cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25282

President Donald Trump's "border czar," Tom Homan, announced Wednesday that 700 immigration agents are leaving Minnesota, but with around 2,000 expected to remain there, Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose district includes Minneapolis, declared that the drawdown is "not enough."

As part of Trump's "Operation Metro Surge," agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have invaded multiple Minnesota cities, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and committed various acts of violence, such as fatally shooting Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

In a pair of social media posts about Homan's announcement, Omar argued that "every single ICE and CBP agent should be out of Minnesota. The terror campaign must stop."

"This occupation has to end!" she added, also renewing her call to abolish ICE—a position adopted by growing shares of federal lawmakers and the public as Trump's mass deportation agenda has hit Minnesota's Twin Cities, the Chicago and Los Angeles metropolitan areas, multiple cities in Maine, and other communities across the United States.

In Congress, where a fight over funding for CBP and ICE's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, is playing out, Omar has stood with other progressives in recent votes. The bill signed by Trump on Tuesday only funds DHS through the middle of the month, though Republicans gave ICE an extra $75 billion in last year's budget package.

During an on-camera interview with NBC News' Tom Llamas, Trump said that the reduction of agents came from him. After the president's factually dubious rant about crime rates, Llamas asked what he had learned from the operation in Minnesota. Trump responded: "I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough."

"We're really dealing with really hard criminals," Trump added. Despite claims from him and others in the administration that recent operations have targeted "the worst of the worst," data have repeatedly shown that most immigrants detained by federal officials over the past year don't have any criminal convictions.

Operation Metro Surge has been met with persistent protests in Minnesota and solidarity actions across the United States. Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Wednesday that "the limited drawdown of ICE agents from Minnesota is not a concession. It is a direct response to Minnesotans standing up to unconstitutional federal overreach."

"Minnesotans are winning against this attack on all our communities by organizing, resisting, and defending our constitutional rights. But this moment should not be a victory lap," Hussein continued. "It must instead be a call to continue pushing for justice. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal immigration agents remain uninvestigated, and communities and prosecutors alike have raised grave concerns about violations of their oaths and the Constitution. This is not the time to pull back, it is the time to deepen our resilience, increase our support for one another, and keep fighting for our democracy and accountability until justice is served."

The Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs—Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Brett Edkins, of Stand Up America—similarly said that "Tom Homan's announcement that 700 federal immigration agents will be withdrawn from Minnesota is more a minor concession than a meaningful policy shift."

"The vast majority—approximately 2,000 federal agents—remain deployed in the state, and enforcement operations continue unabated," the co-chairs stressed. "This token gesture does nothing to address the ongoing terror families face or the constitutional crisis this administration's actions have created."

“The killings of Minnesotans demand real accountability," they added. "Families torn apart by raids and alleged constitutional violations deserve justice. Real change means the complete withdrawal of all federal forces conducting these operations in Minnesota, full accountability for the deaths and violations that have occurred, and congressional action to restore the rule of law. The American people deserve better than political theater when constitutional rights hang in the balance."

On Tuesday, the state and national ACLU asked the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to "use its early warning and urgent action procedure in response to the human rights crisis following the Trump administration's deployment of federal forces" in the Twin Cities.

"The Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are being carried out by thousands of masked federal agents in military gear who are ignoring basic constitutional and human rights of Minnesotans," said Teresa Nelson, legal director of the ACLU of Minnesota. "Their targeting of our Somali and Latino communities threatens Minnesotans’ most fundamental rights, and it has spread fear among immigrant communities and neighborhoods."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25275

Former Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way is not the clear front-runner in New Jersey’s special congressional election on Thursday. She’s seventh in fundraising out of 10 candidates as of last week’s Federal Election Commission deadline, and public polling has been sparse. But as the race drew close to the finish line, the Israel lobby made her the beneficiary of a last-minute push.

In the final weeks before the election, an Intercept analysis has found, 30 donors to groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, its super PAC, and Democratic Majority for Israel have poured more than $50,000 into Way’s campaign. On Friday, amid the fundraising push and less than a week before the election, DMFI officially endorsed her.

The lobby is known for spending against progressives and the most vocal critics of the state of Israel, but in New Jersey, it appears to be backing one moderate to pick off another. Yet more pro-Israel money in the race comes at the expense of Tom Malinowski, who is no progressive on Israel policy but nevertheless has become the subject of AIPAC ire — marking a reversal for the group, which supported him in 2022.

