… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Author: dizzy

  • ‘Stop Arming Israel,’ Jewish-Led Groups Tell DNC Leaders at Party Summit

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

    A massive smoke and dust cloud rises after Israeli forces demolish several buildings in the Shujaiyya neighborhood located inside the so-called yellow zone in northern Gaza City, Gaza on December 9, 2025. (Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel.”

    Jewish Voice for Peace Action on Friday led a coalition of groups demanding that the Democratic Party stop providing arms to the Israeli government.

    Speaking outside the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting in Los Angeles, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action) held a press conference calling on Democrats to oppose all future weapons shipments to Israel, whose years-long assault on Gaza has, according to one estimate, killed more than 100,000 Palestinian people.

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    While carrying banners that read, “Stop Arming Israel,” speakers at the press conference also called on Democrats to reject money from the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), which has consistently funded primary challenges against left-wing critics of Israel.

    JVP Action was joined at the press conference by representatives from Health Care 4 US (HC4US), Progressive Democrats of America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action (CAIR Action), and the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) Board of Directors.

    Estee Chandler, founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, warned Democrats at the press conference that they risked falling out of touch with public opinion if they continued to support giving weapons to Israel.

    “The polls are clear,” Chandler said. “The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel, and the Democratic Party refusing to heed that call will continue to come at their own peril.”

    The press conference came a day after the progressive advocacy group RootsAction and journalist Christopher D. Cook released an “autopsy” report of the Democratic Party’s crushing 2024 losses, finding that the party’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza contributed to last year’s election results.

    Chandler also called on Democrats to get behind the Block the Bombs Act, which currently has 58 sponsors, and which she said “would block the transfer of the worst offensive weapons from being sent to Israel, including bombs, tank rounds, and artillery shells that are US-supplied and have been involved in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the grossest violations of international law in Gaza.”

    Although there has technically been a ceasefire in place in Gaza since October, Israeli forces have continued to conduct deadly military operations in the enclave that have killed hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children.

    Ricardo Pires, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said last month that the number of deaths in Gaza in recent weeks has been “staggering” given that they’ve happened “during an agreed ceasefire.”

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

    Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
    Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.

  • Top Indiana Republican Claims Trump Pledged to Withhold Funds If State Didn’t Approve Rigged Map

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

    Indiana Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith speaks during a Remembering Charlie Kirk vigil hosted by Turning Point USA at Indiana University at the Indiana Memorial Union on September 14, 2025 in Bloomington, Indiana. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images)

    Some Indiana Republicans vocally objected to the president’s pressure campaign, with one saying Hoosiers “don’t like to be bullied in any fashion.”

    Republican Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith posted and subsequently deleted a claim that President Donald Trump had threatened to cut off funding to his state unless its legislators approved a mid-decade gerrymander that would have changed the composition of its congressional map to further favor the GOP.

    Just over four hours after the Republican-led Indiana state Senate on Thursday voted down the Trump-backed gerrymander—which would have changed the projected balance of Indiana’s current congressional makeup from seven Republicans and two Democrats to a 9-0 map in favor of the GOP—Beckwith took to X to warn that the Hoosier State would soon be feeling the president’s wrath.

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    “The Trump admin was VERY clear about this,” he wrote, referring to threats to take away federal funding for Indiana. “They told many lawmakers, cabinet members, and the [governor] and I that this would happen. The Indiana Senate made it clear to the Trump admin today that they do not want to be partners with the [White House]. The WH made it clear to them that they’d oblige.”

    Although Beckwith deleted his post, he also confirmed to Politico reporter Adam Wren that the White House said that Indiana could lose out on funding for projects if the state did not approve the map, although Beckwith insisted that this was not a “threat” but merely “an honest conversation about who the White House does want to partner with.”

    Earlier on Thursday, the X account for right-wing advocacy group Heritage Action, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation think tank, claimed that Trump had threatened to decimate Indiana’s state finances unless the state Senate approved his proposed gerrymander.

    “President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state,” Heritage Action wrote. “Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”

    Trump has not yet publicly threatened to cut off Indiana’s federal funds, and it’s not clear that the administration actually plans to punish the state for defying the president.

    According to a Thursday report from CNN, the Trump White House pressure campaign against Republican Indiana state senators backfired because many legislators resented being subjected to angry threats from Trump supporters, including some incidents in which lawmakers were swatted at their homes.

    Republican Indiana state Sen. Jean Leising told CNN that the all-out pressure campaign waged by the president ended up pushing more people into opposing his agenda.

    “You wouldn’t change minds by being mean,” Leising said. “And the efforts were mean-spirited from the get-go. If you were wanting to change votes, you would probably try to explain why we should be doing this, in a positive way. That never happened, so, you know, I think they get what they get.”

    Fellow Republican Indiana state Sen. Sue Glick echoed Leinsing’s assessment, and said that blunt-force threats against legislators were doomed to failure.

    “Hoosiers are a hardy lot, and they don’t like to be threatened,” Glick said. “They don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be bullied in any fashion. And I think a lot of them responded with, ‘That isn’t going to work.’ And it didn’t.”

    Indiana’s rejection of the proposed gerrymander this week was a major blow to Trump’s unprecedented mid-decade redistricting crusade, which began in Texas and subsequently spread to Missouri and North Carolina.

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

  • Venezuela complains to maritime body over US Caribbean piracy

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/venezuela-complains-maritime-body-over-us-caribbean-piracy

     This image from video posted on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s X account, and partially redacted by the source, shows an oil tanker being seized by U.S. forces off the coast of Venezuela, December 10, 2025. Photo: U.S. Attorney General’s Office/X via AP

    VENEZUELA has lodged a complaint to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) about the US seizure of an oil tanker in the Caribbean.

