TRUMP THE RAPIST PAYS UP

Trump could be on the hook for $240 million in E. Jean Carroll damages: expert

Tom Boggioni
January 26, 2024 

Donald Trump frowning (Mandel Ngan:AFP)

Right after lawyers on both sides delivered closing arguments in the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial taking place in a Manhattan courtroom, CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen explained that Donald Trump could be ordered to pay over a quarter of a billion dollars in total damages.

Speaking with hosts Boris Sanchez and Briana Keilar, Eisen pointed out that Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan asked for compensatory damages of "up to $24 million," but that is not where it ends.

Pressed by the hosts about punitive damages that likely will be tacked on, Eisen said it was beyond the realm of possibilities that the jury would come back with a number in the billions, but there is a rule of thumb when it comes to "multipliers" used based on the compensatory amount.

And it could be very bad news for the former president.

ALSO READ: Behold: Donald Trump the chosen son — and religious con

"Damages are calculated into categories," he began. "There are compensatory damages, and we've just seen a request to make Carroll whole, things like hiring consultants, having a campaign to repair her reputation, the pain and suffering that she has endured: that's 24 million."

"Then to send lesson when a defendant is found to have acted with bad intent or malice, that he wanted to hurt E. Jean Carroll, you multiply that compensatory damages number by an X-factor," he continued.

"The factor can be quite high but there is a limit, they couldn't order billions in damages. Normally, the upper ceiling is about ten times compensatory. So, you could be looking here, if there is a true home run, and the proof is coming powerfully, the argument has been strong, and Trump wasn't allowed to speak. You could be looking at a multiple many times of $24 million. And that would send a message."

Watch below or at the link.

 

E. Jean Carroll's lawyer puts Trump on notice about a new potential lawsuit

M.L. Nestel
January 26, 2024 

Barry Willilams/New York Daily News/TNS

Trump's accuser hit him where it hurts — his bottom line.

Roberta Kaplan, attorney for E. Jean Carroll, believes money may talk, but it also silences.

"All he really understands is money and so you should award an amount of money that should make him stop," she said

Carroll, 80, won an $83.3 million jury verdict, proving in court that she suffered ridiculing in public again and again by former President Donald Trump, 77, years after coming forward to attest to being sexually assaulted inside of a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room back in the 1990s.

There is still a pause for Kaplan on whether the hit to his pocketbook will work as a kind of money muzzle. But she specifically didn't rule out future litigation against Trump.

Trump notably nixed Carroll's name when he responded to the steep sum imposed by the jury inside of the Manhattan federal courtroom on Friday.

"Absolutely ridiculous," he wrote in a post on Truth Social, vowing to contest it. "I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party."

Kaplan believes Trump did himself zero favors when he and his entourage stood up and stormed out of the courtroom while she was offering her closing arguments.

Kaplan was in the process of telling the jury that the 45th president had the gall to call Carroll's sexual abuse allegations against him a "con job."

"I think it hurt him terribly," she said. "Our whole case is about the fact Donald Trump is unable to follow the law, unable to follow the rules. He thinks they don't apply to him."

And she said Trump's cruelest thing Trump did to Carroll beyond the physical attack, was his effort to repeatedly cut her down in public as being a "liar" and a "whack job.

"And as bad as what he did to E. Jean Carroll was and the sexual assault was terrible and as horrifying as the defamation was back in 2019 — the most amazing shocking part of it all is he kept on doing it, and he kept on doing it even during the trial."

She added: "What other person thinks they can openly break the law over and over again? Donald Trump."

Trump’s Brownshirts: How violence has become inherent to Trumpian politics

Robert Reich
January 22, 2024 

I apologize for the length of this letter, but the subject warrants it. Donald Trump has galvanized an army of vigilantes who are casting a fearsome shadow overthe 2024 election. Please spread the word.

It’s impossible to know how large this potential army is, but last October, 41 percent of pro-Trump Americans agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” (That view was shared by 22 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats.)

THE DAY AFTER MAINE SECRETARY OF STATE SHENNA BELLOWS barred Trump from the primary ballot there in late December, her home was “swatted.” As Bellows explained, “That’s when someone calls in a fake emergency to evoke a strong law enforcement response to scare the target. Swatting incidents have resulted in casualties although thankfully this one did not.”

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Along with the swatting, Bellows discussed “extraordinarily dehumanizing fake images” of her online:
“I know from my previous work that dehumanizing a person is the first step in paving the way for attacks and violence against them. These dehumanizing images and threatening communications directed at me and people I love are dangerous. We should be able to agree to disagree on important issues without threats and violence.”

Colorado Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold has also faced mounting threats since the Colorado Supreme Court in December disqualified Trump from the state’s primary ballot.

“Within three weeks of the lawsuit being filed, I received 64 death threats,” Griswold said. “I stopped counting after that. I will not be intimidated. Democracy and peace will triumph over tyranny and violence.”

Jack Smith, the special counsel in charge of two federal prosecutions of Trump, has received a number of death threats. Between April and September of last year, the Justice Department spent more than $4.4 million providing security for Smith and his team. On Christmas Day, he was swatted.

On August 4, Trump posted, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” The following day, a Texas woman left a voicemail for Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge presiding over the case charging Trump with seeking to overturn the 2020 election, threatening that “If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you.”

