Monthly Archives: August 2024

Watchdog of Far-Right GOP Issues ‘The Definitive Guide to Project 2025’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington D.C. on July 8, 2024. (Photo: Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images via AFP)

“It’s a clear threat to our democracy, as our government could be weaponized against us as part of a concerted effort to control how we live our live,” said the vice president of Media Matters for America.

A watchdog organization that monitors the Republican Party and the far-right movement at its core released a document Thursday characterized as “the definitive guide to Project 2025,” a sweeping policy agenda crafted by more than 100 conservative groups and alumni of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

The 67-page report published by Media Matters for America lays out in detail Trump’s close ties to Project 2025 and examines specific policy proposals included in the agenda, which—if implemented—would affect every area of American life, from the workplace to the environment to reproductive rights and other fundamental freedoms.

“Project 2025 lays out an extreme far-right agenda that would impose draconian restrictions to the lives of everyday Americans,” Media Matters vice president Julie Millican said in a statement. “If enacted, not only would it gut the checks and balances that our country relies on, but it’s a clear threat to our democracy, as our government could be weaponized against us as part of a concerted effort to control how we live our lives.”

“Project 2025’s extremist goals make clear what’s truly at stake,” Millican added.

“Project 2025 looks like an albatross that Trump will find hard to get rid of.”

Contrary to the Republican presidential nominee’s claim that he “knows nothing about” Project 2025 or who’s behind it, Media Matters noted that “Trump and his allies are deeply connected” to the initiative spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation.

The new report points to Trump’s remarks at a 2022 Heritage event, where the former president declared that the group would “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” The Washington Post revealed Wednesday that Trump traveled to the event via private jet with Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation.

“CNN reported that there are ‘nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump,'” Media Matters observed in its new analysis. “The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee nominated Project 2025 author Russ Vought as the policy director of the RNC’s 2024 Committee on the Platform… John McEntee, a Project 2025 senior adviser, said in April he would ‘integrate a lot of our work’ with the Trump campaign later this year.”

The report spotlights plans outlined by Project 2025 and the Trump campaign to purge the federal workforce and replace career civil servants with Trump loyalists dedicated to implementing the far-right movement’s assault on abortion rights, climate regulations, labor protections, and more. Trump allies have already begun screening “thousands of potential foot soldiers” to replace federal employees across the U.S. government.

“This posture toward witch hunts against federal bureaucrats recalls the days of disgraced Sen. Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade, which resulted in massive purges of left-wing federal employees as well as those perceived to be gay or gender-nonconforming,” Media Matters noted, adding that “MAGA media, including Project 2025 allies, have openly celebrated McCarthy’s destructive legacy.”

The report also points with alarm to “a blog published to The American Conservative, a Project 2025 partner, [that] advocated for repealing the 22nd Amendment to allow Trump to serve a third term.”

The Media Matters report came as the University of Massachusetts Amherst released new national survey data showing that Project 2025’s policy proposals are “deeply unpopular” with U.S. voters.

Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll, said Thursday that “Project 2025 looks like an electoral liability” for Trump and the GOP, which has been accused of injecting Project 2025 policies into government funding proposals currently before Congress.

Nteta said that given the results of the new survey—conducted between July 29 and August 1—”it is no surprise that the Democratic Party has sought to link” Project 2025 with Trump or that the GOP nominee has attempted to “move away from any and all association with the unpopular 900-page playbook.”

“Large majorities of Americans oppose the key pillars of Project 2025, such as the replacement of career government officials with political appointees (68% opposed), restricting a woman’s right to contraception (72% opposed), and eliminating the Department of Education (64% opposed),” said Nteta. “While our politics are usually divided by class, generational, racial, gender, and partisan identities, among these groups we find strong opposition to many of the policies associated with Project 2025.”

“Even former Trump voters exhibit opposition to many of these policies,” Nteta added, “a bad omen for the Republican Party and Trump campaign.”

