The Prime Minister of the Jewish state is committing war crimes. To say that holding him accountable for that is in some way a personal attack on American Jewish identity says deeply troubling things about American Jewish identity. If that makes me less safe, he should stop doing war crimes.

Tomorrow, the House will vote on the NDAA, which includes a provision to merge parts of our military with the IDF. This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy. Every member of Congress must vote NO.

there is a cohort of men who resent the responsibilities and obligations of adulthood — of the fact that you owe things to other people. it is a fundamentally childish impulse that they have reconfigured as the height of masculinity, and i think it informs the parasocial attraction to platner.

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 4w ago

what a fucking asshole

Protesters cheer and ICE agents silently look on while detainees at Delaney Hall flash the lights inside the facility.

I know things feel helpless in the United States. But they are not. Orbán was in power for sixteen consecutive years. He was the spoke at the center of the global far-right. He built the network, wrote the playbook, modeled competitive authoritarianism. His long reign seemed a sure thing.

Imagine an electoral campaign like this in Russia today. You can’t. Too many have died under mysterious circumstances or rotted in prison. No one is left to push back against Putin without extraordinary risk. Hungary is a reminder it's critical to contest power forcefully while you still can.

After sixteen years in power, his loss is a searing rebuke for the global far-right and a warning to leaders from Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi to Donald Trump that Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” isn’t the magical system hack they hoped it was.

everything we are seeing now is the consequence of having a political environment in which indifference to the deaths and suffering of other people - even by the state whose supposed responsibility is to safeguard their welfare - is a superpower rather than a political liability

Tucker Carlson is very good at what he does. It is what makes him so dangerous. As long as Dems and centrist & liberal public figures continue running cover for genocide & apartheid, the more effective and powerful Tucker will become.

They are torturing and killing people in our concentration camps, and I wish more people were actively bothered by that

AOC: We already have multiple American service members who are dead for an illegal action that the president has pursued with no plan out. They don’t know why they got into this war. They’re talking about a hundred different reasons, and they don’t know how they’re getting out.

extraordinary night for state progressives in North Carolina via boltsmag.org/whats-on-the...

ALL 4 Democratic lawmakers in NC who sided with the GOP to overturn vetoes of major bills have lost their primaries to progressive challengers. It is indeed a major night for NC.

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · 5mo ago

NOT JUST THIS: Two other Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina who sided with the GOP to overturn vetoes of major bills (e.g. anti-trans legislation) are also losing in their primaries so far to progressive challengers. This could be a major night in NC.

Israel simply does not have the power to force the US government to do something it does not want to do. What Rubio is doing here, by claiming Israel forced the US hand, is making Israel the scapegoat for a US policy he knows is unpopular. This framing is going to be so bad for Diaspora Jews.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I don't for a moment think Israel manipulated the US government into doing something it didn't want to do on its own anyway - but wow is this official messaging from the White House not going to tamp down the conspiracies.

The fact that Lockheed Martin’s stock rose since Feb 27th shows us that private companies trading weapons, mercenaries, airplanes etc are all increasing their profit margins as people from Sudan to Iran to Congo to Palestine are being murdered. Lockheed Martin is implicated in all four places.

Obviously, Israel is taking part in this attack, and that should be condemned as much as the US role. But if you’re saying that Israel is really driving it and the US is a helpless puppet, then please, learn a tiny bit of US history.

Matthew Borus@matthewborus.bsky.social · 5mo ago

People are actually saying Israel is behind this war, and the baby-brained historical ignorance is astounding. The US has wanted to topple Iran since 1979. Remember the Axis of Evil? John McCain singing "Bomb Iran"? Trump's own fury at Obama's Iran deal? Stop making excuses for Trump and the US.

The fact that the Union for Reform Judaism feels the need to support this illegal war just because the Israeli government supports it - even though the Israeli government openly disdains Reform Jews in return - is part of why institutional American Judaism is in crisis.