Security has been increased for Judge Chutkan, as well. On January 7, she was swatted.

On August 6, two days after Trump’s post, a man left a voicemail threatening the lives of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Sheriff Patrick Labat for their roles in the Georgia criminal election interference case against Trump.

Trump has also encouraged people to “go after” New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump is using the threat of violence to intimidate America as a whole. He recently warned of “bedlam in the country” if he’s disqualified from the ballot.

When asked recently if he would discourage his followers from violence, Trump simply refused to answer.

IN THE WEEKS BEFORE THE 2020 ELECTION, Trump operative and confidant Roger Stone can be heard on an audio recording telling Trump security agent Sal Greco: “Either [Congressman Eric] Swalwell or [Congressman Jerry] Nadler has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”

Stone was the liaison between the Trump campaign and the Proud Boys, which, according to the Justice Department, “played a central role in setting the January 6 attack on our Capitol into motion.” The House Select Committee investigating the attack found that in the months leading up to it, Stone regularly communicated with Proud Boys members, including their leader, Enrique Tarrio.

In September, Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison on charges related to the attack. (In July 2020, Trump issued Stone a blanket pardon.)

As of December, roughly 1,240 people have been arrested in connection with the attack. Some 170 have been convicted at trial, and 710 have pleaded guilty. So far, more than 720 have received prison sentences, ranging from a handful of days to more than 20 years.

Many have sought to defend themselves by saying they were doing what Trump asked them to do. On that fateful day, Trump told the crowd he had summoned to Washington that:
We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore … We will stop the steal … Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back … You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong … We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Afterward, the crowd stormed the Capitol.

THERE IS A DIRECT AND ALARMING CONNECTION between Trump’s political rise and and the increase in political violence and threats of such violence in America.

In 2016, the Capitol Police recorded fewer than 900 threats against members of Congress. In 2017, after Trump took office, that figure more than quadrupled, according to the Capitol Police.

The numbers continued to rise every year of the Trump presidency, peaking at 9,700 in 2021. In 2022, the first full year of Biden’s term, the numbers declined to a still-high 7,500. (The 2023 data is not yet available.)

Data also shows extraordinarily high levels of threats against mayors, federal judges, election workers and administrators, public health officials, and even school board members.

The threats have clearly intimidated some Republican lawmakers.

Retiring Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah hired personal security for himself and his family at a cost of $5,000 a day to guard against threats on their lives after he voted to remove Trump from office for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Romney recounts (in McKay Coppins’s biography of him) that during Trump’s impeachment, a member of the Republican Senate leadership was leaning toward voting to convict Trump. But after several other senators expressed concern about their personal safety and that of their children, the senator in question voted to acquit.

Former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney said that in that impeachment vote, “there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives.” She cited how “members of Congress aren’t able to cast votes, or feel that they can’t, because of their own security.”

Just before the House vote on impeachment, Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado said he heard firsthand from Republicans that fear was holding at least two of them back. “I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues last night, and a couple of them broke down in tears — saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment,” Crow said on MSNBC.

Former Rep. Peter Meijer, a Republican from Michigan, recalls one of his House colleagues voting to overturn the election results on the evening of January 6, hours after the assault: “My colleague feared for family members, and the danger the vote would put them in.” After voting to impeach Trump, Meijer himself faced so many threats that he felt the need to purchase body armor and make changes to his daily schedule.

Meijer also noted that his colleagues who voted not to certify the 2020 election “knew in their heart of hearts that they should’ve voted to certify, but some had legitimate concerns about the safety of their families. They felt that that vote would put their families in danger.”

When announcing his retirement, former Republican congressman Anthony Gonzalez cited threats to him and his family after his vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment. Gonzalez was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. In September 2021, Gonzalez announced he would not seek another term.

The Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania state Senate explained why she signed a letter backing Trump’s attempt to overturn the results in that state: “If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’ I’d get my house bombed tonight.”

POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS AN INHERENT PART OF FASCISM. Hitler’s SA — the letters stood for Sturmabteilung or “Storm Section,” also known as the Stormtroopers or Brownshirts — were vigilantes who did the Nazis’ dirty work before the Nazis took total power.

During the German presidential elections in March and April 1932, Brownshirts assembled Alarmbereitschaften, or “emergency squads,” to intimidate voters.

On the night of the Reichstag election of July 31, 1932, Brownshirts launched a wave of violence across much of northern and eastern Germany with murders and attempted murders of local officials and communist politicians and arson attacks on local Social Democratic headquarters and the offices of liberal newspapers.

When five Brownshirts were sentenced to death for the murders, Hitler called the sentences “a most outrageous blood verdict” and publicly promised the prisoners that “from now on, your freedom is a question of honor for all of us, and to fight against the government which made possible such a verdict is our duty.”

A chilling echo of these words can be found in one of Trump’s recent speeches in Iowa, in which he claimed that his supporters had acted “peacefully and patriotically” on January 6, 2021. “Some people call them prisoners,” he said of those who were serving sentences for their violence. “I call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages, Joe [Biden]. Release them, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe.”

