BE AFRAID, VERY AFRAID

'Cast of dangerous clowns': Columnist claims Cabinet picks reflect 'allure of Trumpism'

Kathleen Culliton
November 19, 2024 9

RAW STORY

People dressed as clowns attend the Zombie Walk, October 20, 2024. REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza

The kind of man Stephen King would depict luring unsuspecting children into sewers is the kind President-elect Donald Trump would pick for the secretary of education, a political columnist argued Tuesday.

Salon writer Amanda Marcotte on Tuesday made the case that Trump is actively seeking out men accused of sexually assaulting women for top positions in his administration or, as she calls it, his "cast of dangerous clowns."

"It's not just that Trump doesn't care about sexual assault," wrote Marcotte. "He appears to see it as a bonus if one of his nominees or allies has faced such allegations."

Three men Trump has tapped for Cabinet have faced sexual assault accusations, reports show.

The congressional Ethics committee investigated whether former Rep. Matt Gaetz sexually assaulted an underage girl, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been accused of sexually assaulting his children's babysitter and Fox News personality Pete Hegseth has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room, reports show.

The three men have publicly denied the accusations.

Marcotte argued Tuesday that the denials — and the accusations — don't matter to Trump or his voters.

"He expects his base voters to see these ... like they see him, as an aspirational figure," Marcotte wrote. "And not because they believe they're innocent men done wrong, either. The ability to commit crimes — even sex crimes — and get away with it is part of the allure of Trumpism."

Marcotte argued Trumpism came as response to the #MeToo movement that sought to hold men such as film mogul Harvey Weinstein — the convicted rapist Trump recently complained had been "schlonged" — accountable for attacking women.

"Defending a man's 'right' to have sex with underage girls would be making good on a campaign promise," she wrote. "It's tempting to hope this will anger the public and result in consequences for Trump, but frankly, that's unlikely."

'Apparently not a joke': Critics stunned as WWE co-founder reportedly expected for Cabinet as Education Secretary
Matthew Chapman
November 19, 2024 8:01PM ET

Donald Trump is reportedly expected to appoint Linda McMahon, the former co-founder of WWE and the chief of the Small Business Administration in his previous presidency, to head up the Department of Education.

The appointment, which swiftly followed Trump's announcement of TV personality and former Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz to head up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, prompted an instant reaction from commenters on social media.

"Linda McMahon being tipped for Trump’s education secretary," wrote Telegraph editor Gareth Davies on X, attaching a clip of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's famous "Stunner" finishing move. "Another senior US politician who has been Stunnered."

"Cause nothing says educating our children like being an ex-professional wrestling performer and running the @WWE, which has allegedly failed to protect employees from workplace harassment and sexual misconduct," wrote Kendra Barkoff Lamy, a former spokesperson to President Joe Biden while he served as vice president.

In addition to the reaction on X, others commented on the site's growing competitor, Bluesky.

"And, in further 'apparently not a joke' news, Linda McMahon of the WWE for Secretary of Education. LULZ PWNED as a theory of governance, I guess," wrote McGill University professor and Niskanen Center fellow Jacob T. Levy.

"Sort of like Oz at CMS, it’s not clear to me that McMahon would have an agenda of her own, but that might not be a problem for an administration that wants to shrink and eliminate much of DOE," wrote Yahoo Finance's Jordan Weissmann.

"I wonder if Linda McMahon will allow Jim Jordan and @timgill924.bsky.social [to] settle education policy disagreements in the ring?" wrote Michigan State University professor Brendan Cantwell.

'Betsy DeVos 2.0': Trump education pick raises alarms

Jake Johnson
Common Dreams

November 20, 2024

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced late Tuesday that he intends to nominate Linda McMahon, the billionaire former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, to lead the Department of Education, a key agency that Republicans—including Trump and the authors of Project 2025—have said they want to abolish.

McMahon served as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump's first White House term and later chaired both America First Action—a pro-Trump super PAC—and the America First Policy Institute, a far-right think tank that has expressed support for cutting federal education funding and expanding school privatization.

Trump touted McMahon's work to expand school "choice"—a euphemism for taxpayer-funded private school vouchers—and said she would continue those efforts on a national scale as head of the Education Department.

"We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort," Trump said in a statement posted to his social media platform, Truth Social. (McMahon is listed as an independent director of Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs Truth Social.)

The National Education Association (NEA), a union that represents millions of teachers across the U.S., said in response to the president-elect's announcement that McMahon is "grossly unqualified" to lead the Education Department, noting that she has "lied about having a degree in education," presided over an organization "with a history of shady labor practices," and "pushed for an extreme agenda that would harm students, defund public schools, and privatize public schools through voucher schemes."

"During his first term, Donald Trump appointed Betsy DeVos to undermine and ultimately privatize public schools through vouchers," NEA president Becky Pringle said in a statement. "Now, he and Linda McMahon are back at it with their extreme Project 2025 proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, steal resources for our most vulnerable students, increase class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, take away special education services for disabled students, and put student civil rights protections at risk."

"The Department of Education plays such a critical role in the success of each and every student in this country," Pringle continued. "The Senate must stand up for our students and reject Donald Trump's unqualified nominee, Linda McMahon. Our students and our nation deserve so much better than Betsy DeVos 2.0."

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, took a more diplomatic approach, saying in a statement that "we look forward to learning more about" McMahon and that, if she's confirmed, "we will reach out to her as we did with Betsy DeVos at the beginning of her tenure."

"While we expect that we will disagree with Linda McMahon on many issues, our devotion to kids requires us to work together on policies that can improve the lives of students, their families, their educators, and their communities," Weingarten added.

McMahon is one of several billionaires Trump has selected for major posts in his incoming administration, which is teeming with conflicts of interest. During Trump's first term, McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, made at least $100 million from dividends, investment interest, and stock and bond sales.

The Guardian noted Tuesday that "in October, [Linda] McMahon was named in a new lawsuit involving WWE."

"The suit alleges that she and other leaders of the company allowed the sexual abuse of young boys at the hands of a ringside announcer, former WWE ring crew chief Melvin Phillips Jr," the newspaper reported. "The complaint specifically alleges that the McMahons knew about the abuse and failed to stop it."

'Declaration of war on expertise': Experts explain danger of Trump 'MAGA zealot' nominees

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth at the White House in Washington, U.S. April 6, 2017. 

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

David Badash

November 20, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has surprised and even alarmed many across the country, and “puzzled” and “baffled” some within his own party, with his Cabinet and other top White House nominations. Critics on the left have denounced his picks for their apparent lack of experience or qualifications for the roles they are expected to take on, noting some hold controversial or even false positions in the fields they may soon direct policy on. Meanwhile, experts in the fields of government, fascism, and democracy, are raising serious concerns about the potential “danger” some nominees represent, drawing comparisons to the “professional propagandists” often found in authoritarian regimes.

Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU professor of history and a recognized expert on fascism and authoritarianism, on Wednesday pointed to this report on one of Trump’s most-recent nominations, Linda McMahon:





McMahon was Trump’s former administrator of the Small Business Administration, and is a former CEO of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), a major GOP donor, and has recently been the chair of a pro-Trump Super PAC, the board chair of a pro-Trump think tank, and the co-chair of Trump’s second transition team.

