Amerikkka

US ‘heading towards fascist dictatorship’ say critics after arrest of British journalist Sami Hamdi

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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Sami Hamdi,the Editor-in-Chief of the International Interest during the speech at 17th Annual Convention for Palestine, in Tinley Park village of Illinois, United States on November 30, 2024. [Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images]

The United States is “heading towards fascist dictatorship”, critics have warned, following the detention of British journalist Sami Hamdi by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Hamdi, a prominent political commentator and managing director of the London-based think tank The International Interest, was apprehended at San Francisco International Airport after addressing a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gala in Sacramento.

ICE has confirmed that Hamdi is being held in custody pending removal, with a Homeland Security spokesperson citing revoked visa status. In a post on X, DHS official Tricia McLaughlin wrote: “Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country.”

Critics, however, say Hamdi’s only “crime” was condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

CAIR condemned his detention, describing it as a politically motivated abduction driven by pressure from far-right pro-Israel figures. In a statement, the group said:

“Abducting a prominent British Muslim journalist and political commentator on a speaking tour in the United States because he dared to criticise the Israeli government’s genocide is a blatant affront to free speech”, said CAIR.

“Our nation must stop abducting critics of the Israeli government at the behest of unhinged Israel First bigots. This is an Israel First policy, not an America First policy, and it must end.”

CAIR added that anti-Muslim provocateur Laura Loomer, who has previously espoused conspiracy theories and Islamophobic rhetoric, claimed credit for orchestrating Hamdi’s detention, posting that ICE responded to her demands.

READ: Immigrant students detained in US moved to remote detention centres flagged for rights concerns

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has urged the UK government to intervene. “Press freedom cannot be selective,” it said. “The Government must defend British citizens and the right to speak truth to power.” It called for “urgent diplomatic action to secure British journalist Sami Hamdi’s release from US ICE detention.”

Hamdi’s father also issued a plea via X, writing: ” Anyone who truly wants to understand #Sami_Hamdi and how he thinks should start with these words” said Dr. Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi sharing his son’s tweet from May calling out anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. 

Dr Yasir Qadhi, a prominent American Muslim scholar, warned that the arrest reflects an alarming trend: “Our country is heading towards a fascist dictatorship in which any speech that goes against the official narrative is going to be criminalised,” he said. Qadhi described Hamdi’s arrest as part of a broader campaign of “anti-Muslim bigotry”, cautioning that this “inhumane evil will be directed against multiple minorities, not just Muslims.”

Hamdi had been on a US speaking tour, with scheduled events in Florida following his appearance in California. He has appeared on UK broadcasters including Sky News and Channel 4 as a commentator on Middle East affairs.

The incident forms part of a broader pattern of repression against Palestinian advocacy and criticism of Israel in the US. Universities have revoked student group charters, political donors have blacklisted dissenting voices, and social media platforms have throttled pro-Palestinian content. 

Rights groups have warned that these actions represent a coordinated campaign to silence opposition to Israeli war crimes and shield its leaders from accountability.

READ: Detained student in US claims university laid groundwork for his ‘abduction’

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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.
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.
Continue ReadingUS ‘heading towards fascist dictatorship’ say critics after arrest of British journalist Sami Hamdi

‘Another Unlawful Extrajudicial Killing’ as Trump Expands Boat-Bombing Spree to Pacific

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

A boat in the Pacific Ocean targeted for military strike by the Trump administration on October 21, 2025. (Image: Screen shot via Pete Hegseth/X)

“This is illegal and endangers America,” said one critic of Trump’s boat-bombing campaign.

The Trump administration launched another military strike on a purported drug trafficking boat on Tuesday night, and for the first time expanded its campaign of extrajudicial killing to the Pacific Ocean.

In a social media post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that President Donald Trump had authorized “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a designated terrorist organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.” Hegseth also said that the strike killed two passengers who were aboard the vessel.

This marks at least the eighth time the US military has attacked a purported drug-trafficking boat, although the previous seven strikes took place in the Caribbean. Collectively, the strikes have killed at least 34 people.

In the wake of the latest boat attack, many Trump critics once again slammed the administration for carrying out what they described as acts of murder.

Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer at The Atlantic, described the attack as “another unlawful extrajudicial killing of a boat our military could have stopped and investigated.”

Friedersdorf also emphasized that these killings would be unlawful even if the people on the boats were involved in narcotics trafficking.

“Even when convicted drug smugglers go to court, they don’t get the death penalty,” he wrote. “This is immoral.”