As I’ve said before, America is not the Weimar Republic on the eve of 1933, and Trump is not Hitler. But it is important to understand the parallels.

That Donald Trump still has not been held accountable for encouraging the attack on the U.S. Capitol, or for provoking his followers with his blatant lie that the 2020 election was stolen, continues to galvanize an army of potentially violent Americans.

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

‘Donald Trump is a scab,’ says UAW president Shawn Fain

BY LAUREN IRWIN - 01/24/24 

United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain slammed former President Trump in a Wednesday speech announcing the union’s endorsement of President Biden, calling the Republican front-runner “a scab.”

“Donald Trump is a scab,” Fain said, prompting applause from union members. “Donald Trump is a billionaire and that is who he represents. If Donald Trump ever worked in an auto plant, he wouldn’t be a UAW member, he would be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker.”

“Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a union, as a society,” Fain continued. “When you go back to our core issues, wages, retirement, health care and our time, that’s what this election is about.”

Fain announced the union’s support for Biden at a conference in Washington, D.C., as he introduced the president to deliver remarks. He cited Biden’s solidarity with the UAW during its recent strike against major automakers.

“This election is about who will stand up with us and who will stand in our way,” Fain said of a likely 2020 presidential rematch between Biden and Trump.

“Those are the questions that will win or lose this election and will decide our fate,” he said. “Those are the questions that will determine the future of our country and the fate of the working class.”

In his announcement, Fain pointed to several examples dating back to the 2007-08 recession in which Biden stood with autoworkers. He also slammed Trump’s criticisms of the union.

The UAW previously withheld its endorsement from Biden despite historically supporting Democratic candidates and previously endorsing him in 2020. Fain had voiced concerns about the Biden administration in the past over its policies regarding electric vehicles.

Biden joined UAW workers on the picket line after they walked out on the three major U.S. automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — last fall. He has dubbed himself the “most pro-union president” in history.

In September, Trump skipped out on the second GOP primary debate and instead joined the striking autoworkers in Detroit in hopes of appealing to union workers, who are critical to Biden’s voting base.

United Auto Workers endorse Biden; union president calls Trump a 'scab'

"Who do we want in that office to give us the best shot of winning?"

By Alexandra Hutzler

ABC
January 24, 2024

Biden joins UAW president on picket line

"Companies are doing incredibly well and you should be doing incredibly well too," President Joe Biden...

President Joe Biden received a key 2024 endorsement on Wednesday from the United Auto Workers, with the union's president using the occasion to savage Biden's likely general election opponent, Donald Trump.

Shawn Fain announced UAW's support for Biden's reelection bid at their biannual conference in Washington, D.C.

"I know there's some people that want to ignore this election," Fain said. "They don't want to have anything to do with politics. Other people want to argue endlessly about the latest headline or scandal or stupid quote. Elections aren't about just taking your best friend for the job or the candidate who makes you feel good. Elections are about power."

The backing of the Michigan-based UAW, with more than 400,000 members, could give Biden an edge in a key battleground state that has helped determine the last two political elections. He won Michigan by about 150,000 votes in 2020; Trump won it by about 10,000 votes four years earlier.

Biden also won the group’s endorsement in 2020, and it backed Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016.

But Trump was successful in battlegrounds like Michigan and Ohio in that election cycle in part because of his ability to attract more union support than past GOP candidates: The UAW said at the time it believed one in four of its members likely voted for Trump based on surveys.

"The question is, who do we want in that office to give us the best shot of winning?" Fain said on Wednesday. "Who gives us the best shot of organizing? Who gives us the best shot of negotiating strong contracts? Who gives us the best shot of uniting the working class and winning our fair share once again?"

Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, speaks at the United Auto Workers conference 
Bloomberg via Getty Images

Biden, who has increasingly been gearing in public to face Trump in the general election, also delivered remarks. He thanked the union for its support and praised members for inspiring the labor movement with its strike last year against the Big Three auto makers.

"Let me just say, I'm honored to have your back and you have mine, that's the deal," Biden said. "It comes down to seeing the world the same way, it's not complicated."

Fain cast the 2024 race as a choice between Biden and Trump and didn't mince words in his criticism of the former president. He specifically took issue with Trump's handling of the union's 2019 strike, arguing that Trump didn't do a "damn thing" while UAW members confronted General Motors at plants across the U.S.

"Donald Trump is a scab," Fain said. "Donald Trump is a billionaire, and that's who he represents. If Donald Trump ever worked in auto plant, he wouldn't be a UAW member -- he'd be a company man trying to squeeze the American worker."

Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Fain's remarks, though Trump has previously dismissed Biden's record on unions

MORE: Biden and Trump focus on wooing union workers, underlining their swing state power: Experts




Last year, Biden joined UAW members striking in Michigan against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis on the picket line in a historic show of support for workers amid their contract negotiations with the auto giants for better wages and conditions.

"If our endorsements must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it," Fain said on Wednesday.

Biden, who has touted himself as the most "pro-union" president, told members that union workers are central to his economic vision to build the economy from the middle out and bottom up.

"Together, we're proving what I've always believed," Biden said. "Wall Street didn't build America, the middle class built America and unions built the middle class."

He continued, "As long as I’m president, the working people are gonna get their fair share. ... You deserve it."