Just 8% of Trump 2020 voters support Project 2025’s proposal to strip emergency contraception access from tens of millions of women across the U.S., according to the new poll. Only 18% of Trump voters said they support “firing federal employees and replacing them with political appointees loyal to the president.”

More than half of Americans say they have heard about Project 2025, the new survey shows—a finding that UMass Amherst professor Jesse Rhodes described as remarkable given that Heritage Foundation reports are “usually incredibly obscure.”

“For the most part, Americans don’t like what they are hearing,” said Rhodes, a co-director of the new poll. “It’s no wonder Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, but unfortunately for him, because dozens of his former administration officials worked on the report, this is going to be hard to do. Project 2025 looks like an albatross that Trump will find hard to get rid of.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingWatchdog of Far-Right GOP Issues ‘The Definitive Guide to Project 2025’

Greenpeace supporters raise £1 million to fight Shell lawsuit

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/greenpeace-supporters-raise-ps1million-fight-shell-lawsuit

A Shell logo at a petrol station

GREENPEACE has said that a legal case launched by Shell intended to intimidate it and drain its resources has instead had the opposite effect, with members of the public donating over £1 million to support the NGO.

The group launched the fundraiser last November after Shell announced that it was suing over a peaceful climate protest in the North Sea, in which activists occupied a moving oil platform to protest against the damage caused by the oil giant.

Although Shell, which reported a record £22.3 billion in profits last year, acknowledges no damage was caused to its equipment, it is still demanding extensive damages.

Donations are being used to fight the case and to campaign for oil giants to “stop drilling and start paying” for the environmental damage they have caused.

Almost 25,000 donations were received in just nine months, and the funds raised now exceed the amount Shell is seeking in damages ($1m, or £789,000), although it is likely legal costs will run into the millions.

Greenpeace UK campaigner Philip Evans said: “Shell’s attempt to intimidate us is only making us stronger.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/greenpeace-supporters-raise-ps1million-fight-shell-lawsuit

Continue ReadingGreenpeace supporters raise £1 million to fight Shell lawsuit

Israeli Leaders Demand Probe of IDF Rape Video—To Find Out Who Leaked It

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks during a rally in Sderot, Israel on October 26, 2022. (Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is what Israelis rioted to protect, what the Knesset debated—the right to rape Palestinians,” said one critic.

While human rights groups called for an investigation of a leaked recording apparently showing Israel Defense Forces reservists gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military base and detention center, Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday also furiously demanded a probe of the video—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked it.

Smotrich took to social media Wednesday to call for “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them.”

Israeli media on Tuesday aired footage in which Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists are seen attacking a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman while trying to hide their actions with shields.

According to Israeli media reports, the victim was hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage.

Nine alleged assailants—who include members of Force 100, the military unit tasked with guarding Sde Teiman prisoners—were arrested last week in connection with the attack. A mob of far-right Israelis including senior government officials subsequently stormed two military bases in an attempt to free the suspects.

While many Israelis condemned the alleged rape, others rallied around the accused reservists. Smotrich described them as “heroic warriors.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called them “our best heroes.”

Far-right Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot—who took part in last week’s riot—joined Smotrich in demanding an investigation of the video leak.

“Leaking and disclosure of investigative materials is a criminal offense that harms the proper legal process, the rule of law, public trust, and the principle of justice,” he said Wednesday.

Israeli media reported Wednesday that two of the accused reservists lied on polygraph tests when asked if they had sodomized the prisoner.

Numerous Israelis continued to express support for the accused rapists. Israel Today political reporter Yehuda Schlesinger said Wednesday on a popular morning show that “I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do to Hamas man.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1821121616094412908

“First of all, they deserve it,” Schlesinger said of the abuse at Sde Teiman and other Israeli military prisons. “It’s great revenge that we need to give them.”

“It’s just a shame that we don’t do it in an institutionalized way, as part of regulations for torture of prisoners,” he added, “because then the next guys who think about doing another October 7 will say, ‘Do you see what they’re doing to [us] in Israel?'”