    The Venezuelans filed the complaint on Thursday to the London-based IMO over what many observers have labelled an act of piracy by the US on Wednesday. 

    The country’s Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez said she had communicated with IMO executive secretary Arsenio Dominguez, with the aim of “formally and legally addressing this serious situation.”

    VP Rodriguez described the incident as a blatant robbery and said the action “exposed the true interests of the US in its ongoing aggression against Venezuela.”

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/venezuela-complains-maritime-body-over-us-caribbean-piracy

    Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
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  • Morning Star Editorial: Robinson’s ‘Christianity’ reflects US leadership of the global far right

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/robinsons-christianity-reflects-us-leadership-global-far-right

     Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, London, November 4, 2025

    ANTI-RACISTS, many of them Christians, will challenge far-right agitator “Tommy Robinson” over his attempt to identify Christianity with his message of hatred this weekend.

    Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) hosting a carol service is a surreal contrast to his normal routine of bigoted rants and spontaneous punch-ups.

    He supposedly found God while in prison for contempt of court for repeating false claims against a Syrian refugee, though he hasn’t shown much contrition for his violation of the Ninth Commandment since. Indeed this is hardly a Damascene conversion given Robinson’s priorities (railing against immigrants and Muslims) seem exactly the same as before.

    The recent emergence of Christian nationalism in Britain may have less to do with Robinson’s spiritual journey than with the influence of Donald Trump’s United States over the global far right.

    Robinson is always acutely alert to where the money is and the US Christian right is awash with it. We also know, from the White House’s new national security strategy, that it hopes to reshape Europe in its own image.

    It declares Europe at risk of “civilisational erasure” from immigration, commits itself to “help Europe correct its current trajectory” and identifies the “the growing influence of patriotic European parties” as the means to do so.

    This is a potentially huge boost to the far right in countries like Britain. But it can be turned into a weakness.

    A boost, because resources matter.

    Robinson has already had legal fees paid by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who addressed the huge far-right demonstration held in London in September.

    Their movement will have access to enormous funds, enabling effective propaganda operations and paid organisers.

    It’s backed by the most powerful country on Earth — something we saw hints of in the succession of far-right figures hosted by US Vice-President JD Vance on a so-called holiday in England last summer, under the very noses of the supposedly allied British government he was working to undermine.

    A factor which again benefits the far right: the liberal Establishment cannot conceive of a breach with Washington, and continues to lick the boots that are kicking it in the ribs. Most recently with a craven surrender to US demands over NHS drug pricing, which will raise the cost of medicine and cost British lives.

    But that’s why the apparent asset of being a US asset can be turned against the insurgent right.

    Robinson is not the only recipient of US largesse. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is also linked to the US “Maga” movement (he has received free services from the PR firm Capital HQ, linked to Steve Bannon, and is notorious for his frequent transatlantic trips).

    Its economic priorities, in particular an acceleration of healthcare privatisation by proposing vouchers allowing access to private providers, align with the US aim — openly avowed in documents like Project 2025 — of turning the NHS into a cash cow for US companies.

    We should expose the foreign money behind these so-called “patriotic” movements — and the similarity between the far right’s fixation with privatisation and deregulation with that of Tory and Labour governments. The flood of ex-Tories joining Reform do so because it is a Tory party: it is not “anti-Establishment” at all.

    And our message in calling out Robinson’s perversion of the Christian spirit needs to look beyond him to the normalisation of cruelty in the political mainstream.

    At Christmas Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, born in a stable, child refugee from King Herod, who urged his followers to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger and visit the prisoner.

    That message damns a government that cuts benefits, hounds asylum-seekers and is ready to let eight brave hunger-strikers, some jailed for over a year already though none have faced trial, starve to death rather than address the injustice it has done them.

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/robinsons-christianity-reflects-us-leadership-global-far-right

    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
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    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
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  • Streeting warned ‘irresponsible’ public tirades won’t avert plans for doctor strikes

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-warned-irresponsible-public-tirades-wont-avert-plans-doctor-strikes

     Junior doctors and members of the British Medical Association (BMA) outside Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, January 3, 2024

    …

    NHS campaigners issued a furious response after he told LBC: “I cannot guarantee, I honestly don’t want to catastrophise or sensationalise, I cannot sit here and look you in the eye and tell you that no patient will come to harm.”

    BMA resident doctors’ committee chair Dr Jack Fletcher said: “Ultimately, the health secretary has far more power to prevent NHS strikes than he gives himself credit for; not through confrontation, but by rebuilding trust and putting an offer on the table that creates sufficient brand-new training places for doctors, not changing the names of existing roles. 

    “His current offer does not create any more capacity for us to treat patients, or do anything to help clear waiting lists; let’s be clear about that.”

    …

    Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr Tony O’Sullivan told the Morning Star: “It is the height of irresponsible behaviour from the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to go to war with doctors and the BMA amid the flu epidemic and this, the second winter crisis since the Starmer–Streeting administration took office. 

    “The government cannot pretend that they had no warning, that they didn’t see it coming. Nor should they deny that it is their responsibility to deal with it. 

    …

    “The government must take action to give NHS resident doctors, and other staff, the remuneration they deserve.

    “But instead, as with the scapegoating of migrants and asylum-seekers as the cause of multiple ills, the government’s self-serving reaction is to scapegoat doctors and their union, the BMA, for the NHS crisis Labour was voted into office to solve.”

    Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streeting-warned-irresponsible-public-tirades-wont-avert-plans-doctor-strikes