threatened to call him back to active duty to face a court-martial, but ultimately revealed last week that the DOD was working to reduce his retirement pay and had issued a formal letter of censure.
“Pete Hegseth is coming after what I earned through my 25 years of military service, in violation of my rights as an American, as a retired veteran, and as a United States senator whose job is to hold him—and this or any administration—accountable,” Kelly said Monday. “His unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: If you speak out and say something that the president or secretary of defense doesn’t like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted.”
“In 1986, at just 22 years old, I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. I have fulfilled that oath every day since, but I never expected that I would have to defend it against a secretary of defense or president,” said Kelly, also a former US astronaut. “But I’ve never shied away from a fight for our country, and I won’t shy away from this one. Because our freedom of speech, the separation of powers, and due process are not just words on a page, they are bedrock principles of our democracy that has lasted 250 years and will last 250 more as long as patriotic Americans are willing to stand up for our rights.”
Kelly’s 46-page complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, states that “defendants’ actions violate numerous constitutional guarantees and have no basis in statute,” citing “the First Amendment, the speech or debate clause, the separation of powers, due process, 10 USC § 1370, and the Administrative Procedure Act.”
The senator is asking the court “to declare the censure letter, reopening determination, retirement grade determination proceedings, and related actions unlawful and unconstitutional; to vacate those actions; to enjoin their enforcement; and to preserve the status of a coequal Congress and an apolitical military.”
"If Democrats want to win elections, they need to read the room—or I should say, they need to read literally any room anywhere in America that isn’t filled with big donors."
By Brad Reed
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday warned the Democratic Party against reshaping its economic agenda in the hopes of winning over billionaire donors.
In a speech delivered before the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Warren (D-Mass.) argued that watering down a progressive economic agenda to appeal to big-money donors made little sense at a time when the richest in America are taking ever greater shares of wealth and US families are struggling to keep their heads above water.
Warren pointed to many US elites maintaining friendly relationships with the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even after he pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor, as evidence of a broken system.
“Over the past generation, the wealthy have avoided accountability time and again,” she argued. “Regular Americans must play by every rule or face real consequences. You don’t need to read every news article about Jeffrey Epstein and his good buddies like [former Treasury Secretary] Larry Summers and [President] Donald Trump to understand how consistently rich and powerful insiders protect each other, regardless of politics and regardless of how obscene the situation has become.”
Warren acknowledged that Democrats needed to broaden their appeal to more voters given that they lost the popular vote to Trump for the first time in 2024, but she argued that targeting wealthy donors would not accomplish that goal.
“There are two visions for what a big tent means,” she said. “One vision says that we should shape our agenda and temper our rhetoric to flatter any fabulously rich person looking for a political party that will entrench their own economic interests. The other vision says we must acknowledge the economic failures of the current rigged system, aggressively challenge the status quo, and chart a clear path for big, structural change.”
Warren also criticized the “abundance” agenda that has been promoted by New York Times columnist Ezra Klein over the last several months as a way to fix Democrats’ electoral woes.
The senator began her critique by touting what she said were good points that Klein and Abundance co-author Derek Thompson make about government needing to work more simply and efficiently to deliver benefits.
However, Warren said that what their analysis of government failures has often missed is that there are powerful interests that are working to keep these inefficiencies from being addressed.
“For years, I’ve fought for a simple, free government tax filing system so no one has to pay a couple of hundred bucks just to file their taxes,” she explained. “Every step of the way, the giant tax prep companies have thrown up roadblocks to stop it. And when the [Internal Revenue Service] finally built a free—and wildly popular—filing option for American taxpayers, the tax prep companies swooped in to kill it the minute Donald Trump took office.”
Warren also said that many major Democratic donors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, have been latching onto “abundance” in order to drive the conversation in the party away from US wealth inequality.
“We are now in a new election cycle, and according to Axios, Reid Hoffman is sending everyone he knows a copy of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book on Abundance and backing pro-abundance candidates,” Warren explained. “On his podcast, Hoffman has used the framework to argue against regulations that slow down data center construction. That’s right—when families are already getting crushed by rising costs and a data center boom means even higher utility costs... Hoffman wants Democratic candidates to stand with the billionaires for higher costs.”
The senator then said that “if Democrats want to win elections, they need to read the room—or I should say, they need to read literally any room anywhere in America that isn’t filled with big donors.”
Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Sally Rooney, Tariq Ali, and George Monbiot are among the signers of a statement of support for the proscribed anti-genocide protesters, who have refused food for over two months.
By Brett Wilkins
More than 50 international authors and academics signed a declaration published Monday in support of hunger-striking activists allegedly linked to the banned Palestine Action movement, who are at imminent risk of death after refusing to eat for more than two months.
The brief statement—“We oppose genocide, we support the Palestine Action prisoners”—was signed by prominent figures including historian Tariq Ali; novelist Sally Rooney; former Guantánamo Bay prisoner Moazzam Begg; journalists Owen Jones and George Monbiot; and professors Angela Davis, Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, and Ilan Pappé.
The declaration echoes the message on a placard held by Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg when she was arrested last month in London protesting the imprisonment of people accused of being part of Palestine Action after the nonviolent direct action group was officially declared a terrorist organization in July by the UK government.
Since then, more than 2,000 people have been arrested for supporting Palestine Action, often while simply holding signs. Eight accused Palestine Action activists are awaiting trial for allegedly breaking into and damaging a British military base and a facility run by Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems. The defendants are facing at least 18 months behind bars before trial.
