cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58562989

The House of Representatives is set to vote Wednesday on renewing a spy power that grants the Trump administration warrantless access to thousands of Americans’ communications.

While uniting against President Donald Trump on many fronts, Democrats are split on what to do over the domestic spying power — and the party’s leadership isn’t giving much guidance, according to a congressional notice obtained by The Intercept.

In the notice laying out leadership’s advice on bills up for a vote this week, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark simply explained that the relevant top committee leaders were split. House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes supports a clean reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, while Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin wants further reforms.

Clark gave straight up-or-down recommendations on many other pieces of legislation, but not the spying law.

With leadership silent, progressive activists are trying to step into the void to pressure members. They say Trump’s disregard for the rule of law in his second term means that representatives should only vote for the law with reforms. Government officials have engaged a pattern of abuses at the Justice Department.

Centrists on two key committees, on the other hand, say that modest changes enacted in 2024 went far enough and Congress should give Trump the so-called “clean” reauthorization he has requested.

With Republicans themselves divided, the margin within the Democratic caucus could prove crucial.

Rather than advising members how to vote, however, Democratic leaders is stepping aside. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has said that he personally supports reforms but has not signaled that he will pressure his caucus. (Jeffries’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

And Buttigieg too! God help us.

As calls for Donald Trump to be impeached flooded social media after his genocidal threats toward Iran on Tuesday, the Senate’s Democratic leaders put out a statement late in the day that merely condemned Trump’s comment without any vow to take action. In a joint statement on Tuesday afternoon, Democratic leaders Senators Chuck Schumer (New York) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire)…

Source

From Truthout via this RSS feed

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/34931330

A handful of Democrats joined Republicans to defeat an effort to force President Trump to go to Congress for approval to continue using force against Iran, while two G.O.P. lawmakers backed it.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7770976

This is the guy that made in fun of you for being native american and you're like "hmmm he seems like a nice guy!"

https://archive.ph/20260225073357/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/02/19/dont-go-after-the-rich-to-fix-broken-budgets

Apparently poor people starving while rich people have 2 yachts is less morally wrong than 👻Taxing the Rich👻

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42579681

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/42579679

Jon Queally
Feb 02, 2026

Progressive critics of Senate Minority Chuck Schumer had fresh reasons to speak out Sunday after the powerful New York Democrat said that “one of many of [his] jobs” in the US Senate was to fight for ongoing taxpayer-funded military and financial assistance to the Israeli government, a position that has been the focus of growing protest among rank-and-file party members and the public at large in the face of Israel’s brutal genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

“I have many jobs as [Senate] leader... and one is to fight for aid to Israel — all the aid that Israel needs,” Schumer said at a gathering of Jewish leaders and community members in New York on Sunday.

According to Jacob Kornbluh, who provided footage of the remarks while reporting for The Forward, Schumer told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/57288405

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7372023

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20556

Amid unprecedented backlash against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, California Gov. Gavin Newsom—considered a leading contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination—is being accused of giving the increasingly violent agency a pass after an interview with right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro in which he softened his criticism of ICE.

In recent days, following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good last week in Minneapolis, officers of ICE and other federal agencies have been documented engaging in blatant racial profiling, unconstitutional “citizenship checks,” and extreme uses of physical force, including dragging a disabled US citizen from her car on the way to a doctor's appointment, as the Associated Press reported Friday.

It is part of a pattern of behavior by ICE that Newsom's press office described as "state-sponsored terrorism" as recently as January 7, when he used the term to describe Good's killing by agent Jonathan Ross, who was recorded shooting Good in the head after stepping in front of her vehicle and referring to her as a "fucking bitch." Agents also obstructed emergency medical services from arriving at the scene of the shooting to assist Good, according to video and eyewitness accounts.

But when questioned by the cantankerous debater Shapiro on his podcast, This is Gavin Newsom on Thursday, the governor backed off that forceful description of the agency.

— (@)

“Your press office tweeted out that it was state-sponsored terrorism, which, I mean, Governor, I just have to ask you about that. That sort of thing makes our politics worse, and it does,” said Shapiro, to which Newsom responded, “Yeah.”

Shapiro continued: “Our ICE officers obviously are not terrorists. A tragic situation is not state-sponsored terrorism.”

“Yeah, I think that’s fair,” agreed Newsom.

A short clip of that exchange, shared in celebration by Shapiro's outlet, the Daily Wire, was met with widespread criticism on social media from those who wanted to see one of the Democratic Party's most prominent leaders take an unapologetic stance against ICE.

Mehdi Hasan, founder of the news outlet Zeteo, questioned why "Newsom is trying to wreck his otherwise very strong chance of winning the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination by doing this self-destructive podcast where he allows right-wing guests to walk all over him and then promote clips online of them walking all over him."

But this clip showed only one of several instances during the nearly two-hour interview in which Newsom rolled over to his guest's pro-ICE framing.