Kenneth Roth, former executive director for Human Rights Watch, tore apart the administration’s legal argument for treating alleged drug smuggling as an act of war by a hostile foreign power.

“Trump’s rationale for his repeated murders at sea don’t hold water,” he wrote in a post on X. “There is no ‘self-defense’ because no one is attacking the United States. There is no ’armed conflict’ because there are no hostilities approaching a war.”

Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor and US general counsel of the Army, warned in a post on Bluesky about the dangers of further widening Trump’s bombing campaign.

“He must be stopped,” she wrote. “This is illegal and endangers America.”

Journalist Mark Jacob said he was highly skeptical that the administration was carrying out these attacks to stop the flow of drugs into the US.

“The Trump regime lies all the time,” he wrote on Bluesky. “A more likely explanation for these attacks is US imperialism: Trump wants to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela (with vast oil reserves) and intimidate Colombia (which criticized previous attacks).”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro this past weekend said that the Trump administration had “committed a murder” after one of its boat attacks killed a Colombian citizen named Alejandro Carranza, who had been out on a fishing trip when the US military attacked his boat.

Trump responded by baselessly calling Petro “an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs,” while also levying new tariffs against Colombia.

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

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 obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Continue Reading‘Another Unlawful Extrajudicial Killing’ as Trump Expands Boat-Bombing Spree to Pacific

Morning Star Editorial: Trump’s feud with Petro suggests he is seriously mooting war on Venezuela

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/trumps-feud-petro-suggests-he-seriously-mooting-war-venezuela

 President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, October 19, 2025, en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., as he returns from a trip to Florida

DONALD TRUMP upends Marx’s famous observation on history repeating itself. If his first term was farce, his second looks more like tragedy.

Trump’s second administration is more serious than his first in its assault on democratic rights in the United States, as well as in its marshalling of far-right forces worldwide to undermine democracy elsewhere. It is also more hegemonic, with centrist politicians from Britain and Europe who viewed him as a passing aberration before now accommodating to his hateful politics.

That means the US military build-up in the Caribbean, accompanied by lawless murders of boat crews in international waters, should be taken seriously.

Trump has long hated Venezuela’s socialist government. But his efforts to overthrow it in his first term were absurd, ranging from recognising unelected clown Juan Guaido as the head of an alternative government that controlled no people or territory (“president of Narnia,” as the actual Venezuelan government quipped) to backing a ludicrous “invasion” led by two former US commandos in a speedboat. These absurdities had deadly consequences, particularly in restricting access to medical aid and Venezuela’s own sovereign assets during the coronavirus pandemic — but they never looked likely to secure regime change.

By contrast, the current concentration of US forces off Venezuela is its biggest Caribbean deployment in decades, consisting of 10,000 troops, warships including amphibious assault vessels, a submarine, fighter jets and attack helicopters. Last week, three B-52 heavy bombers flew from Louisiana and circled for hours just off the Venezuelan coast.

That the US is really considering a military assault is suggested too by its deepening feud with Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro. Trump suspended military aid to Colombia on Wednesday, warning Petro to “watch it” and threatening “very serious action against him and his country.”

Trump claims Petro is complicit in the illegal drug trade. This, of course, is also the official excuse for bombing boats in the Caribbean.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/trumps-feud-petro-suggests-he-seriously-mooting-war-venezuela

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 Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Trump’s feud with Petro suggests he is seriously mooting war on Venezuela

UN Experts Decry Trump Warmongering Against Venezuela as ‘Extremely Dangerous Escalation’

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

A US Navy missile destroyer docks at the Amador International Cruise Terminal in Panama City, Panama on September 2, 2025 amid a broader US military buildup in the Caribbean.
 (Photo by Daniel Gonzalez/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The long history of external interventions in Latin America must not be repeated.”

A group of United Nations experts on Tuesday condemned US President Donald Trump’s recent threats to wage war on Venezuela and said his decision to bomb at least seven boats in international waters—killing dozens of people accused without evidence of drug trafficking—amounted to “extrajudicial executions.”

Trump’s repeated threats against Venezuela “violate the fundamental international obligations not to intervene in the domestic affairs or threaten to use armed force against another country,” said the trio of experts, warning that the US president’s belligerence represents “an extremely dangerous escalation with grave implications for peace and security in the Caribbean region.”

Even if the Trump administration had substantiated its drug trafficking claims, the experts continued, “the use of lethal force in international waters without proper legal basis violates the international law of the sea.”

The statement from the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, and special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism came amid growing alarm over Trump’s actions and posturing against Venezuela.