President Joe Biden speaks during a United Auto Workers' political convention in Washington D.C., Jan. 24, 2024.
Alex Brandon/AP

Trump, too, visited Michigan last September just a day after Biden to try to woo auto workers and union members. He delivered a speech at a non-unionized plant.

In that speech, Trump repeated his pitch for economic nationalism, calling himself the only candidate who wants to protect American labor -- which was a key pledge in his previous campaigns.

He also attacked Biden for the federal government's environmental regulation push on tailpipe pollution, which would encourage more electric vehicle manufacturing -- while also raising the concerns of auto workers like those in the UAW. Biden has said he wants to invest in the auto industry to spur more electric vehicle use to address climate change.

Trump took a darker view.

"You're all on picket lines and everything, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference what you get because in two years -- you're all going to be out of business," he said in September. "You're not getting anything. What they're doing to the auto industry in Michigan and throughout the country is absolutely horrible and ridiculous."

ABC News' Lalee Ibssa and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.

French court scraps large parts of hardline immigration law as unconstitutional

Agence France-Presse
January 25, 2024

The entrance of France’s Conseil Constitutionnel in Paris. Photo taken on January 22, 2024. © Stéphane de Sakutin, AFP

France’s highest constitutional authority on Thursday rejected more than a third of the articles in a contentious immigration bill adopted under pressure from the right and far right.

The Constitutional Council ruling notably rejected measures in the bill toughening access to social benefits and family reunification, as well as the introduction of immigration quotas set by parliament.

It upheld much of the bill initially presented by President Emmanuel Macron’s government, but censured contentious additions made under pressure from the right and far right.

Among the measures rejected were those making it harder for immigrants to bring their families to France, and limiting their access to social welfare. The bill also strengthens France’s ability to deport foreigners considered undesirable.

Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin hailed the ruling.

“The Constitutional Council has approved all the government’s text,” he wrote on X, formally Twitter.

But Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, criticised what he said was a “coup by the judges, with the backing of the president”.

He called for a referendum on immigration as the “only solution”.

Despite the court dismissing the more hardline amendments, they could still be accepted at a later stage as part of different legislation.

Macron's 'gift' to the far right

Groups who see the law as contrary to French values — and as a gift to the increasingly influential far right — protested ahead of the ruling outside the Constitutional Council across from the Louvre Museum in central Paris. Other protests were also planned, and Paris police deployed special security measures for the day.

The demonstrators accused the government of caving into pressure from Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party to get the law through parliament. About 75,000 people protested across France on Sunday over the legislation, urging Macron not to sign it into law.

The dispute comes amid tensions across Europe around migration and as anti-immigration parties on the far right are rising in popularity ahead of European Parliament elections in June.

Macron has moved increasingly to the right, notably on security and immigration issues, since rising to office on a pro-business, centrist platform.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)

After SCOTUS Rejected His Final Appeal, Alabama Executes Man With Nitrogen Gas

“Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backwards,” Kenneth Smith said in his final statement.

By Jake Johnson , 

COMMONDREAMS

January 26, 2024

A protester holds a sign that reads "Execute Justice Not People!" as he participates in a vigil against the death penalty in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2021, in Washington, D.C.ALEX WONG / GETTY IMAGES


Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.

Alabama on Thursday night became the first U.S. state to execute a person using nitrogen gas, killing 58-year-old Kenneth Smith by depriving his body of oxygen after the nation’s Supreme Court rejected his legal team’s last-ditch appeal.

The state’s notoriously incompetent executioners, who tried and failed to kill Smith via lethal injection in 2022, strapped the condemned man to a gurney and administered the nitrogen gas through a full-face mask. Smith was pronounced dead shortly before 8:30 pm after around four minutes of convulsions.

“Tonight, Alabama caused humanity to take a step backwards,” Smith said in his final statement. “I’m leaving with love, peace, and light. Thank you for supporting me, love all of you.”

Smith was first convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett in 1988, a crime committed when he was 22 years old. That conviction was overturned, but he was convicted again seven years later, with the jury recommending a life sentence.

An Alabama judge, N. Pride Tompkins, then did something that used to be relatively common in the state but was banned in 2017: He overrode the jury, sentencing Smith to death.

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Alabama’s decision to kill Smith by flooding his lungs with nitrogen — a method that veterinarians consider unethical for euthanizing animals — drew global condemnation, with United Nations experts warning the execution would likely violate both U.S. and international laws against torture.

“I deeply regret the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama despite serious concerns this novel and untested method of suffocation by nitrogen gas may amount to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement.

“The death penalty is inconsistent with the fundamental right to life,” he continued. “I urge all states to put in place a moratorium on its use, as a step towards universal abolition.”

Earlier this week, Alabama residents gathered outside the state’s Capitol building in Montgomery to protest the planned execution of Smith. One demonstrator held a sign that read, “Say no to the gas chamber!”

Capital punishment has been declining in popularity in the U.S. for decades, but states like Alabama and Oklahoma have continued executing inmates even as pharmaceutical companies and equipment manufacturers have made it increasingly difficult to obtain materials necessary for lethal injections. The Trump administration worked for years to build a “secret supply chain” for lethal-injection drugs before its 2020 execution spree.