“Trump’s cabinet picks are a declaration of war on expertise and facts (that’s why there are several Fox hosts in the mix). The con artists, fraudsters, and professional propagandists that populate authoritarian governments see facts and laws as impediments to their goals,” Dr. Ben-Ghiat wrote.

READ MORE: JD Vance Accidentally Reveals FBI Director Wray Is Likely Being Replaced

Trump, announcing McMahon’s nomination, claimed, “Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World.”

McMahon’s only brush with the field of education came about 15 years ago, when she served on the Connecticut State Board of Education. She resigned after 15 months. At the time, her appointment was controversial, with one lawmaker lamenting, “her depth of knowledge regarding education is lacking.”




McMahon is far from the only controversial nominee.

On Tuesday, the vice chair of the powerful House Rules Committee Jim McGovern (D-MA) blasted Trump’s nominees as “beyond insane.”

“Someone who is credibly accused of having sex with an underage girl. Someone who sucks up to foreign dictators and has attracted major concern that they can’t be trusted to protect America’s secrets from our adversaries. Someone who paid hush money to cover up a sexual assault accusation, you know, to lead our military, he’s picked because Donald Trump likes him on Fox News? Someone who says that tap water turns kids gay? I mean, this is the dream team? This is the dream team? Really?”

He appeared to be referring to Attorney General presumptive nominee Matt Gaetz, Director of National Intelligence presumptive nominee Tulsi Gabbard, Defense Secretary presumptive nominee Pete Hegseth, and HHS Secretary presumptive nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State posted video calling Trump’s nominees “a trainwreck.”

“Gaetz, Gabbard, RFK – none of them have the experience or qualifications for the positions they’re seeking, in addition to the fact they’re all dangerous MAGA zealots,” the organization declared. They posted a video clip (below) from MSNBC with a chyron that noted opposition from the right to Trump’s Attorney General nominee, Matt Gaetz.

MSNBC’s justice and legal affairs analyst Anthony Coley told viewers that Gaetz, the recently resigned U.S. Congressman, “has no national security experience—not anything meaningful—little anti-trust experience, and he certainly has no experience with criminal law, except for being the target of a federal criminal investigation looking into inappropriate sexual contact, allegedly, with a minor.”

Trump has also just appointed his former acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, a strong Trump loyalist, to be the U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

“Whitaker has little evident foreign policy or national security experience, making him an unknown to many in U.S. security circles,” The Associated Press reports. “Previous ambassadors to NATO have generally had years of diplomatic, political or military experience.”

“Before serving Trump,” Mother Jones notes, “he helped a company hawk bizarre products like a ‘masculine toilet’ to help ‘well-endowed men’ avoid unwanted contact with water.”

But The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a former U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia and nuclear weapons, served up this warning: “This is just hilarious, but the danger here is that it makes him Senate-confirmed and available for other stuff later.”

In other words, assuming Whitaker is confirmed, Trump could nominate him to another, even more critical role, declaring he’s qualified because he’s already been Senate-confirmed.

Last week, Nichols declared that Trump’s “nominations for intelligence, defense, and justice were revenge on people he thinks are his enemies. This is just endangering millions of innocent people.”

On Monday on MSNBC, Nichols went much further, delivered a scathing analysis of Trump’s nominees, calling them “an all-fronts assault on American democracy,” in another warning.

Trump, he said, is “trying to break the institutions of American government and American society, and what you’ve been seeing for the past few weeks is an all-fronts assault on American democracy, especially with these nominations.”

“I think the most dangerous of these nominations is actually [Pete] Hegseth,” Nichols explained. “And I’m kind of startled that we’re not sitting here talking more about taking a morning Fox [News] host and sticking him in the nuclear chain of command, to lead the largest—one of the largest—bureaucracies in the United States, in the world, including the person that’s supposed to look after the most powerful fighting force on the planet.”

And he concluded, “it’s also important to recognize that we could be in the first phases of a major constitutional crisis, even before Trump is sworn in.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

Dr. Oz nomination seen as potential boon for Medicare privatization

Donald Trump looks on as Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks at a pre-election rally to support Republican candidates in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 5, 2022. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo
Donald Trump looks on as Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks at a pre-election rally to support Republican candidates in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, U.S., November 5, 2022. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

Eloise Goldsmith, 

Common Dreams

November 21, 2024

Dr. Mehmet Oz, whose unsuccessful 2022 Pennsylvania Senate bid included pitching voters on a plan to expand the privatized Medicare Advantage program, is now in a position to potentially actualize that plan.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Oz, also known by his TV personality name Dr. Oz, is his pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

"Dr. Oz—a massive investor in Pharma—told the voters of Pennsylvania his plans to privatize Medicare… and they rejected him. Now Trump is giving him the authority to see his industry-approved plan carried through," wrote the progressive-leaning outlet The Lever, which covered Oz's support for Medicare Advantage back in 2022.

Through Medicare Advantage, which has been promoted by Trump and other congressional Republicans, seniors can opt out of traditional government-run Medicare health plans and instead choose plans administered by private insurers, such as UnitedHealthcare and Cigna.

According to The Lever's 2022 reporting, Oz pushed Medicare Advantage plans on his show The Dr. Oz Show and co-wrote a 2020 column for Forbes with a former healthcare executive in which they argued that a "Medicare Advantage For All" plan can "save" our healthcare system. In the column, Oz and his co-author articulated a plan to expand Medicare Advantage by imposing a 20% payroll tax.

Oz "is not a good pick for a very powerful position in charge of a trillion dollars of healthcare spending," wrote Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project on X, in reference to The Lever's investigation.

The Lever also reported that Oz's plan to expand private plans under Medicare Advantage could "boost companies in which he invests." For example, Oz and his wife owned up to $550,000 worth of stock in UnitedHealth Group, at the time of reporting. UnitedHealthcare and Humana account for nearly half, or 47%, of Medicare Advantage enrollees nationwide, according to the health policy organization KFF.

Additionally, a 2022 investigation by The New York Timesfound that major health insurers have exploited Medicare Advantage to boost their profits by billions of dollars.

Project 2025, a list of right-wing policy proposals led by the Heritage Foundation that Trump has tried to distance himself from, calls for making Medicare Advantage the default option for Medicare beneficiaries, which, if enacted, "would be a multibillion-dollar annual giveaway to corporations at the expense of Medicare enrollees and taxpayers," according to the liberal research and advocacy organization the Center for American Progress.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, offered a related critique of Oz: Americans "need someone who will crack down on insurers who want to deny care to the sick, providers who skimp on quality healthcare, corporations that want to privatize Medicare, and Big Pharma profiteers and ideologues who want to slash Medicaid and refuse care to low-income people. What they do not need is a healthcare huckster, which unfortunately Dr. Mehmet Oz appears to have become, having spent much of his recent career hawking products of dubious medical value."

In addition to the potential boon for private insurers, some researchers, news outlets, and members of Congress have also raised concerns about the quality of care administered under Medicare Advantage.

A 2022 government report found that "[Medicare Advantage Organizations] sometimes delayed or denied Medicare Advantage beneficiaries' access to services, even though the requests met Medicare coverage rules" and also "denied payments to providers for some services that met both Medicare coverage rules and [Medicare Advantage Organization] billing rules."

In October, a group of three Democratic lawmakers wrote to the current CMS administrator about increasingly widespread abuses and care denials by for-profit Medicare Advantage insurers.