Etan Nechin, the New York correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, accused the media of being the “main culprit” that “has normalized the most extreme voices, letting genocidal brutes, racists, and messianic zealots into Israeli’s TV sets.”

Some American media critics drew attention to the scant coverage of abuse at Sde Teiman in the U.S. corporate media.

“U.S. taxpayers continue to support this military and its torture camps,” Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media. “How is this not front-page news?”

In the United States—which supports Israel’s war on Gaza with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Wednesday press conference that “there ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee. Period.”

“It is appropriate that the IDF in this case, has announced an investigation, has arrested a number of people who are alleged to have been involved, and I won’t speak to the outcome of that investigation, but it ought to proceed swiftly,” Miller added.

Critics noted the IDF’s chronic failures to credibly investigate its alleged crimes. The Israeli rights group Yesh Din said in late 2022 that less than 1% of Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were indicted over the previous five years.

The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday took up a petition by rights groups seeking to close Sde Teiman, where widespread—and sometimes deadly—torture has been reported. Last month, Israel’s High Court issued a conditional order seeking to shut down the prison in response to the flood of reports of torture there.

Former prisoners including children and Israeli whistleblowers at Sde Teiman—often called “Israel’s Guantánamo Bay”—have described rampant torture and abuse at the facility, which is used to imprison Palestinians captured in the Gaza Strip. According to their testimonies, prisoners have been raped, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, burned with cigarettes, severely beaten, starved, and subjected to 24-hour shackling sometimes leading to amputations.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said this week that at least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October.

More than 1,100 Israelis and others died during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, during which more than 240 other people were kidnapped. Israel’s response—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—has left more than 142,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to local and international officials.

Smotrich suggested earlier this week that it is “moral and justified” to starve 2 million Palestinians to death. So far, at least dozens, mostly children, have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical care in Gaza amid Israel’s crippling assault and siege.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingIsraeli Leaders Demand Probe of IDF Rape Video—To Find Out Who Leaked It

Israel continues to systematically massacre and starve Palestinians in Gaza

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Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

A man searches through the rubble after an airstrike in Nusreiat refugee camp in May. Photo: Xinhua

After 10 months, Israel continues to commit horrific atrocities against Palestinians, indifferent to international law

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched several aerial attacks across Gaza on Thursday, August 8. At least 32 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of others were injured in the airstrikes, including children.

The airstrikes targeted Abdul Fattah Hamoud School and Al-Zahra School in Gaza City, in addition to several homes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Another airstrike targeted a group of civilians in Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City. The Israeli army falsely claimed that its forces targeted the schools due to being used as “hideouts” by Hamas resistance fighters.

Deadly airstrikes have been taking place on a daily basis in Gaza, while starvation has also been used as a weapon against Palestinians in the besieged strip. The United Nations reported on Monday, August 5, that the malnutrition levels among children in northern Gaza witnessed a 300% increase from May to July.

The United Nations deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq explained at a press briefing on Monday, August 5, that the United Nations humanitarian partners attributed the deterioration in nutrition conditions in Gaza strip to access constraints, shortages in essential supplies, limited availability of fresh produce and meat, poor water and sanitation services and spreading diseases.

Nevertheless, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the prevention of humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza strip, on Monday, as “justified and moral”. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” Smotrich said.

The European Union, France and the United Kingdom condemned Smotrich’s statement on Thursday, August 8. The statement was also denounced by the US administration on the same day. The Times of Israel quoted a US State Department spokesperson saying: “We are appalled by these comments and reiterate that this rhetoric is harmful and disturbing.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs decried Smotrich’s statement on Thursday, saying it is an “explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide.” Moreover, the ministry urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Smotrich.

Many people from Gaza have also been subjected to severe humiliation at the hands of Israeli forces, especially those who have been arrested and detained. On Wednesday, August 7, Israeli media outlets broadcasted a leaked video from surveillance cameras in Sde Teiman detention centre. The video showed a group of Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza, while hiding themselves behind their shields. The victim shown in the video is believed to be the Palestinian detainee from Gaza, who was taken to hospital due to sustaining severe injuries in his rectum as a result of sexual assault.