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has spent more $2.3 million on ads against Malinowski**.** The ads do not mention Israel but attack Malinowski on immigration, saying he helped fund “Trump’s deportation force” because he voted in favor of a 2019 bipartisan appropriations bill that funded the Department of Homeland Security. The majority of Democrats, including many supported by AIPAC, voted for the bill.

In a statement to The Intercept, UDP spokesperson Patrick Dorton made no mention of Malinowski’s DHS funding vote. He said Malinowski had fallen afoul of the group’s policy priorities by discussing the possibility of conditioning aid to Israel.

“It’s our goal to build the largest bipartisan pro-Israel majority in Congress. There are several candidates in this race far more pro-Israel than Tom Malinowski,” Dorton said.

[

Related

AIPAC Is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won’t Give Up Its Influence.](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/30/aipac-campaigns-elections-israel-congress/)

Way and Malinowski are competing in a crowded race in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District to replace former Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who vacated the seat after she was elected governor.

Way and Malinowski’s campaigns did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

Also running are Analilia Mejia, the former political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign; veteran Zach Beecher; Passaic County commissioner and election lawyer John Bartlett; former Morris Township Mayor Jeff Grayzel; and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill.

Way already had substantial support from the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, which endorsed her and has spent more than $1.7 million backing her campaign, almost half of what it spent in total last cycle. But even with close to $4 million in outside spending on her side, she has lagged behind her opponents in fundraising. She’s raised just over $400,000 — compared to Malinowski’s over $1.1 million, more than $800,000 for Gill, and over half a million for Beecher. Bartlett has raised more than $460,000, Grayzel has raised $428,000, and Mejia has raised just over $420,000.

Now, pro-Israel donors who have given to AIPAC to boost other pro-Israel candidates are trying to help Way close the gap. They include retired investor Peter Langerman, who has given $75,000 to AIPAC’s United Democracy Project since 2023 and $12,000 to AIPAC since 2022. Another Way donor, Florida loan executive Joel Edelstein, has given $25,000 to UDP since 2023 and $$3,500 to AIPAC since 2022.

Among Way’s other donors are Bennett Greenspan, founder of the genealogy company Family Tree DNA, who has given $40,000 to United Democracy Project, $4,000 to DMFI PAC, and $1,250 to AIPAC PAC since 2022. Way donor and New Jersey real estate developer Michael Gottlieb gave $25,000 to UDP in 2023. Another Way donor, founder and former president of Microsoft partner HSO, Jack Ades, has given $10,750 to AIPAC since 2024. Gottlieb and Ades have given to Republican candidates including Reps. Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik in New York; Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La.; Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign; and the Republican group WinRed.

More than half of these contributions all landed on January 14.

More than half of the contributions to Way — $33,000 of the $53,000 in total — all landed on January 14, a common sign that outside groups have sent out a fundraising push to their network**.**

Another donor to Way’s campaign is Joseph Korn, a New Jersey real estate developer who served on the New Jersey board of the Jewish National Fund, a controversial national organization that has funded settler groups in the West Bank.

Way is campaigning on a relatively centrist platform that primarily includes fighting against President Donald Trump’s agenda. She’s also running on strengthening the Affordable Care Act, ensuring access to reproductive care, protecting democracy and voting rights, and lowering costs without raising taxes, including raising the cap on state and local tax deductions, or SALT. Her website does not mention foreign policy or Israel.

Way is also endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus PAC; the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State; IVYPAC, which backs candidates who are members of the historically Black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority; and several other New Jersey organizations.

The Israel lobby’s support for Way may not ultimately help its policy priorities. As a recent column in the Forward points out, by pitting Way and Malinowski against each other, AIPAC donors might help a more progressive candidate get elected.