"We are concerned that in many instances MA plans are failing to deliver, compromising timely access to care, and undermining the ability of seniors and Americans with disabilities to purchase the coverage that’s right for them," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), and Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter.

"We continue to hear alarming reports from seniors and their families, beneficiary advocates, and healthcare providers that MA plans are falling short, and finding a good plan is too difficult," they wrote.


In particular, they pointed to Medicare Advantage plans' growing reliance on prior authorization, a complex, barrier-ridden process whereby doctors must demonstrate a proposed treatment is medically necessary before the insurer will cover it.

"Overuse of prior authorization is not only harmful to patients, it hinders healthcare providers' ability to offer best-in-class service," they added.

Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, warned in a social media post Tuesday that "Dr. Oz wants to fully privatize Medicare."

"That's why Donald Trump put him in charge of Medicare," the group added. "We will fight to stop this charlatan from getting anywhere near our Medicare system."

Trump nomination of crypto banker Howard Lutnick another 'win for the billionaire class'

Howard Lutnick, Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, gestures as he speaks during a rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, in New York, U.S., October 27, 2024. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

Julia Conley

Common Dreams

November 20, 2024

Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen feigned surprise on Wednesday over President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Wall Street CEO Howard Lutnick to lead the U.S. Department of Commerce.

"Oh look, another billionaire has made his way into Trump's Cabinet," said the group, noting Lutnick is also a promoter of cryptocurrency and a Trump megadonor. "The conflicts of interest are almost too many to count."

Among the conflicts are Lutnick's involvement in the crypto industry and federal and state cases against Cantor Fitzgerald.

In addition to running the Wall Street firm, Lutnick is a banker for the "stablecoin" company Tether; purchasers receive a Tether token for $1, with the proceeds invested in reserves and Treasury bonds managed by Lutnick's Cantor Fitzgerald.

As Public Citizen noted, New York Attorney General Letitia James found in 2021 that Tether and another crypto firm "recklessly and unlawfully covered up massive financial losses to keep their scheme going and protect their bottom lines."

The company is also reportedly under federal investigation over alleged criminal violations of anti-money laundering rules and sanctions.

Public Citizen also said that while co-chairing Trump's transition team, Lutnick "may also have helped arrange a meeting between Trump and Coinbase chief Brian Armstrong," who "helped steer a record amount of political spending from the crypto industry into the 2024 election."

Crypto firms poured over $119 million into directly influencing the 2024 federal elections, Public Citizen found in August, making the industry's spending second only to that of fossil fuel companies.

As Politico reported in October, even other members of Trump's inner circle have accused Lutnick of using his transition team co-chair position to take meetings on Capitol Hill and "talk about matters impacting his investment firm, Cantor Fitzgerald—including high-stakes regulatory matters involving its cryptocurrency business."

Lutnick's nomination, said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, serves as a reminder that "Trump serves the oligarchy, not the people."

"Debris from crypto's political spending tsunami will jam up more halls in Washington than ever before if Lutnick is confirmed as secretary of commerce," said Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate for Public Citizen. "The president-elect, who once correctly called bitcoin a scam, now surrounds himself with even more crypto enablers. Cryptocurrency won't return good jobs to the heartland or reduce food prices; it will only thin the wallets of those vulnerable to a now government-legitimized con."

Government watchdog Accountable.US pointed to more than $19 million in political donations Lutnick has made since 2009, nearly all of which went to GOP candidates and political action committees. He contributed $6 million to Trump's super PAC, Make America Great Again, Inc., in 2024 alone.


"Howard Lutnick's questionable qualifications to lead the Department of Commerce begin and end with his loyalty to the president-elect," said Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk.

Tether isn't the only Lutnick-linked company that's been investigated for wrongdoing. The Securities and Exchange Commission fined Cantor Fitzgerald $1.4 million in 2023, saying the company repeatedly failed "to identify and report customers who qualified as large traders." The company also agreed to pay $16 million in fines to the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022 for using unauthorized communication channels.

Should Lutnick be confirmed as commerce secretary, Accountable.US said a "major regulatory conflict" could arise due to a dispute between the BGC Group, a spin-off brokerage of Cantor Fitzegerald, and futures and commodities exchange CME Group, over a competing trading platform BGC Group is launching.

"Lutnick's company's violations resulting in financial regulator fines and millions in right-wing political donations shows that political devotion takes precedence over actual experience to do the job in Trump's Cabinet," said Carrk.

Trump campaigned as a champion of working people as he railed against high grocery prices. As The New Republicreported on Tuesday, Lutnick has showered Trump's plan for across-the-board tariffs with effusive praise—even as leading economists warn the plan to impose tariffs on foreign imports will pass higher costs onto consumers, not foreign countries.

"In September, Lutnick told CNBC that 'tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use—we need to protect the American worker,'" wrote Edith Olmsted. "Lutnick also gushed about tariffs at Trump's fascistic rally in Madison Square Garden last month, claiming that America was better off 100 years ago, when it had 'no income tax and all we had was tariffs.' His high praise for tariffs came even as he admitted Americans would face higher prices as a direct result."

Lutnick's nomination, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), "is a win for the billionaire class at the expense of working people.


"The across-the-board tariff plan," she said, "is a distraction from the MAGA scam to extend tax giveaways for giant corporations and billionaires like Howard Lutnick."

Trump's Cabinet of horrors exposes his totalitarian drift

John Stoehr
November 19, 2024 

Former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard attends a campaign rally of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Greensboro, North Carolina, U.S. October 22, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Donald Trump nominated an alleged rapist and sex trafficker to be attorney general. He picked a Russian asset to be director of national intelligence. He chose a religious fanatic and Kremlin stooge to be secretary of defense. And for secretary of health and human resources, he selected an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who once had a literal brain worm, and who habitually takes (“legal”) steroids to maintain, at the age of 70, the appearance of a physique of a man half his age.

There are the obvious things to say about this motley crew. Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr are , respectively, not qualified to lead the agencies they have been chosen to lead. None has managed anything larger than an office. None has the expertise required. Gaetz has never worked in law enforcement, Gabbard in intelligence, Hegseth in military leadership or Kennedy in public health. Their only qualification is their loyalty to the man who picked them, and how they look to him when they are on television.

Right now, the discussion seems to be concentrated on the Senate Republicans, who will have majority control of that chamber in January. They will be responsible ultimately for vetting Trump’s cabinet picks. The question is whether they will find the courage to restrain the President-elect or roll over, either by approving them or by letting Trump have what he wants through recess appointments.

Among liberals, the discussion seems to be limited to the absurdities each of these people brings to governance as well as the dangers they pose. “Yes, shake your head at the seeming absurdity of these picks,” wrote MSNBC’s Jen Psaki. “But don’t stop there. These choices aren’t just controversial; they require us to stay vigilant about how each potential new Cabinet member could negatively affect our lives.”

But I think we’re missing the bigger picture. These nominations signal the totalitarian drift that’s coming to Washington and the country. Yes, that’s right. No, I’m not exaggerating. It’s time to start using that word.

Totalitarianism seeks dominion over the individual to the point where individuality is erased. That’s what happened to the Republican Party. Individuals have looked the same, talked the same, acted the same and thought the same for a long time. (The men sometimes literally dress the same as Donald Trump, with a blue suit and a long red tie.) After the election, however, Republican behavior has finally been totalized.