When Shapiro interrogated Newsom about California's supposed "sanctuary state" policy and suggested the state should “cooperate with ICE in the vast majority of cases,” Newsom responded: “That's exactly what they do in California.”

Newsom then boasted that there have been “over 10,000” deportations he’s cooperated with since he became governor of California. Though he emphasized that the sanctuary law only allows for the state’s correctional facilities to cooperate with ICE, advocates have criticized it for allowing the deportation of those who were never convicted and those who’ve had their cases dropped.

“California has cooperated with more ICE transfers, probably, than any other state in the country,” he continued. “I vetoed multiple pieces of legislation that have come from my legislature to stop the ability for the state of California to do that.”

Newsom has indeed vetoed at least two pieces of Democratic legislation that sought to further limit the state’s cooperation with ICE—one in 2023, which would have repealed requirements allowing prisons to transfer noncitizens to ICE custody after they leave prison, and another in 2019, which would have banned private security companies from entering California prisons to transfer people to ICE custody.

Shapiro later questioned Newsom on whether he agreed with calls from some Democrats to “abolish” ICE in the wake of the shooting, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), another potential favorite for the 2028 nomination.

Newsom said, “I disagree,” adding, “I believe a candidate for president by the name of Harris said that in the last campaign. I remember being on [All In with Chris Hayes] hours later saying, ‘I think that’s a mistake.’”

While she has been critical of the agency and suggested changing its enforcement priorities, it is untrue that former Vice President Kamala Harris has ever called to “abolish ICE,” even saying as far back as 2018 that “ICE has a purpose. ICE has a role, ICE should exist.”

She did not call for ICE to be abolished during the 2024 campaign for president as Newsom suggested, and was criticized by immigrants’ rights activists for running further to the right on immigration than in years past.

By rejecting calls to abolish ICE, critics noted that Newsom was expressing a position far out of touch with the Democratic base and with a widening segment of the country, which has grown increasingly hostile toward ICE over the past year, and especially in the wake of its actions in Minnesota, which have led many to see it more as President Donald Trump's personal paramilitary force than a legitimate law enforcement agency.

A poll earlier this week by the *Economist/*YouGov revealed that for the first time ever, “abolishing ICE” had more support (46%) than opposition (43%) among American adults. Among those who said they leaned Democratic, 80% favored abolishing the agency, compared with just 11% who opposed it.

“This is an unbelievably stupid move from Gavin Newsom,” wrote the host of the left-wing talk show One Hand Politics, who goes by Mason, in response to the governor's rejection of the call to abolish ICE.

He implored Newsom to “grow a fucking spine and stop chasing Republican moderates that don’t exist. They all hate you.”

Brian Tashman, a political researcher and strategist at the ACLU, noted that Newsom is “not willing to push back against Ben Shapiro but will push back against labor organizers trying to enact a billionaire tax that would affect a few hundred people."

Left-wing commentator Joe Mayall saw the interaction as a window into how Newsom might perform in a possible 2028 presidential debate against Vice President JD Vance, widely seen as the Republican who would succeed Trump.

He wrote: “If you get cooked by Ben Shapiro, you don’t have a chance against Vance."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

They had to come and defend the poor CEO in a comment under this post:

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6111286

Charlie Kirk has never received a warm welcome in the pages of this magazine. It doesn’t matter now. The assassination of Kirk is a tragedy. Morally, it is unjustifiable. Politically, it is cause for serious alarm. A larger spiral into political violence would be a catastrophe for the Left.

In the short time since Kirk was slain, most on the Left have rightly condemned his murder. A not insignificant number, however, have reacted with an almost competitive lack of empathy. Not only is their anti-moral posturing likely to turn off ordinary Americans, who abhor political violence, but it is also politically misguided and strategically naive. There is nothing to celebrate here. Indeed, there is much to fear.

sit back and observe time

but fr:

If history is any guide, the Left faces serious dangers from this development. The theory that acts of individual political violence will somehow spark mass movements for justice (what used to be called “propaganda of the deed”) has been tested, in a variety of circumstances around the world, for centuries. It’s very consistently been a disaster, almost always leading to enhanced repression of the Left and attacks on democracy writ large. The aftermath of Kirk’s murder could easily follow this familiar, grim pattern. Whether or not the shooter even turns out to be left-wing, there are good reasons to worry that the assassination could be used as a pretext for new crackdowns against dissenting speech from an administration that’s already shown itself willing to engage in a degree of authoritarianism we haven’t seen in recent American history.

Kirk himself played a leading role in pushing Gen Z toward the Right, especially young men. If the killer hoped to snuff out his influence, their actions will almost certainly have the opposite effect. Kirk’s murder at age thirty-one will no doubt convince many of his millions of viewers and listeners to dedicate themselves to his cause, thus hastening the coherence of a militant right-wing political bloc that will be an obstacle to our own project for decades to come.

does jacobin have short guide for spain as related to political violence from anarchists?