The post AIPAC Donors Flood Last-Minute New Jersey House Pick With Cash appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

Full Version https://x.com/Arin_Yumi/status/2019055101323989389

1. From backing big corporations to supporting people’s everyday lives, Supporting people’s lives through wage increases and shorter working hours, Major wage increases that outpace rising prices

Enacting a “Non-Regular Worker Treatment Improvement Act”

Cut the consumption tax, increase budgets for social security and education, and provide peace of mind in everyday life

2. No to turning Japan into a heavily armed, war-driven state that follows the Trump U.S. administration’s openly declared “rule by force” Work for a peaceful Japan and Asia through diplomacy based on Article 9 of the Constitution

Stop building Japan into a U.S.-subservient “war state” and return to being a “peace state”

Halt construction of the new U.S. military base in Okinawa and fundamentally revise the Japan–U.S. Status of Forces Agreement

The Communist Party's Peace Diplomacy In April 2024, the Japanese Communist Party announced its “East Asia Peace Proposal,” aimed at developing a framework for regional peace cooperation across East Asia in collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and it has devoted its full efforts to realizing it.

in seeking a positive breakthrough in Japan–China relations as well, it is important to return to the principles agreed upon in the Joint Communiqué at the time of the normalization of Japan–China relations and at the 2008 Japan–China summit meeting: that the two countries are “partners who cooperate and do not pose a threat to one another.” From this standpoint, the Japanese Communist Party has made efforts to move Japan–China relations forward by directly conveying, on various occasions, to the Chinese side what needs to be said while maintaining dialogue.

3. Promote gender equality and politics that respect everyone’s rights, lifestyle, and dignity Push back the gender backlash and advance equality through politics

A backlash against gender equality is underway, exemplified by moves to legislate the use of “common names” in order to block the introduction of an optional separate-surname system for married couples. The Japanese Communist Party stands in solidarity with the persistent movement seeking a gender-equal society in which everyone can live with dignity as a human being, and will devote its efforts to expanding this main current.

Toward politics that value children’s rights and support child-rearing

Based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we will advance the protection of children’s human rights. The national government will establish an independent body for the protection and remedy of children’s rights

We will improve conditions at childcare centers and after-school care programs so that each and every child is valued. We will substantially raise staffing standards in childcare, improve working conditions, and increase the number of childcare workers. We will eliminate waiting lists for after-school care, promote multiple staff placements, and improve待遇 for instructors.

How to respond to the population decline issue How to respond to the issue of population decline is a critical challenge facing Japan.

At its root is the fact that economic and social circumstances are preventing people from freely choosing their future lives. What is required is to change a society that is difficult to live in: reducing the heavy financial burden of child-rearing, achieving wage increases that can keep up with rising prices, shortening working hours and increasing workers’ free time, eliminating discrimination against non-regular workers, advancing gender equality, and ending inequalities that place the burden of housework and childcare disproportionately on women.

4. Expose and correct the darkness and corruption of politics

Clarify the full extent of the collusion between the Unification Church and the LDP

Clarify the truth behind the slush fund scandal and ban corporate and organizational donations

The biggest reason for the LDP’s crushing defeat in the 2024 general election and the 2025 House of Councillors election was the slush fund scandal. Despite this, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi appointed lawmakers involved in the slush fund scheme to key party posts and parliamentary secretary positions, insisting that they had carefully fulfilled their responsibility to explain.

We will not allow cuts to the number of National Diet members that disregard the will of the people

5. Advance politics that ensure security and prosperity

Toward overcoming the climate crisis: politics that confront it head-on

We oppose nuclear restarts and new construction, and aim for a nuclear-free Japan

Revitalizing agriculture and rural communities, ensuring a stable food supply, and promoting primary industries

Japan’s food and agriculture are facing an unprecedented crisis. The so called “Reiwa rice turmoil” of recent years has exposed a government incapable of properly supplying even staple foods

This crisis is the direct result of agricultural policies pursued by successive Liberal Democratic Party governments, based on ideas such as “we can just buy food from abroad” and “we don’t need agriculture that lacks competitiveness.” These policies have promoted unlimited import liberalization of agricultural products, cuts to agricultural protection, and the large-scale and industrialization of farming.

Putting residents’ lives and livelihoods first to build a disaster-resilient society and national land Greatly strengthening national support to rebuild the lives and livelihoods of disaster victims

Putting digitalization and AI progress to work for the people by eliminating risks through legislation and using them to support daily life and the economy

Stop forcing the My Number health insurance card and restore the health insurance card

Shift to a housing policy based on the principle that “housing is a human right,” and ensure homes where people can live with peace of mind

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/24998

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a bill to end a brief government shutdown after the US House of Representatives narrowly passed the $1.2 trillion funding package.