As one GOP congressman said, Trump “is the leader of our party. … His goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads.”

The objective is forcing the rest of America to conform the way the Republican Party has conformed. This can be seen in the anger expressed by some MAGAs. It wasn’t enough to win. Losers must now shut up and get in line, too. As a Trump attorney said recently: “You’ve got to own when you lose and say: this is America. We have to stand behind President Trump.” Senate Republicans are likely to approve his picks, no matter how bad, because the losers must be taught a lesson.

Totalitarianism also seeks to dominate the individual’s mind by going to war against facts, reason, science and any useful meaning of the word “proof.” In normal times, pre-Trump, we could expect the Senate to have a spirited debate over a President-elect's cabinet nominations, beginning with whether they’re qualified. Such debate is going to be impossible now, because “being qualified” is a meaningless term.

It is a stone-cold fact that Kennedy’s views on vaccines are not only insane, but in direct opposition to the moral principles of public health. But that fact won’t be accepted as fact. It will be taken as evidence of Trump’s enemies trying to sabotage his presidency. And there’s no way to break through this "conspiracist mindset," as Lindsay Beyerstein calls it. It is impervious, she said. “When scientists or the government or journalists come forward with evidence that vaccines save millions of lives and prevent untold suffering, the conspiracist answer is: Well, that’s what conspirators to kill our children would say.”

Because there’s no empirical anchor to conspiratorial thinking, totalitarians can make reality into whatever they want. Up is down, left is right – or in the words of the totalitarian regime in George Orwell’s 1984: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

Therefore, the Republicans are likely to see nothing wrong with his picks. His nominee for the law is anti-law. His nominee for national intelligence is anti-intelligence. His nominee for national defense is anti-defense. His nominee for science is anti-science. But there’s no dissonance in the world of conspiratorial thinking. Up is the new down, and the only measure of morality is whether it pleases the dear leader.

The drift toward conformity and away from individualism isn’t limited to the GOP. Thanks to the right-wing media apparatus, which is global in scale, totalizing groupthink has also been growing in the culture at large. The trick is that it comes disguised as subversive individualism.

During his interview with Trump, popular podcaster Joe Rogan said, “the rebels are Republicans now. They’re like, you want to be a rebel? You want to be punk rock? You want to, like, buck the system? You’re a conservative now. That's how crazy. And then the liberals are now pro-silencing criticism. They’re pro-censorship online. They’re talking about regulating free speech and regulating the First Amendment.”

If you are listening to liberals directly, you know there are no such efforts. But if you are listening to the right-wing media apparatus, or if you just feel the conspiratorial ambiance that it generates, it’s possible to cast yourself as a person who’s bucking the system, as if the party of billionaires is the party of the common people, as if people who look the same, talk the same, act the same and think the same are punk rock.

But the strongest evidence of totalitarian drift is the plain awfulness of Trump’s cabinet picks. They have not earned the right to be called on. They haven’t studied or mastered their disciplines. They haven’t built reputations among leaders, peers and professionals in their fields. They haven’t overcome adversity and hardship. They haven’t reached high and achieved. They certainly haven’t followed the road toward the American dream, which asks us to work hard and play by the rules.

And that’s the point. Totalitarians fear individual excellence, first because they can’t understand it, and second because excellence threatens their goal of totalizing conformity. They are not humble enough to admit that they are mediocre people but they are arrogant enough to believe they can force the rest of us down to their level.


With this cabinet, Trump can pick up where his second campaign left off, which is a movement toward “the consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity …” as Hannah Arendt once wrote.

“Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable,” she said. “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty” (my italics).

American Healthcare Workers Plead for End to Gaza Bombing

by Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. Posted onOctober 28, 2024

On October 3, 2024, 99 American healthcare workers in Gaza released an open letter to the White House pleading for an end to Israel’s bombing of little children.

The letter was sent by American physicians, surgeons, nurse practitioners, and nurses who had volunteered a combined five years to treat the besieged people of Palestine.

The letter said: “Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets. President Biden and Vice President Harris, we urge you: End this madness now!”

The letter writers also said that “every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest… It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilians and military authorities.”

Dr. Mark Perlmutter said, “Gaza was the first time I held a baby’s brains in my hand, the first of many.”

A U.S. Veterans Affairs trauma and critical care surgeon said: “I’ve never seen such horrific injuries, on such a massive scale, with so few resources. Our bombs are cutting down women and children by the thousands. Their mutilated bodies are a monument to cruelty.”

The American healthcare workers also wrote: “We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world… they had lost family members and their homes. Most lived in and around their hospitals with their surviving family, in unimaginable conditions.”

Because Israel claimed hospitals were sometimes used by Hamas, the letter signatories said: “We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.”

The authors also estimate that more have now died from starvation and disease and untold thousands buried under the rubble than by military deaths. They estimate what they described as a very conservative total of over 118,000 who have died in the past year in Gaza. In July, the well-respected British medical journal, The Lancet, had estimated 186,00 deaths there.

On October 8, Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia professor who is one of the world’s most respected foreign policy experts, spoke on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast.

Professor Sachs is a Jew who has been a very outspoken critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sachs said, “Israel is less safe today, by far, than a year ago despite 40,000, 100,000, 200,000 deaths.”

He deplored what he called the “cruel bombing of apartment buildings, hospitals, clinics, schools – it’s been horrendous.”

Sachs said, “Netanyahu is leading Israel into the greatest insecurity of its modern history – complete diplomatic isolation.” He added that “Israel can never be safe with Netanyahu’s delusional plan.”

The professor said Netanyahu has been “selling” a regional war in the Middle East for over 20 years in his speeches, writings, and congressional testimony, and that he is “counting on the U.S. military and the U.S. taxpayer” to make Israel the dominant power so it can “rule in an apartheid manner over millions of people.”

Sachs also said “the war in Iraq in 2003 was strongly promoted by Netanyahu. He wanted a war against Saddam Hussein by the United States for Israel’s sake.”

He added that America is “not served by a blind obedience to the Israel Lobby” and that Americans “do not want another disastrous Middle East War.”

Now Netanyahu has expanded his war into Lebanon, and he will go further – into Syria, Jordan, Iran and perhaps other places – if the U.S. does not stop him.

Sachs said the “American people do not want a nuclear war over Israel’s claim over Gaza or the occupied territories.”

I wish every member of Congress would read the letter from the American healthcare workers in Gaza and listen to the Judging Freedom podcast of Oct. 8. Sadly, I don’t believe any of them will read or listen to either one. Hopefully, you will.

Reprinted with author’s permission from the Knoxville Focus.

John James Duncan Jr. is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Tennessee’s 2nd congressional district from 1988 to 2019. A lawyer, former judge, and former long serving member of the Army National Guard, he is a member of the Republican Party.

Women and Children Pay the Highest Price

Cesar Chelala

 October 28, 2024
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Illustration by Paola Bilancieri.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are widely considered one of the most powerful armies in the world. And, according to Israeli leaders, they are “the most moral army in the world.” How, then, to reconcile these statements with what is happening now in Gaza and Lebanon, where tens of thousands of women and children have been slaughtered or injured in the conflict with the Palestinians?

