Category: new authoritarianism

  • Parliament blocks Declassified, citing our Gaza ‘standpoint’

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    https://www.declassifieduk.org/parliament-blocks-declassified-citing-our-gaza-standpoint

    Parliamentary press passes allow journalists more access to Westminster. (Photo: PA / Alamy)

    MPs condemn ‘sinister move’ to deny access to Declassified reporters.

    Parliament has been accused of an “outrageous abuse” that is “worthy of the Trump White House”, after blocking Declassified from holding a media pass.

    Internal emails reveal that officials cited our “in-depth investigations… from a particular standpoint”, when rejecting our application.

    They also flagged a recent investigation we published that raised concerns over pro-Israel bias in Westminster.

    This is despite parliamentary authorities having a duty to remain politically impartial. Guidelines say that passes should be granted with “fair access across a range of outlets”.

    The decision to deny Declassified access has been criticised by politicians across the political spectrum, including Labour, the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, and the Independent Alliance.

    Almost 500 journalists currently hold a pass, which provides unfettered access to Westminster and daily government briefings. They include many from right-wing outlets like Guido Fawkes and GB News.

    …

    https://www.declassifieduk.org/parliament-blocks-declassified-citing-our-gaza-standpoint

    Image of the original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler.
    The original Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
    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.
    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.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
  • Threatening to sack migrant nursing staff ‘abhorrent beyond words’, says Royal College of Nursing in response to Reform UK

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    Nigel Farage reminds you that he's the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
    Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.

    Responding to Reform UK plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain for migrants, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger said “Threatening to sack thousands of migrant nursing staff is abhorrent beyond words. These are people who have come to the UK to care for patients and become part of our communities. They deserve so much better than this.

    “The policy of retrospectively removing people’s rights in this way would be unprecedented, leaving migrant nursing staff unable to work or access welfare, despite having paid tax. It shows neither compassion nor an understanding of the fundamental role our brilliant migrant nursing staff play in health and care. Without them, services would simply cease to function.

    “As the largest nursing union, we are deeply concerned by the increasingly hostile rhetoric shown towards migrants. We urge all political parties to end this race to the bottom and instead acknowledge and celebrate the contribution of those who come to the UK from overseas.”

    Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
    Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
    Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.

  • With Genocide Confirmed and Gaza City a ‘Lifeless Wasteland,’ US Vetoes Another UN Ceasefire Resolution

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

    Deputy United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus raises her hand to veto a United Nations Security Council veto of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at UN headquarters New York City on September 18, 2025. (Photo by UN News/X)

    “Israel kills every day and nothing happens,” said Algeria’s UN ambassador. “Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens.”

    Against a backdrop of Israel’s genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

    At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding “an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, the “release of all hostages” held by Hamas, and for Israel to “immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid” into the besieged strip.

    Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move “will come as no surprise,” as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.

    Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel’s right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council.”

    The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.

    Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the “bare minimum” that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”

    “Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again… humanitarians and journalists targeted… while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this,” Mansour added.

    Following the UNSC’s latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to “forgive” the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.

    “Israel kills every day and nothing happens,” Bendjama said. “Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”

    Benjama also asked Gazans to “forgive us” for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel.”

    Condemning Thursday’s veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide,” which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.

    Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister

    who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.

    Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.

    UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday’s failed UNSC resolution that “we need a ceasefire more than ever.”

    “Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza,” Woodward said.

    Thursday’s developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip’s capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump’s proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

    In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.

    Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into “a lifeless wasteland.”

    Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians “are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter.”

    Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were “safe zones,” including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.

    “Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space,” Azzoum added. “That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky.”

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

    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    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.
    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.
  • Trump Threatens to Strip Broadcast Licenses for Networks Giving Him ‘Bad Press,’ Ramping Up His ‘Campaign of Censorship and Control’

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

    US President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on August 25, 2025.
     (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says the commission “doesn’t have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content.”

    President Donald Trump doubled down on his threats to silence his critics Thursday, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that outlets that give him “bad press” may have their broadcast licenses taken away.

    The threat came just one day after his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) director, Brendan Carr, successfully pressured ABC into pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show from the air by threatening the broadcast licenses of its affiliates over a comment the comedian made about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

    “I read someplace that the networks were 97% against me,” Trump told the press gaggle. “I get 97% negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything. And they’re 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity… I mean, they’re getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”

    “When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do,” the president continued. “If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”

    He said that the decision would be left up to Carr, who has threatened to take away licenses from networks that air what he called “distorted” content.

    It is unclear where Trump’s statistic that networks have been “97% against” him originates, nor the claim that mainstream news networks “haven’t had a conservative on in years.”

    But even if it were true, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez says “the FCC doesn’t have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to revoke a license because of content.”

    In comments made to Axios Thursday, Gomez—the lone Democrat on the five-member panel—said that the Trump administration was “weaponizing its licensing authority in order to bring broadcasters to heel,” as part of a “campaign of censorship and control.”

    National news networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC do not have broadcasting licenses approved by the FCC, nor do cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News. The licenses threatened by Carr are for local affiliates, which—despite having the branding of the big networks—are owned by less well-known companies like Nexstar Media Group and the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, both of which pushed in favor of ABC’s decision to ax Kimmel.

    Gomez said that with Trump’s intimidation of broadcasters, the “threat is the point.”

    “It is a very hard standard to meet to revoke a license, which is why it’s so rarely done, but broadcast license to the broadcasters are extremely valuable,” she said. “And so they don’t want to be dragged before the FCC either in order to answer to an enforcement complaint of some kind or under the threat of possible revocation.”

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

    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    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.
    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.
    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.