Earlier this month, Trump authorized covert CIA operations in the country and declined to answer when asked whether the move amounted to a green light for the agency to assassinate the nation’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

The Trump administration has also amassed an “unusually large force” in the Caribbean consisting of thousands of troops, at least eight warships, and a squadron of jets.

“Trump has said nothing to dispel concerns that the United States could launch a full-scale military operation,” The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

In their statement, the UN experts called Trump’s warmongering against Venezuela a violation of the UN Charter, which they note “prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

They also cast the administration’s aggressive conduct as a reprise of the sordid record of US intervention, covert and otherwise, in Latin America.

“The long history of external interventions in Latin America must not be repeated,” the experts said. “The lessons from history must be learned and not repeated. The international community must stand firm in defending the rule of law, dialogue, and the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

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

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 obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.

Continue ReadingUN Experts Decry Trump Warmongering Against Venezuela as ‘Extremely Dangerous Escalation’

‘It Must Stop’: New Yorkers Protest After Violent ICE Raid on Canal Street Sparks Chaos

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

Federal agents wrestle an individual to the ground during a raid on the Canal Street area of New York City on Tuesday, October 21, 2025. (Image: Screengrab/FreedomNews.TV)

“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety,” said NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

More scenes of chaos and community anger erupted Tuesday night in downtown New York City as federal agents under the orders of President Donald Trump targeted a popular area for street vendors, many of them immigrants struggling to get by, and shoppers looking for more affordable bags, clothing, and other accessories than what’s available in retail stores.

Illegal street vending is a well-known practice in the Canal Street area of Chinatown. Still, the arrival of masked agents and military-style vehicles on Tuesday devolved into another episode of violence in Trump’s America, with frightened vendors running for their lives and passersby expressing outrage over the violence being used against the unlicensed retailers.

According to local WABC 7:

NewsCopter 7 showed arrests taking place between Lafayette and Center streets in Chinatown, an area typically busy with merchants selling T-shirts, handbags, perfumes, and designer knockoffs, as New Yorkers faced off against federal agents.

The scene grew chaotic as vendors packed up their tables and attempted to flee, with several people seen running and falling as authorities from multiple agencies, including Homeland Security, ICE, DEA and the FBI, pursued them.

As agents tried to detain individuals, crowds of New Yorkers gathered, shouting and pushing in an attempt to intervene. Some bystanders were heard cursing at officers, one officer was seen pointing his taser at the angry crowd, and several arrests were made.

Footage from Canal Street posted online showed agents tackling vendors and the angry response from the crowds witnessing the heavy-handed raid:

“Trump’s Nazi ICE Gestapo has come to Canal Street in New York City to kidnap residents—and New Yorkers are having none of it,” said social justice activist Bill Madded in a social media post, pointing to the footage.

New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani also condemned the raid.

“Federal agents from ICE and HSI—some in military fatigues and masks—descended on Chinatown today in an aggressive and reckless raid on immigrant street vendors,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for DHS, told the New York Times that the operation was led by ICE and others, including the FBI and Border Patrol, but did not, the newspaper reported, “immediately indicate the number of people arrested or disclose their immigration status.” Witnesses said agents were demanding proof of immigration status from those detained.

The surprise raid, noted many observers, came just days after right-wing political commentator Savanah Hernandez, a Trump loyalist, posted a video of herself on Canal Street documenting the street vending scene and denigrating many of the immigrants who find work there.

“A few days ago, this far-right poverty tourist and provocateur discovered Canal Street,” noted Justin Brannan, a member of the New York City Council, referencing Hernandez’s recent video segment. “Today, Trump’s ICE cowboys marched in. They’re not hiding it. They’re telegraphing it now.”

While members of the New York community denounced the raid, Hernandez, who is not from New York City, took a bow for what she accepted as her role in instigating it.

“Illegal immigration and the crime tied to it have been plaguing your city,” Hernandez said with pride. “I make no apologies for reporting on what real New Yorkers have to deal with every single day.”

A statement from the office of New York’s Democratic Governor, Katherine Hochul, described Hernandez as “a bigot” and denounced the operation in the city.

The afternoon raid sparked an impromptu protest in lower Manhattan outside federal buildings that lasted late into the evening, with residents denouncing Trump and the behavior of the agencies operating in the city.

“I am so angry. What are they doing to our city? It’s terrible,” Nicole Parcher, a New York City resident who attended the protest, told WABC.

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

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 obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Continue Reading‘It Must Stop’: New Yorkers Protest After Violent ICE Raid on Canal Street Sparks Chaos