On October 13 and 14, dozens of Palestinians civilians were killed and many more wounded by the IDF’s attacks on a Gaza hospital and several refugee camps. The dead included women waiting for food to be delivered and children at play. The IDF claims that they only operate against terrorists and are investigating the incident, a lame excuse when practically never these investigations by the Israeli military result in punishment for those guilty of serious crimes.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) states that the IDF shelled dozens of hungry people waiting for food at a distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp. Dozens of homes were destroyed in these incidents. The humanitarian organization Save the Children estimated last June that around 21,000 kids are missing in the Gaza Strip, and that roughly 4,000 children are buried under debris. “No parent should have to dig through rubble or mass graves to try to find their child’s body,” said Jeremy Stoner, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East.

UNICEF reports that in Gaza cases of diarrhea among children under five have soared, while cases of scabies, lice, chicken pox, skin rashes and respiratory and gastrointestinal infections have also climbed. Hundreds of thousands of children have been killed or injured, and more than half a million children are in need of psychological support due to sustained trauma. Malnutrition is rampant; when left untreated malnutrition and disease are a deadly combination.

Last August, a 10-month-old baby became partially paralyzed after contracting polio in Gaza. According to the World Health Organization, Gaza has not registered a polio case for 25 years. Because of the dismal sanitary conditions, type 2 poliovirus had been detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater last June. Poliovirus, most frequently spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious.

Humanitarian organizations blame the re-emergence of polio in Gaza on the disruption of vaccination programs and the massive damage to water and sanitation systems. “Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are at risk,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres. UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russel said that the re-emergence of the virus in the strip after 25 years is “another sobering reminder of how chaotic, desperate and dangerous the situation has become.” The Gaza Ministry of Health accused the IDF of intensifying “its targeting of the health system” in north Gaza as more hospitals came under siege or fire.

The IDF’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon, which have resulted in the deaths of thousands of women and children, have been widely condemned. According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 2,412 people have been killed during the IDF attacks. The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 42,519 people have been killed in Gaza. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, dozens of people were killed or injured after an IDF attack in the town of Beit Lahia.

During a recent trip to Belgium, Pope Francis suggested that the IDF’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, saying that they go beyond the rules of war. According to International Humanitarian Law, “The harm caused to protected civilians or civilian property must be proportional and ‘not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated’ by an attack on a military objective.”

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court investigated allegations of war crimes during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In an open letter containing his findings, he elucidates the use of proportionality. In the letter he states, “A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv)).”

The IDF consistently violates elemental rules of war. As Omer Bartov, a Professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University wrote, “If we truly believe that the Holocaust taught us a lesson about the need –or really, the duty—to preserve our own humanity and dignity by protecting those of others, this is the time to stand up and raise our voices, before Israel’s leadership plunges it and its neighbors into the abyss.”

As 2,000 pound-bombs continue falling on women and children, Prime Minister Netanyahu struts among his troops. He is totally unconcerned to the evil he is causing, as Gaza and Lebanon become not only a cemetery for people, but a cemetery for hope and peace in the region.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of the 1979 Overseas Press Club of America award for the article “Missing or Disappeared in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims.”

Western Support for Israel: A Colonial Legacy

by Alain Marshal / October 28th, 2024

Western support for Israel’s high-tech genocide, justified in the name of the Holocaust, exposes the blatant hypocrisy of so-called ‘liberal values.’ The stakes of the current conflict extend beyond Palestinian liberation, challenging the deeply ingrained colonial mindset of the West at the heart of both global and domestic systems of oppression.

For over a year now, Israel’s relentless bombardment and military operations in Gaza have been supported not only by diplomatic backing but also by military assistance and distorted media narratives all over the “collective West.” Often, this unconditional support is explained through two conventional arguments: a historical guilt tied to the Holocaust, depicting Israel as a perpetual victim of “Islamic terrorism” and/or antisemitism, and shared values between the West and Israel. However, these explanations fall short of explaining the depth and persistence of Western complicity. A third and more convincing hypothesis suggests that Israel is fulfilling the same colonial and racist impulses that Western powers were forced to restrain after decolonization.

The Holocaust Guilt Argument: A Flawed Explanation

The idea that the West supports Israel because of guilt from the Holocaust is often cited as a driving factor. While it is true that Western nations, particularly the United States, were initially sympathetic to the establishment of a Jewish state in the wake of World War II, this narrative of guilt does not explain the breadth of support Israel continues to receive today.

Before 1967, U.S. support for Israel was more restrained and pragmatic, reflecting broader Cold War interests in the Middle East. While the U.S. recognized Israel immediately in 1948, its aid and support remained relatively limited, balancing its ties with Arab nations. The U.S. did not view Israel as a strategic ally before the Six-Day War. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S. was cautious about deep involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict and sought to maintain relationships with oil-rich Arab nations that were key in its geopolitical strategy against the Soviet Union.

During the Suez Crisis of 1956, the U.S. reined in Israel and its British and French allies, forcing them to retreat disgracefully after their invasion of Egypt, which had been prompted by Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. This incident underscores how, prior to 1967, the U.S. was not yet committed to unconditional support for Israel and even aligned itself with international condemnation of its actions. However, after the Six-Day War, this dynamic shifted, as Israel’s military prowess made it an invaluable Cold War asset, leading to a much deeper alliance between the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. began providing significant military and economic aid to Israel, transforming the relationship into the close strategic partnership it is today.

The Holocaust narrative also gained renewed prominence post-1967, shaping U.S. and Western perceptions of Israel. Before this period, the memory of the Holocaust, while acknowledged, was not as central in American public discourse or foreign policy. The Eichmann trial in the early 1960s played a role in bringing Holocaust memory to the forefront, but it was after 1967 that the Holocaust narrative became deeply intertwined with Israel’s legitimacy in Western discourse. The Holocaust was increasingly invoked to justify the need for a strong, secure Jewish state, whitewashing or deflecting criticism of its policies toward Palestinians and other Arab nations.

In The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein explains how the memory of the Holocaust has been instrumentalized to shield Israel from criticism. He argues that before 1967, American Jewish elites used the Holocaust primarily to denounce anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, drawing parallels with Nazism. Skeptical of the Jewish state, they feared that its creation would reinforce accusations of dual loyalty, especially in the context of the Cold War. However, the 1967 war changed all that: Israel’s military display impressed the United States, which made it a strategic pillar in the Middle East. For American Jewish elites, this alignment enabled a smoother assimilation into the United States: Israel was now perceived as a defender of American interests. The Holocaust took on a central place in American Jewish memory, serving to reinforce Israel’s legitimacy as an outpost against common enemies. American Jewish intellectuals, hitherto largely indifferent to Israel’s fate, increasingly rallied behind the Hebrew state, which they presented as a bastion of Western civilization. After 1973, this memory was consolidated as a tool of mobilization and influence, aimed at justifying support for Israel, whatever the circumstances. This allowed Israel to present itself as a permanent victim, despite its growing military and geopolitical dominance, thereby deflecting scrutiny of its actions, especially concerning the occupation of Palestinian territories.

Western intervention in the Middle East has historically been driven by control, exploitation, and domination, not altruistic motives. As Frantz Fanon argued in The Wretched of the Earth,

The colonizer, who is himself the product of a history of violence, has, in the final analysis, only one way of dealing with the violence that is directed against him: he must point out that the violence comes from the victim. He must show that he is the one who is oppressed.