Three U.S. Supreme Court justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan — dissented from the decision to reject the final attempt to halt Smith’s execution.

“Smith is the first person in this country ever to be executed this way,” Sotomayor wrote. “The details are hazy because Alabama released its heavily redacted protocol under five months ago. What Smith knows is that he will be strapped to a gurney. He will wear a nitrogen-supplying, off-the-rack mask for which the state has not fitted him or even tried on him.”

“Having failed to kill Smith on its first attempt, Alabama has selected him as its ‘guinea pig’ to test a method of execution never attempted before,” the justice added. “The world is watching. This court yet again permits Alabama to ‘experiment… with a human life,’ while depriving Smith of ‘meaningful discovery’ on meritorious constitutional claims.”

President Joe Biden vowed to work toward abolition of the death penalty at the federal level during his 2020 campaign, but advocates say he has done virtually nothing to fulfill that pledge. The Biden Justice Department has continued to seek the death penalty in select cases and fight efforts to reverse death sentences.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), the lead House sponsor of legislation that would end the federal death penalty, called Smith’s execution “absolutely unconscionable.”

“We must work to abolish the death penalty and end this cruel and inhumane punishment,” Pressley wrote on social media.

I Refuse to Endorse Zionism, So I Am Resigning From My Leadership Position

I have experienced unrelenting pressure from Florida Atlantic University to disavow my anti-Zionist ethical commitments.

By Nicole Erin Morse , 

TRUTHOUT

January 25, 2024

Nicole Morse speaks on behalf of Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida at a march organized by the South Florida Coalition for Palestine on November 11, 2023, in South Beach, Miami.  GLORY JONES

Today, I submitted my resignation as director of the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Although it might at first appear that this choice was driven by the ever-intensifying political attacks against gender studies in Florida, these attacks are precisely why I would have wanted to remain as director. As a genderqueer scholar, I have been deeply committed to defending the center and advocating for the value of our research and teaching. However, I am also an anti-Zionist Jewish scholar, and since October 7, I have experienced unrelenting pressure from the university to disavow my religious practice, my religious community and my ethical commitments.

On January 16, FAU administrators made it explicitly clear to me that to be a leader at the university, I must support Israel. I have chosen to resign from the directorship in order to speak out about what I have experienced, and to add my experience to the hundreds of stories of academics and cultural workers who are being targeted in order to silence criticism of the state of Israel amid its genocidal campaign in Gaza.
One of Many Anti-Zionist Jews

Growing up as a third-generation American Jew, I learned about the Shoah and I was taught that Jews have responded to our experience of genocide by understanding that resisting oppression is an ethical and a religious imperative. Although I also grew up immersed in hasbara (Israeli state propaganda), my parents’ values and my commitment to justice led me to the conviction that an ethnonationalist state built on ethnic cleansing, occupation/siege and apartheid is fundamentally contrary to Judaism’s values of tzedek (justice) and shalom (peace).

This is a perspective that is shared by many Jews, whether religious or secular. In fact, until World War II, anti-Zionism was quite common among world Jewry. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the International Jewish Labor Bund rejected Zionism in favor of internationalism, diasporism and socialist solidarity. In response to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the only Jewish member of the British Parliament, Edwin Montagu, described the declaration’s Zionist position as antisemitic.

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In the 21st century, anti-Zionist Jews include everyone from ultra-orthodox groups like Satmar Hasidim and Neturei Karta, to Jews organizing for social justice with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), to my home synagogue, Tzedek Chicago. For many Jews worldwide, anti-Zionism is a principled political commitment and an important part of our religious identity and religious practice. 

Prejudice and Repression in the Academy

FAU, however, has deep ties to the state of Israel and any hint of anti-Zionism is swiftly silenced. These dynamics are longstanding and predate October 7. In September 2023, I was pressured by FAU administration not to serve as the faculty adviser for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) because, like myself, some members of the group are committed to the democratic principle of “one person, one vote” in Israel/Palestine. During one meeting, I was told by a horrified administrator that democracy in the region “would mean an Arab majority.” The implication was that racialized people are dangerous, untrustworthy and incapable of participating in civic life, which is a longstanding colonialist trope.

After October 7, the situation at FAU rapidly became untenable for many Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students, as they faced racist harassment, eliminationist rhetoric, death threats and rape threats — all while receiving no institutional support. They were characterized by FAU leadership as violent, even implicitly as antisemitic. Some of these dynamics are chronicled in a University Press story about the repression of pro-Palestinian voices at FAU.

Simultaneously, as I participated in Jewish efforts advocating for a ceasefire (including my synagogue’s weekly Jewish Fast for Gaza and peaceful protests organized by South Florida JVP), I found myself similarly targeted and smeared as “antisemitic,” despite being an observant Jew. To be clear, anti-Zionism should never be conflated with antisemitism, whether it is a position held by Jews or non-Jews, religious or secular. But my experience is inevitably colored by my Jewishness, and by being treated as an antisemite because of my religiously informed commitment to anti-Zionism.
Harassment, Accusations and Investigations

Enquiries into my supposed “antisemitism” have focused on two incidents: my letter to the editor that was published by the Palm Beach Post on October 9, and my arrest for participating in peaceful civil disobedience at the office of Sen. Rick Scott on October 17. These are activities that occurred outside of my work hours and they are unrelated to my responsibilities at FAU. Though these actions made me a target for right-wing doxxing and harassment, they are actions that any participant in a democratic society should be able to take, and which are commonly used strategies in movements for social change.