Union for Reform Judaism@reformjudaism.bsky.social · 5mo ago

On this Shabbat, we pray for the Americans, Israelis and all innocent civilians throughout the region who are in harm’s way, and for the brave Israeli and American service members risking their lives in pursuit of a more peaceful future—for the people of Iran and for the entire Middle East.

I promise you that the government that murdered Alex Pretti and Renee Good does not give a flying fuck about the protests in Iran.

New polling suggests American Jews don’t know what the word “Zionism” means. Should it change the way the Jewish left organizes? Arielle Angel speaks with Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari, @dovekent.bsky.social, and @fadiqu.bsky.social on the JC podcast. jewishcurrents.org/whos-afraid-...

The contrast between the complete cowardice of our civic institutions in the face of creeping authoritarianism, compared to the bravery and fortitude of ordinary citizens, is so glaring.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 6mo ago

More than 34,000 Minnesotans signed up to be trained as ICED observers with various activist groups in recent weeks, many of them since Jan. 7, when a federal agent shot and killed Renée Good.

The nazis redistributed the stolen property of deported Jews to the German population. It was called Aryanization. This is no different. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryaniz...

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6mo ago

straight up Gestapo shit

4 Black journalists have been kidnapped by the federal government

This isn’t about convicting Don Lemon. It’s unlikely that will happen. It’s about intimidating journalists & making them censure themselves out of fear of consequences. It’s about eroding the free press because the administration can’t afford the criticism.

Brian Stelter@brianstelter.bsky.social · 6mo ago

This just in: "Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents last night in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards," Lemon's attorney Abbe Lowell says.

CAN WE ALL CAPS THIS "A chronic mistake organizers make is basically organizing people around their lack of agency."

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 6mo ago

A discussion about why Minnesota was so ready to reject ICE/CBP: "Number one is the rigorous focus on agency-oriented organizing practice, a north star of building multiracial, democratic governing power. We have a majoritarian orientation — we want progressive and popular power."

People talk about who has citizenship and who does not as though these are absolute, ontological qualities that confer moral worth, as opposed to legal fictions invented by the state to distinguish between an in-group and an out-group, and can be conferred or withdrawn at any time.

Anne Frank is culturally coded today as "innocent victim" because we beat the Nazis, so we back-project modern concepts of stable citizenship onto her to maintain our cultural view of her as innocent. If we beat ICE, maybe 80 years from now, we will look back similarly on ICE victims today.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 6mo ago

It is literally false that the Jews being hunted by Nazis were citizens, because the first step toward genocide was stripping them of citizenship and making them stateless. As Arendt reminds us, citizenship is a legal category created to facilitate a machinery of exclusion of the out-group.

For example, a reform that restricts ICE’s ability to interact with the public in specific ways takes power away. Body cams, on the other hand, are an expensive non-solution that increases mass surveillance of the public. “Police reform” has proven they don’t stop shootings.

www.cnn.com/videos/us/20...

‘They killed her little by little’: Parents speak out after daughter died in border patrol custody | CNN

CNN’s Rosa Flores speaks to the parents of the 8-year-old who died in the custody of US immigration authorities in Texas in May, 2023 after the family made repeated requests for medial care for the gi...

cnn.com

These ICE killings are "the blueprint for how NSPM-7 will be enforced against community members and rapid responders". This order can "retroactively justify the extrajudicial killing of a community rapid responder by a federal agent [in] the worst-case scenario long feared by frontline responders."

Renee Good’s Extrajudicial Killing Escalated the Normalization of State Terror

What happens next will determine whether Good’s killing sets a precedent for more state violence.

truthout.org

"The lies this administration is telling... aren't those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They're those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything." When they raise the cost of unity, its on us to raise the solidarity.

Asha Rangappa@asharangappa.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Solidarity, particularly across race and class, is Kryptonite for authoritarian regimes. They can only thrive when their us v. them framing is adopted by society at large, and they join as active or passive collaborators with the regime. So the only response they have is to raise the cost of unity