Colonizers often invoke past suffering to justify current oppression, manipulating historical victimhood to evade responsibility for their own violence. In this case, Israel has weaponized its historical trauma to deflect criticism of its actions, transforming the Holocaust into a shield to justify its violence against Palestinians. This perverse exploitation is bolstered by Western nations, who eagerly participate in the narrative, masking their own complicity in the ongoing colonial project. The irony and outrage of this defense of current agressions, massacres and ethnic cleasing in the name of a past genocide become clear when we reflect on the words of Aimé Césaire, who saw in Europe’s colonial crimes the roots of modern barbarism.

Césaire famously argued in his Discourse on Colonialism that Europe’s greatest crime was not the rise of fascism per se, but the fact that “what [Hitler] inflicted on Europe, Europe had previously inflicted on the colonies.” He highlights the deep hypocrisy of the West, which only recoiled in horror at Nazism when it became a victim of its own tools of oppression, which had long been honed through colonization in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. As Césaire states,

What the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.

By participating in Israel’s genocidal project, the West is not atoning for the Holocaust; rather, it is perpetuating the same logic of exclusion and dehumanization that enabled colonialism and Nazism. This is why Israel’s invocation of the Jewish people’s tragedy rings hollow in the context of its ongoing violence — because what was once condemned when perpetrated in Europe is now justified in Palestine. This selective application of moral outrage underscores the reality that the West’s real concern is not with human rights or justice, but with protecting colonial interests and racial hierarchies.

Ultimately, the West’s relationship to Israel is less about historical guilt than about using Israel as an instrument to perpetuate a colonial and imperialistic project in the Middle East. The same crimes the West claims to condemn in its past are the ones it now supports in the present, showing that its commitment to “never again” has never truly extended beyond Europe’s borders — that paradoxically include the Jewish population of Israel, a pure product of “Western civilization”.

The Myth of “Shared Values”

Another common justification for the West’s support of Israel is the claim that it upholds Western humanist and democratic values, making it a natural ally in a region often depicted as autocratic and hostile to Western ideals of progress. This argument is frequently strengthened by referencing the so-called “Judeo-Christian roots” of Western identity, which frame Israel as part of a shared cultural heritage. These supposed roots are presented as the moral foundation of the West, positioning Israel as a guardian of civilization against a perceived Middle Eastern “otherness” — particularly Islam, seen as irreconcilable with these values.

As Edward Said famously observed, “Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” Israel, with steadfast Western support, replicates this narrative. But the true aim is not liberation — it’s about maintaining power through violence and subjugation. The West has long framed the Arab world as the civilizational “other” to justify intervention and alliances that are first and foremost about domination. The West’s support for Israel is less about common democratic principles and more about maintaining colonial power structures through an “us versus them” dynamic.

Israel is often hailed as the only democracy in the Middle East, a civilizational outpost in a supposedly barbaric and chaotic region, yet its treatment of Palestinians — both within its borders and in the occupied territories — completely contradicts the democratic values it claims to uphold, exposing it as a full-fledged apartheid regime. Said’s critique of Orientalism shows how such perceptions have historically allowed Western powers to rationalize their support for oppressive regimes under the guise of protecting civilization.

In practice, Western nations turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of principles and norms when it comes to the treatment of Palestinians. Discriminatory policies, ethnic cleansing, and gross abuses of human rights are overlooked by Western governments that would vehemently condemn such actions elsewhere. After October 7, the hypocrisy of “Western values” has been unmasked and discredited for ever by the torrents of crocodile tears shed for 40 Israeli babies decapitated only in the putrid imagination of propagandists, while indifference prevails towards the thousands of Palestinian babies and children torn apart, with images and videos circulated daily on social media. Human rights have been exposed as nothing but a rhetorical tool used to justify political agendas rather than a genuine commitment to humanist ideals. The West prides itself on defending even animal rights, yet it seems that “human animals” — Palestinians and all so-called “inferior races” — are, in its eyes, granted only the right to die in silence, the
sole “blessing” of Western civilization.

A Colonial, Racist, and Islamophobic Project Fulfilled

The most compelling explanation for Western support lies in the fact that Israel’s actions resonate with colonial, racist, and Islamophobic ideologies that Western powers still harbor, despite the postcolonial era. Israel’s ongoing expansion of settlements, displacement of Palestinians, brutal military occupation and regular massacres reflect the same colonial practices that enabled Western powers to conquer America between the 16th and 19th centuries, but were forcibly abandoned in Africa and Asia due to the decolonization movements of the mid-20th century.

As Fanon highlighted in Black Skin, White Masks, colonialism inherently dehumanizes, dividing the world into compartments “inhabited by different species.” This process is central to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, who are reduced to a status below that of full human beings. Palestinians are portrayed as terrorists or existential threats, a narrative used to justify Israel’s ongoing occupation, military assaults, and outright extermination. The West’s complicity in this dehumanization is rooted in its own colonial legacy, where indigenous peoples were displaced, exploited, and erased from existence in the name of progress and civilization.

Furthermore, Islamophobia plays a crucial role in maintaining this alliance. The demonization of Muslims and Arabs as inherently backward, violent and irrational has become a central tenet of Western foreign policy, particularly after the events of 9/11. Israel capitalizes on this Islamophobic discourse, portraying itself as a bulwark against “Islamic extremism” in the region. Western nations, particularly the U.S., use this narrative to justify their support for Israel, despite its blatant disregard for international law and human rights. The Netanyahu government exemplifies the very fanaticism and bloodlust attributed to Arabs and Muslims, as seen in its leaders’ messianic rhetoric, violent calls for the annihilation of Palestinians and genocidal actions.

In this sense, Israel is not simply a rogue state acting independently; it is fulfilling the very impulses that Western powers were forced to moderate after the end of formal colonialism. The support for Israel’s policies towards Gaza, the broader Palestinian question and neighbouring Arab countries is not an aberration but rather a continuation of colonial violence by other means. As Fanon argued, colonialism is not just a physical occupation but a psychological and ideological project that persists long after the formal end of empire.

Israel as a Proxy for Western Oppression

The West’s unwavering support for Israel, despite its clear violations of fundamental universal norms, cannot be fully attributed to Holocaust guilt or a purported alignment of values. Instead, Israel serves as an outlet for Western powers to express their suppressed colonial instincts, racism, and Islamophobia. The settler-colonial project in Palestine mirrors the violence that Western powers once inflicted upon colonized peoples across the globe. Just as European empires sought to “civilize” non-Western populations through domination, Israel perpetuates this colonial legacy by asserting control over Palestinians. Having been forced to abandon their formal colonial empires, Western nations now view Israel as a proxy to continue their project of domination by alternative methods.

This support for Israel isn’t only about geopolitics or strategic alliances and interests. It’s about preserving the colonial order in a world increasingly calling for justice and liberation. Former colonial powers in the West are not just contending with this externally, in global power struggles between unipolar and multipolar systems, but also internally from marginalized groups, often coming from their former colonies. These groups challenge the legacies of racism, oppression, and inequality that were established during the colonial era. In this context, support for Israel helps suppress these growing movements by reinforcing the belief that colonial power structures — whether global or domestic — must remain intact.