When I ended up on Turning Point USA’s “professor watchlist,” a few colleagues quietly reached out to me, but I received no support from FAU leaders. Instead, I have endured unrelenting criticism along with intense institutional pressure to change my religious and political views and actions. I have been asked repeatedly whether I will stop participating in protests. I have been required to defend my religious beliefs and to explain how they are not antisemitic. I have been questioned repeatedly about my views on Hamas, despite the fact that I have been clear that I do not support violence against civilians. Although I am director of the Center for WGSS, I have been told not to discuss the consensus in the field, which is reflected in the many statements from the National Women’s Studies Association supporting Palestinian liberation.

As I participated in Jewish efforts advocating for a ceasefire (including my synagogue’s weekly Jewish Fast for Gaza and peaceful protests organized by South Florida JVP), I found myself … targeted and smeared as “antisemitic.”

This pressure campaign was pervasive. After members of the Zionist student organization Owls for Israel harassed me on October 9, I was warned not to put anything about the experience in writing. Although there were many eyewitnesses, including six police officers, I faced stonewalling from the police department when I attempted to report the students’ rape threats, transphobic slurs and shouts of “zonah” (prostitute). When I tried to advocate for Palestinian students facing similar harassment, I was directed into a bureaucratic maze and cautioned that reporting experiences shared with me by students who did not give me their names could constitute a policy violation. Rumors about my pending termination and stories about colleagues being questioned regarding me have circulated, creating an atmosphere of fear that appeared designed to isolate me.

When three Zionist donors claimed falsely in private emails that I was “willing to put lives at stake” through my membership in anti-Zionist organizations and congregations, and then demanded my removal from the directorship of WGSS, I received repeated requests for information about my activities as director, while being kept almost entirely in the dark about what seems to be an ongoing investigation. For months, I have been periodically called into meetings — or, more often, received information third- or fourth-hand, regarding this campaign against me. Many of these conversations have included implicit and explicit pressure to resign from my position with WGSS, including warnings that what happened to Claudine Gay could happen to me. On January 16, I was presented with the choice between taking a leave of absence or disaffiliating from my anti-Zionist congregation.

At no point has any evidence been offered suggesting that I have actually caused harm or neglected my responsibilities as director. Yet I was told that my religious beliefs are only protected as long as they don’t “harm others,” which is aligned with a pervasive pattern of treating Zionists’ feelings as more important than the material well-being of Palestinians. It seems that the university administration has accepted at face value accusations based entirely on dubious information on anti-Zionism proffered by the controversial Anti-Defamation League, which (as pointed out by a coalition of social justice groups) “has a history and ongoing pattern of attacking social justice movements led by communities of color, queer people, immigrants, Muslims, Arabs, and other marginalized groups, while aligning itself with police, right-wing leaders, and perpetrators of state violence.”

A Landscape of Censorship and Silencing

I am far from alone in enduring this kind of pressure. Across the country, institutions of higher education are engaged in a campaign of repression against advocacy for Palestinians while legislatures are passing laws that criminalize criticism of the state of Israel. At Columbia University, both SJP and JVP have been banned, and in Florida, attempts to ban SJP have not yet officially succeeded, but their chilling effect is palpable. In every sector, pro-Palestinian speech is being censored and punished, and Palestine Legal describes the climate of repression as “unprecedented.”

It is vital to remember that this crackdown on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience is occurring in the midst of what many experts describe as a genocide. As of January 22, Israel has killed over 25,000 people in Palestine, including over 10,000 children, over 100 journalists and over 300 medical professionals. Genocide targets culture as well as people, and Israel has damaged or destroyed more than 100 cultural sites as well as every university in Gaza. Amid my horror and heartbreak, I feel more strongly than ever that anti-Zionist Judaism is a necessary part of the collective effort to build a better world. For my part, resigning gives me the opportunity to speak out and continue to work toward justice and freedom for all, from the river to the sea. As Rabbi Hillel famously said, when describing the ethical imperative to act in the face of injustice, “If not now, when?”


NICOLE ERIN MORSE is a scholar of queer and trans media production and a community organizer in South Florida with Jewish Voice for Peace and the Community Hotline for Incarcerated People. They have published original research in Jump Cut, Collateral, and elsewhere, and their book Selfie Aesthetics: Seeing Trans Feminist Futures in Self-Representational Art is available through Duke University Press.

DOE Investigations of Campus “Antisemitism” Suppress Criticism of Gaza Genocide


As Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues, Department of Education investigations are chilling dissent at US campuses.

By Arvind Dilawar , 

TRUTHOUT

January 18, 2024

NYPD officers stand guard as people gather to protest the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at Columbia University on November 20, 2023, in New York City.

MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO / GETTY IMAGES

Any honest freelance journalist will admit that rejection is simply part of the job. Every story pitch is basically a swing at bat in which the odds of striking out may be higher or lower but are always present. Sometimes the story’s been done, sometimes it’s just too weak — and sometimes it ruffles the feathers of the publisher who is under investigation by the United States Department of Education (DOE) over allegations of supposed antisemitism.