An Israeli lawmaker from the ruling Likud party Hanoch Milwidsky was asked in a meeting last week whether it is justified “to insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” Hanoch’s answer was: “Yes! If he is a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him,” he answered, referring to Nukhba special forces with Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), has described the video as “shocking.” OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said in a statement: “These are shocking scenes and represent one of many instances of serious Israeli violations in recent months, including the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, torture, sexual violence, and rape.” The US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller urged Israel to fully investigate the sexual abuse incident on Wednesday, calling for “zero tolerance” for perpetrators. However, despite the number of gross violations committed by Israel, the US government has still refused to leverage any pressure tactics against Israel to force it to change its siege on Gaza, namely cutting off aid and weapons shipments. Progressive organizations in the US and globally continue to demand the US end all aid to Israel and thus stop enabling its atrocities.

Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael continues to systematically massacre and starve Palestinians in Gaza

Zarah Sultana: The enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/enemy-working-class-far-right

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The fuse may have been set alight by online disinformation and secretive social media channels, but this explosion of far-right violence has been decades in the making. And while Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) and his mob of far-right agitators are its immediate instigators, much of Britain’s political and media class is complicit in laying the groundwork for this eruption of hate.

This truth of how we reached this point flips the normal classist narrative about racism in Britain. The reality is that racism isn’t a bottom-up expression of popular discontent, but a top-down project propagated by people in positions of power.

Just think about how the billionaire-owned rightwing press drip-feeds hate into British politics, splashing fearmongering headlines across their papers: “Islamist plotters in schools across the UK” – the Telegraph; “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for jihadis” – the Sun; “Migrants spark housing crisis” – the Daily Mail.

Or think how Conservative politicians normalise far-right rhetoric, dehumanising people and spreading hate. From “one nation” Conservatives such as David Cameron who as prime minister described migrants as a “swarm”, to the likes of Suella Braverman who as home secretary said there was a migrant “invasion”. Rishi Sunak’s “Stop the boats” slogan is now a far-right chant and just this week the Tory party leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said the police should “immediately arrest” people shouting “Allahu Akbar” on the street, the Arabic phrase meaning “God is great” – the equivalent of a Christian saying “hallelujah”.

This rhetoric was propagated further by the privately educated, former City trader Nigel Farage, who claims to be a man of the people. In the general election campaign, he said many Muslims didn’t share “British values” and this week promoted the “two-tier policing” conspiracy.

But it’s not just rightwing politicians, pundits and publications at fault. So-called centrists too often refuse to push back against this hate as well, sometimes peddling the same dangerous tropes or dismissing the concerns of those subject to this hatred.

I was confronted by this painful reality just this week. On Monday morning I was invited on to ITV’s Good Morning Britain to talk about the recent racist riots, only to be interrogated – and it did feel like an interrogation – about why I, a Muslim MP, thought it was important to call the recent racist violence Islamophobic. “Why is it important to use that specific word?” Kate Garraway repeatedly questioned me.

Almost before I could answer, and behaving with the same sneering condescension he did throughout the segment, the former Labour shadow chancellor and now broadcaster Ed Balls repeatedly interrupted me, seemingly incredulous that I thought this hate should be called by its proper name. The show has now been hit with more than 8,200 Ofcom complaints about that morning’s episode, many of them about his handling of my interview.

This wasn’t a one-off, even for Ed Balls. In the summer of 2010, as he set out his Labour leadership pitch in the Guardian, Balls blamed “eastern European migrants” for a “direct impact on the wages, terms and conditions of too many people”. He’s far from the only Labour figure to echo rightwing talking points: from then leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw, who in 2006 said that he asked veiled Muslim women to remove their veils in meetings with him, to the former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth recently claiming asylum seekers can stay in hotels for “the rest of their lives”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/enemy-working-class-far-right

Continue ReadingZarah Sultana: The enemy of the working class travels by private jet, not migrant dinghy