If Israel were to be defeated, it would pave the way for a second wave of decolonization — this time, a decolonization of minds. Just as the early victories of Hitler during World War II demonstrated that European colonial powers could fall, emboldening indigenous populations to rise against their masters, Israel’s defeat would similarly expose the fragility of the global neocolonial order. This would inspire more developing countries to break free from US hegemony and oppressed groups within Western nations to push harder against segregation in their societies, exposing the hypocrisy and injustices of policies rooted in oppression. This notably explains why Western media, acting as guardians of the social order, eagerly parrots Israeli military rhetoric, praising its supposed successes, even when they amount to mass terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Israel must remain “invincible,” not just for geostrategic reasons but as a psychological fortress. Its dominance reassures Western powers that the colonial mindset endures, allowing them to justify oppression at home and abroad, paying tribute to “worthy” victims and preserving “the lives that count,” all under the guise of hollow “values.” The struggle in Gaza is not solely for Palestinian freedom — it’s a stand for the freedom and dignity of all humankind.
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Alain Marshal is a plebeian by nature and nurture. Contact: alainmarshal2 [at] gmail [dot] com. Read other articles by Alain.

The U.S.-Israel Plan for the Gazans

by Eric Zuesse / October 28th, 2024

Dan Cohen, an American Jew whose family in Lithuania had been wiped out by Hitler’s forces, is one of the great investigative journalists on Israel-Palestinian affairs, and he headlined on October 21, “US authorizes CIA mercenaries to run biometric concentration camps in Gaza Strip.” He opened:

The Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubblescape into a high-tech dystopia.

Starting with Al-Atatra, a village in the northwestern Gaza Strip, the plan calls to build what the Israeli daily Ynet calls “humanitarian bubbles” – turning the remains of villages and neighborhoods into tiny concentration camps cut off from their environs and surrounded and controlled by mercenaries.

These mercenaries will be hired by the CIA. “The plan, approved by White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, calls for the Israeli military to clear out pockets of Palestinian resistance. … 48 hours after stamping out resistance, they plan to erect separation walls around the neighborhood, forcing its residents, and no one else, to enter and exit using biometric identification under the CIA contractors’ control. Those who do not accept the biometric regime would be refused humanitarian aid.” In other words: they will starve to death. The Gazans who do accept “the biometric regime” won’t be starved to death. Biometrics includes fingerprinting but also other physical — and also behavioral — measurements of an individual who is being kept under surveillance.

The company at the forefront of this plan is called Global Development Company, described in its promotional materials as an “Uber for war zones.” Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana owns it and employs several top Israeli and American military intelligence officials, including retired U.S. Navy Captain Michael Durnan, retired U.S. Special Forces captain Justin Sapp, former Israeli military intelligence division head Yossi Kuperwasser, and former Israeli military chief intelligence officer David Tzur.

[That is GDC’s promotional video, “GDC- Global Delivery Company.”]

Kahana has played a key role in the dirty war against Syria in the 2010s and worked with the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army [the “FSA,” which the U.S. Government under Obama hired to help overthrow and replace the Russia-and-Iran-supported President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad; and Dan Cohen’s FSA link is to an article in Britain’s Independent heroizing Kahana, headlining him as “Israeli man starts ‘Good Samaritan’ charity to get injured Syrian women and children to Israel for medical help.” That article opens with a video in which he speaks as a “philanthropist.”]

… GDC has also been involved in Ukraine, where it collaborated with the Zionist organization, the American Joint Distribution Committee, to operate a refugee camp in Romania near its border with Ukraine. …

Kahana’s Gaza plan has been in the works since at least February 2024. He presented the plan to establish these electronic cantons – what Jewish News referred to as “gated communities” – to the White House, State Department, and Defense Department, as well as Netanyahu. U.S. officials did not respond. While the Israeli military had agreed, the Israeli prime minister shot it down. “What’s the rush?” he quipped. …

However, as Hamas has maintained its civil control throughout Gaza and Israel has failed to defeat armed resistance groups, the Netanyahu government is relying on the U.S. to do its bidding. …

While the [original version of the] proposal called for the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia to assume civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that has failed to materialize, prompting the United States to approve deployment of CIA contractors.

In other words: finally, Netanyahu, too, approved the plan.

The Jewish News article that Cohen refers to was dated 4 April 2024, and praises Kahana’s plan for Gaza, calls it “humanitarian,” and says:

The meticulous plan, seen by Jewish News, envisages the creation of “gated communities” in a safe space in the Strip and biometric recognition put in place for civilian recipients of aid. Those who did not pass the biometric tests would not have received aid. The gated communities are described as a Secure Humanitarian Logistics Corridor which, the plan states, “once established, can process and securely deliver humanitarian assistance from other sources across Gaza”.

In other words: the plan is as Cohen describes it, but employs euphemistic phrasings to deceive fools into believing that Kahana, his GDC, and his concentration camps for cooperative Gazan survivors, are “humanitarian,” and “gated communities,” such as that phrase is used in America to refer to protected oases of peace amidst a surrounding environment of war — like saying, “We’ll protect you Gazans.”

Cohen’s article didn’t mention the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department’s Defense Forensics & Biometrics Agency (DFBA), but this federal Agency (which he does link to without mentioning it) was, in fact, established by President Obama in 2012, and is crucially involved in what Kahana’s GDC is doing in Gaza. In 2016, DFBA’s “Overview” stated: “Biometrics and forensics are critical to identifying known and unknown individuals by matching them with automated records (such as for access control) or with anonymous samples (such as crime scene investigations).” In other words: the surviving Gazans will be tracked not by a number that is tattoed onto their arms like was done at Auschwitz to prisoners who weren’t immediately sent to their deaths, but instead tracked by the person’s “biometrics.” So: Israel’s Jews use Hitler’s — the original form of  — nazism, but against different people, and with modern technology.

Furthermore: their propaganda is far more sophisticated than Joseph Goebbels’s was.

The link that Cohen provides to DFBA is to its current promotional video, their latest “Overview.”

It makes clear that DFBA is being used by the federal Government not ONLY in order to control the surviving Gazans, but ALSO in order to control the American people, as well as to extend the American empire throughout the world.

In other words: Yesterday it was the Jews who were the target; today it is the surviving Gazans who are, and also an increasing percentage of Americans are (targeted by our own Government); and, in the future, this system is to become expanded to everyone.

Cohen’s article also (at the word “worked”) linked to (but unfortunately out of context) a self-promotional youtube by and for Kahana himself, that appears to have been intended by him to promote himself to both Russians and Syrians, as being a magnanimous israeli philanthropist who rescues victims of his hated Assad, because he cares so much about the Syrian people.

We are already well beyond George Orwell’s prophetic novel 1984. This is the reality of today’s U.S. empire.

On October 24 was posted to X an exposé by James Li, of the top people at the U.S. magazine the Atlantic, which opens, “Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic‘s Editor-in-Chief who compared Trump to Hitler, was an IDF prison guard at a facility known for torture and sex abuse. He also pushed the false Saddam-Al-Qaeda link that led to the Iraq War and keeps pushing for war in the Middle East.” And the magazine’s owner is Steve Jobs’s deeply neoconservative widow, and she pitches her propaganda to Democratic Party voters, to keep them backing her candidates.