On November 2, a small group of imprisoned activists launched a hunger strike. Three people—Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed, and Lewie Chiaramello—are still striking, despite imminent danger of death.
“She’s dying. She said it: ‘I’m dying,’” Francesca Nadin said of her friend Muraisi—who is on the 71st day of her strike—during a Monday interview with the Guardian.
Nadin said that the 31-year-old’s body is “shutting down.”
“I know mentally she’ll remain strong right to the last moment but she is dying,” she added. “The government, by putting her in prison and denying her all her rights, they’re not just letting her die, they’re actively killing her.”
Ahmed, 28, has been refusing food for 64 days. Doctors have informed him that his heart muscles are shrinking and he is at risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
“He’s skinny. I describe him a bit like a piece of paper,” Shahmina Alam, Ahmed’s sister, toldAl Jazeera last week. “It feels like now every time you see him, it could be the last.”
Chiaramello, 22, has Type 1 diabetes and has been fasting every other day for 44 days.
A fourth person, Umar Khalid, has reportedly resumed his strike following a 13-day pause.
Despite her dire condition, Muraisi is “intent on carrying on until the demands are met,” according to friend Amareen Afzal.
The strikers are demanding immediate bail, an end to censorship of their communications, a fair trial, lifting of the ban on Palestine Action, and closure of Elbit Systems’ UK facilities.
“The hunger strikers’ demands seem reasonable to me,” Monbiot wrote last week. “All these things, I believe, should be happening anyway. And they are of course negotiating positions. Whether all would need to be met for the strike to end cannot be known until the government engages. Its refusal to talk could condemn the strikers to death.”
Standing in stark contrast with the US military’s torturous force-feeding of hunger striking Guantánamo Bay prisoners during the Obama administration, the UK follows recommendations in the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Malta, which advises doctors not to force-feed prisoners who choose to hunger strike and understand the consequences of their actions.
“Forcible feeding is never ethically acceptable,” the declaration states.
In 1981, UK authorities allowed 10 imprisoned Irish Republican Army members, including former Member of Parliament Bobby Sands, to starve themselves to death in Northern Ireland. Their deaths occurred after between 46 and 73 days of refusing food.
A group of former hunger strikers from Palestine, Ireland, and Guantánamo on Sunday issued an urgent appeal to the UK government to save the Palestine Action strikers’ lives, and condemning the terrorist designation.
Critics said that the government would be to blame should any of the hunger strikers die.
“The UK is now perilously close to full descent into authoritarian rule,” said professor Peter Hallward, who signed the intellectuals’ declaration. “Ministers won’t even meet with hunger strikers, who are now at death’s door.”
Hallward added that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood “seem perfectly ready to let this country’s most committed and courageous opponents of an ongoing genocide waste away and die.”
Israel’s US-backed war and siege on Gaza following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza and most of the coastal strip in ruins. Around 2 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the current cease-fire took effect three months ago. Israeli authorities are still blocking or strictly limiting the entry of critical supplies into Gaza, where 2-month-old infant Mohammed Abu Harbid over the weekend became at least the fourth Palestinian baby to freeze to death since November.
More than a dozen Palestinians—including at least five children—have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza in recent days.
On Monday, a court in Edinburgh held a hearing on a petition filed by human rights campaigner and former diplomat Craig Murray seeking to lift the ban on Palestine Action in Scotland, whose judiciary is independent from the rest of the UK.
“The impact of proscription of Palestine Action has been appalling,” attorney Joanna Cherry told the court. “Scores of peaceful people of entirely good character have been arrested under the absurd pretence of terrorism.”
“We are dealing with human rights and liberties—some of the most fundamental in our society,” Cherry added. “If people don’t have the right to express their views and assemble to express their views, they can’t really take part in civil society properly and adequately. It’s hard to imagine a more urgent situation.”
"No nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits, or less dignity for doing lifesaving work," said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
By Brad Reed
Thousands of nurses are hitting the picket lines in what will be the largest nurses strike in the history of New York City.
The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) on Monday announced that nearly 15,000 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian are going on strike after “greedy hospital management at these wealthy private hospitals have given frontline nurses no other choice.”
The NYSNA posted a long list of sticking points on contract negotiations, including “safe staffing for our patients, protections from workplace violence, and healthcare for frontline nurses.”
NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said that any patients in need of care at these hospitals should enter them, emphasizing that “going into the hospital to get the care you need is not crossing our strike line.” She also encouraged patients to join the picket line with the nurses after receiving care.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke out in solidarity with the striking nurses, while also emphasizing the importance of “ensuring New Yorkers have the care they need... especially during flu season.”
“No New Yorker should have to fear losing access to healthcare,” Mamdani wrote in a social media post. “And no nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits, or less dignity for doing lifesaving work. Our nurses have kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also expressed support for the striking nurses, while denouncing “NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore, and Mount Sinai hospitals for being willing to spend millions on replacement nurses rather than bargain for a fair contract.”
The NYSNA also got a boost from 1199SEIU, which is the largest union of healthcare workers in New York.
“At this time of unprecedented cuts to Medicaid and other healthcare programs by Republican leaders in Washington, DC healthcare workers should not bear the brunt of funding shortfalls,” said 1199SEIU president Yvonne Armstrong. “More than ever, we need stability in our healthcare system, which means investing in the type of good healthcare jobs which are fundamental to the wellbeing of caregivers and the communities they serve.”
Armstrong also called on the hospitals to “bargain in good faith with NYSNA, refrain from committing unfair labor practices, and sign fair contracts that honor nurses’ contributions.”
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