That last circumstance recently happened to me. While it may sound rare, the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights currently has dozens of such investigations, which are effectively stifling criticism of Israel at schools across the U.S.
“Label Them Anti-Semitic”

The Smart Set is an online publication covering arts and culture published by Pennoni Honors College at Drexel University. I have been contributing to The Smart Set on and off since 2019, writing about everything from growing meat in test tubes to the politics of W.E.B. Du Bois, but focusing primarily on books.

In that vein, and in light of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, my most recent story for The Smart Set was about George Orwell’s perspective on colonization — that it dehumanizes the colonizer, as well as the colonized — and how that perspective endures in journalist Sylvain Cypel’s book, The State of Israel vs. the Jews. After initial interest from The Smart Set’s managing editor, Erica Levi Zelinger, my draft was summarily rejected by the dean of Pennoni Honors College, Paula Marantz Cohen — a first, coming after more than a dozen accepted submissions. By way of explanation, Zelinger directed me to a statement by Drexel’s president regarding an ongoing investigation by the DOE into the university for reported harassment of Jewish students.

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Contacted for comment for this article, Drexel denied that there was any connection between the DOE investigation and the rejection of my story.

“[Cohen’s] feeling is not that we can’t publish a piece on the conflict, but that this piece does not present a fair and balanced view of this volatile and complex situation,” said Zelinger, who also serves as director of marketing and media for Pennoni Honors College. “As for the U.S. Department of Education’s investigation into the actions of Drexel University, that has nothing to do with our rejection of the piece and that email was shared with you merely to share a general response from Drexel University.”

Drexel’s denial aside, criticism of Israel being suppressed with allegations of “antisemitism” is so prevalent that it is, ironically, a theme of Cypel’s book: “Israel’s ideological influence has never seemed so visible,” writes Cypel. “It effectively silences its critics by threatening to label them anti-Semitic.”
“The University Tries to Suppress and Silence Us”

The episode above would be yet another mundane rejection in a career inevitably filled with them were it not a small example of a much broader trend in higher education.

“Just as young people were at the forefront of the protests against the Vietnam War and the movement to end South African apartheid, young people are once again on the right side of history in standing unequivocally for the freedom and dignity of the people of Palestine,” writes a spokesperson for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which organizes against Zionism, or Jewish nationalism, at many US universities, in an email to Truthout. “Within the Jewish community, so many young people are challenging the Zionist propaganda that they were raised with and are choosing instead to organize for collective safety and liberation.”

Anti-Zionists of all stripes, including Jews like those with JVP, are increasingly being labeled antisemitic by defenders of Israel. Since at least 2019, the DOE has been considering a definition of antisemitism that includes all criticism of Israel, although that has yet to be formalized. Nevertheless, the DOE previously tried to use such a definition to shut down organizing related to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, a movement advocating nonviolent economic opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, at Rutgers University.

Following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, the DOE appears to once again be using the veneer of antisemitism to stifle criticism of Israel, opening at least 52 investigations into alleged “discrimination involving shared ancestry” at schools nationwide. In a press release, the department describes these “Title VI” investigations as covering both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents but further suggests that the former outnumbers the latter more than two-to-one. A more in-depth review of three of the most high-profile schools — Harvard, Columbia and Cornell — also signals that, like Drexel, the respective investigations all relate specifically to alleged harassment of Jewish students.

The DOE refused to answer questions about the investigations. “The department does not comment further on pending investigations,” said Jim Bradshaw, press officer at the DOE.

Although investigations are just that — inquiries in which wrongdoing has yet to be determined — the DOE appears to already be having an impact on campuses, with everything from attempts at managing criticism of Israel to silencing it altogether in the wake of new DOE probes.

“The Zionist lobby has employed Title VI complaints as a tactic to disrupt pro-Palestinian student organizing on for many years, so the connection between DOE investigations and repression of pro-Palestinian organizing by school administrators is a well-documented phenomenon,” writes the Media and Messaging Committee of National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), that has been organizing against Israel’s occupation of Palestine since 1993, in an email to Truthout. “A recent noteworthy example: Rutgers University-New Brunswick suspended their SJP chapter the same day that the DOE announced it had launched a Title VI investigation into the school.”

In November, Columbia University beat the DOE to the punch, suspending university chapters of both JVP and SJP days before the department opened two investigations into the school. Nevertheless, the administration followed up with a panel on misinformation, discussion on “constructive conversations,” task force on antisemitism and a series of “reinvestments” in values. Students, alumni and faculty responded with open letters and demonstrations condemning the administration’s censorship and continuing to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, where at least 24,285 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, as of this writing.

“The more the university tries to suppress us and silence us, the higher we will rise and the louder we will become,” Mohsen Mahdawi, a member of SJP at Columbia, told campus newspaper Columbia Spectator.

The DOE opened its investigation into Cornell on November 16, after which the administration organized a talk on racism and interfaith dinner. Far from being reassured, students critical of Israel, as well as those of Muslim and Arab backgrounds in general, continued to feel sidelined by the administration, both in regards to threats made against them and their calls for the university to divest from companies connected to Israel’s military.