On October 15, ZeroHedge headlined “US Threatens Israel With Arms Embargo As Evidence Of War Crimes Becomes Impossible to Deny.” This is how successful U.S. politicians win votes from their suckers. Biden publicly threatens Israel at the same time as he privately authorizes — and arms to the teeth — what it is doing that he publicly condemns. Both of America’s political Parties are fully complicit in this deceit — this genocide.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Eric Zuesse is an investigative historian. His new book, America's Empire of Evil: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. Read other articles by Eric.

Crippling UNRWA: The Knesset’s Collective Punishment of Palestinians

by Binoy Kampmark / October 27th, 2024

The man has a cheek.  Having lectured Iranians and Lebanese about what (and who) is good for them in terms of rulers and rule (we already know what he thinks of the Palestinians), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been keeping busy on further depriving access and assistance to those in Gaza and the West Bank.  This comes in draft legislation that would prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from pursuing its valuable functions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli state has been relentless and pathological.  Even before last year’s October 7 attacks by Hamas, much was made of the fact that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current.  Victimhood, complained the amnesiac enforcers of the Israeli state, was being encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees.  Nasty memories were being kept alive.

Since then, Israel has been further libelling and blackening the organisation as a terrorist front best abolished. (Labels are effortlessly swapped – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist”.)  Initially came that infamous dossier pointing the finger at 12 individuals said to be Hamas participants in the October 7 attacks.  With swiftness, the UN commenced internal investigations.  Some individuals were sacked on suspicion of being linked to the attacks. Unfortunately, some US$450 million worth of donor funding from sixteen countries was suspended.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was always at pains to explain that he had “never been informed” nor received evidence substantiating Israel’s accusations.  It was also all the more curious given that staff lists for the agency were provided to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance.  At no point had he ever “received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

In April, Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is under way, with serious implications for peace and security”.  Repeatedly, requests by the agency to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been refused, staff barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian actors and Israel, and UNRWA premises and staff targeted.

Israel’s campaign to dissuade donor states from restoring funding proved a mixed one.  Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July that funding would be restored.  In the view of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA had taken steps to ensure that it was meeting “the highest standards of neutrality.”

In August, the findings of a review of the allegations by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, instigated at the request of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, were released. It confirmed UNRWA’s role as “irreplaceable and indispensable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a “pivotal” body that provided “life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”

In identifying eight areas for immediate improvement on the subject of neutrality (for instance, engaging donors, neutrality of staff, installations, education and staff unions), it was noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” that the agency’s employees had been “members of terrorist organizations.”

On October 24, UNRWA confirmed that one of its staffers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been in the agency’s employ since July 2022 while serving as a Nukhba commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion.  Attawi is alleged to have participated in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im in October last year.  His name had featured in a July letter from Israel to the agency listing 100 names allegedly connected with terrorist groups.  But no action was taken against Attawi as the Israelis failed to supply UNRWA with evidence.  Lazzarini’s letter urging, in the words of Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, “to cooperate … by providing more information so he could take action” did not receive “any response”.

Having been foiled on various fronts in its quest to terminate UNRWA’s viable existence, Israeli lawmakers are now taking the legislative route to entrench the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.  Two bills are in train in the Knesset. The first, sponsored by such figures as Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, would bar state authorities from having contact with UNRWA.  The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically prevent the agency from operating in Israeli territory through revoking a 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.

Even proclaimed moderates – the term is relative – such as former defence minister Benny Gantz support the measures, accusing the UN body of making “itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it”.  It did not improve the lot of refugees, but merely perpetuated “their victimisation.”  Evidently for Gantz, Israel had no central role in creating Palestinian victims in the first place.

By barring cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA, work in Gaza and the West Bank would become effectively impossible, largely because Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to the territories or permit any coordination with the Israeli Defense Forces.

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills.  “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.”  Ambassadors from 123 UN member states have echoed the same views, while the Biden administration has, impotently, warned that the proposed “restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment” while also denying educational and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In their October 23 statement, the Nordic countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate “to carry out […] direct relief and works programmes” for millions of Palestinian refugees as determined by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) would be jettisoned.  “In the midst of an ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, a halt to any of the organisation’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”

The statement goes on to make a warning.  To impair the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “may well destabilise the situation in [Gaza, and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem], in Israel and in the region as a whole, and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects of a two-state solution.”

These are concerns that hardly matter before the rationale of murderous collective punishment, one used against a people seen more as mute serfs and submissive animals than sovereign beings entitled to rights and protections.  Israel’s efforts to malign and cripple UNRWA remains a vital part of that agenda.  In that organisation exists a repository of deep and troubling memories the forces of oppression long to erase.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

The Escalator Grinds to a Halt

by Paul Larudee / October 26th, 2024

It is apparently not much of an exaggeration to say that Israel’s attack on Iran fizzled. Some targets were hit and at least two Iranian soldiers were killed, but the ineffectiveness of the operation was probably due to several factors:

1. Israel just doesn’t have the weaponry. Most of its missiles don’t have the distance, and those that do, just barely so. That’s true for a lot of its drones, too, and they are too easily detected and don’t have the carrying power.
2. The US didn’t aid, in particular with refueling manned aircraft. It’s just as well. It would have been a good way to lose both pilots and aircraft.
3. Most of the nations geographically in between Israel and Iran would not permit overflights from either Israel or the US. Iran told these nations that they prefer to remain on good terms with them, and that they would consider it an act of war to lend their airspace to Israeli operations.
4. Iranian antiaircraft systems were apparently quite effective.

Other factors may have been involved. It is possible that cooler heads prevailed in the Israeli and US militaries, for example, but we may never know, or at least not soon. Nevertheless, the main reason that Israel did not cause more damage appears not to be a question of intention, but of capability. There’s no question that Israel was hoping for an escalation that would widen the war and force the US to enter on Israel’s side. That appears to have been avoided. Iran will have to respond, but unlike Israel, neither Iran nor the US wants escalation. Iran’s response will therefore be measured, and they will declare the matter settled.

The Netanyahu government now finds itself squarely in check, though not yet checkmated. Nevertheless, the best it can do now is probably a stalemate. This is not good in the short run for Gaza and the Palestinians, nor for Lebanon, but it’s also not good for Israel, whose population is emigrating, whose economy is tanking, and which is generally a pariah throughout the world. Its decades of building its image as glamorous, progressive and a technological powerhouse is gone. It is now the redoubt of religious fanatics and criminals that even much of the international Jewish community is loathe to support. Its current mainstay is the international network of influence peddlers such as AIPAC, whose power has not dwindled in the US and other western governments, due to its ability to enrich the military industrial complex and to control the elective processes in these governments. With the loss of a wider base in the Jewish community, however, that power is likely to decline.FacebookTwitteRedditEmail

Paul Larudee is a retired academic and current administrator of a nonprofit human rights and humanitarian aid organization. Read other articles by Paul.

Almog Cohen, member of the Israeli Knesset, Using Lies about the 10/07 Attack to Justify Targeting and Killing of Palestinian Children

by Dissident Voice Communications / October 26th, 2024

X/Twitter screen cap from Almog Cohen. He is perpetuating lies about the 10/07 attack to justify targeting and killing of Palestinian children.

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Dissident Voice Communications (DVC) is a non-profit meta-company in the public interest (well, depends on which public), we aim to challenge the hegemony of Big Media by communicating... all sorts of stuff. Read other articles by Dissident Voice Communications.