“The university is still trying to silence any pro-Palestine movements on campus, which is definitely something we’re fighting against,” Sadeen Musa, vice president of SJP at Cornell, told campus newspaper The Cornell Daily Sun.

Nor have university administrators themselves been spared. The most prominent of such cases is undoubtedly that of Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president. The DOE opened its investigation into Harvard in November. Gay was called to testify in front of Congress regarding alleged antisemitism on campus in December. She resigned her post in January.

Gay’s letter of resignation makes reference to the investigations into antisemitism, as well as accusations of plagiarism, which were widely seen as pretext for her ousting. “It has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor,” wrote Gay, “and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
“A Movement Starts at a Few Prestigious Universities”

Beyond the implications for First Amendment freedom of speech protections, the DOE stifling criticism of Israel at universities in the U.S. also has a material dimension. U.S. universities may appear disconnected from Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, but that simply isn’t the case. Inspired by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, students are often the first to point out how their respective universities feed the Israeli war machine.

The connections between U.S. universities and Israel are economic, academic and social. The endowments of Ivy League schools are valued at billions of dollars each, and students at Harvard, Cornell and Columbia have been organizing to push their universities to divest from Israel since at least 2002, 2014 and 2016, respectively. U.S. universities also have academic relationships with Israeli counterparts, such as Cornell with Technion Israel Institute of Technology and Columbia with Tel Aviv University. Some student groups even offer free trips to Israel, which have been criticized for obscuring the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

In The State of Israel vs. the Jews, Cypel also notes the immense social power that U.S. universities, especially the most highly regarded, have over U.S. society. His discussion with J.J. Goldberg, former editor of progressive Jewish outlet The Forward, reveals why campuses have become increasingly important sites where Israel must be contested. “In the United States, the process is always the same,” Goldberg tells Cypel. “A movement starts at a few prestigious universities, and then spreads.”

Calls for a free Palestine have already spread well beyond the gates of a few prestigious universities, from City Hall in San Francisco to Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, and around the world. As long the Israeli genocide in Gaza, raids in the West Bank, and occupation of all Palestine persist, the student movements’ resilience should be an example for us all.

ARVIND DILAWAR is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, The Guardian, VICE, and elsewhere.n.

Half of Young Americans Say Israel Is Committing Genocide Despite Strong Media Bias

The poll findings are a powerful show of young peoples’ support for Palestinian rights despite widespread repression.

By Sharon Zhang , 

TRUTHOUT

PublishedJanuary 25, 2024People inspect damage to their homes caused by Israeli air strikes, on January 18, 2024, in Rafah, Gaza.AHMAD HASABALLAH / GETTY IMAGES


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Despite widespread media bias against Palestine in the West, nearly half of young Americans say that Israel’s months-long assault of Gaza amounts to genocide, new polling reveals ahead of the International Court of Justice’s initial ruling on South Africa’s case charging Israel with genocide expected Friday.

According to polling conducted this week by The Economist/YouGov, 49 percent of people aged 18 to 29 say that they think Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, with 24 percent saying they disagree and 27 percent saying they’re not sure.

This is similar to the proportion of people who identify as Democrats who said that Israel’s assault is genocide, at 49 percent, while only 21 percent disagreed. The group with the highest proportion of people affirming the genocide was people identifying as liberal, with 60 percent in agreement.

The poll findings are powerful considering that major U.S. media outlets maintain an overwhelming bias for Israel and its current massacre, as advocates for Palestinian rights have long pointed out.

Major Western outlets nearly uniformly avoid the word “genocide” in their news coverage on Gaza, despite multiple foreign policy experts saying that Israel’s brutal invasion is a “textbook” case of genocide. And, data has shown that major outlets are reserving nearly all of their most sympathetic language for Israeli deaths rather than those of Palestinians, even as the Palestinian death toll has grown orders of magnitude higher.

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This effect is evident in the fact that only 35 percent of Americans polled overall say they think Israel is committing genocide, compared to 36 percent who say the assault doesn’t constitute a genocide. Though this is still a higher proportion than one might expect given the near-total agreement on the massacre among U.S. institutions like the two major political parties, the media, and universities, it is still reflective of the strong anti-Palestine bias these groups perpetuate.

The polling found that similar proportions of people are concerned over the harshness of Israel’s military campaign, with 30 percent saying it’s “too harsh,” 29 percent saying it’s “about right” and 17 percent saying it’s “not harsh enough.” Liberals were again the most likely to agree that it was “too harsh,” with 56 percent saying as such.

Advocates for Palestinian rights have been pointing out the noted absence of the word “genocide” from Western media, saying that the aim is to lend Israel more legitimacy in order to justify the U.S.’s staunch military support of its massacre, ethnic cleansing and occupation.

“The American media’s hesitance to utter the word genocide in relation to Israel’s assault in Gaza, coupled with their tendency to downplay or outright deny Israeli crimes against Palestinians, signals to Israel that it can continue its killing spree with impunity, and reassures the US administration that it won’t be held to account for its complicity,” Rami G. Khouri, an American University of Beirut fellow and a Palestinian journalist, wrote for Al Jazeera in December. “History will not judge kindly the American media’s failure to recognise and accurately report on this moment.”