While the bill keeps most of the federal government funded until the end of September, lawmakers sidestepped the question of funding for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which Democrats have vowed to block absent reforms to rein in its lawless behavior after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and a rash of other attacks on civil rights.

The bill, which passed on Tuesday by a vote of 217-214, extends funding for ICE's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for just two weeks, setting up a battle in the coming weeks on which the party remains split.

While most Democrats voted against Tuesday's measure, 21 joined the bulk of Republicans to drag it just over the line, despite calls from progressive activists and groups, such as MoveOn, which Axios said peppered lawmakers with letters urging them to use every bit of "leverage" they can to force drastic changes at the agency.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who voted for the bill, acknowledged that it was "a leverage tool that people are giving up," but said funding for the rest of the government took precedence.

The real fight is expected to take place over the next 10 days, with DHS funding set to run out on February 14.

ICE will be funded regardless of whether a new round of DHS funding passes, since Republicans already passed $170 billion in DHS funding in last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Democrats in both the House and Senate have laid out lists of reforms they say Republicans must acquiesce to if they want any additional funding for ICE, including requirements that agents nationwide wear body cameras, get judicial warrants for arrests, and adhere to a code of conduct similar to those for state and local law enforcement.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair emerita of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who voted against Tuesday's bill reiterated that in order to pass longterm DHS funding, "there must be due process, a requirement for judicial warrants and bond hearings; every agent must not only have a bodycam but also be required to use it, take off their masks, and, in cases of misconduct, undergo immediate, independent investigations."

Some critics have pointed out that ICE agents already routinely violate court orders and constitutional requirements, raising questions about whether new laws would even be enforceable.

A memo issued last week, telling agents they do not need to obtain judicial warrants to enter homes, has been described as a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment. Despite this, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Tuesday that Republicans will not even consider negotiating the warrant requirement, calling it "unworkable."

"We cannot trust this DHS, which has already received an unprecedented funding spike for ICE, to operate within the bounds of our Constitution or our laws," Jayapal said. "And for that reason, we cannot continue to fund them without significant and enforceable guardrails."

According to recent polls, the vast majority of Democratic voters want to go beyond reforms and push to abolish ICE outright. In the wake of ICE's reign of terror in Minneapolis, it's a position that nearly half the country now holds, with more people saying they want the agency to be done away with than saying they want it preserved.

"The American people are begging us to stop sending their tax dollars to execute people in the streets, abduct 5-year-olds, and separate families," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who gathered with other progressive lawmakers in the cold outside DHS headquarters on Tuesday. "ICE was built on violence and is terrorizing neighborhoods. It will not change... No one should vote to send another cent to DHS."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who comes from the Minnesota Somali community targeted by Trump's operation there, agreed: "This rogue agency should not receive a single penny. It should be abolished and prosecuted."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/24374

Democrats scored a major upset on Saturday, as machinist union leader Taylor Rehmet easily defeated Republican opponent Leigh Wambsganss in a state senate special election held in a deep-red district that President Donald Trump carried by 17 percentage points in 2024.

With nearly all votes counted, Rehmet holds a 14-point lead in Texas' Senate District 9, which covers a large portion of Tarrant County.

In a speech before cheering supporters, Rehmet dedicated his victory "to everyday working people" whom he credited with putting his campaign over the top.

This win goes to everyday, working people.

I’ll see you out there! pic.twitter.com/kPWzjn2LhW
— Taylor Rehmet (@TaylorRehmetTX) February 1, 2026

Republican opponent Wambsganss conceded defeat in the race but vowed to win an upcoming rematch in November.

“The dynamics of a special election are fundamentally different from a November general election,” Wambsganss said. “I believe the voters of Senate District 9 and Tarrant County Republicans will answer the call in November.”

Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick reacted somberly to the news of Rehmet's victory, warning in a social media post that the result was "a wake-up call for Republicans across Texas."

"Our voters cannot take anything for granted," Patrick emphasized.

Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico, on the other hand, cheered Rehmet's victory, which he hinted was a sign of things to come in the Lone Star State in the 2026 midterm elections.

"Trump won this district by 17 points," he wrote. "Democrat Taylor Rehmet just flipped it—despite Big Money outspending him 10:1. Something is happening in Texas."

Steven Monacelli, special correspondent for the Texas Observer, described Rehmet's victory as "an earthquake of Biblical proportions."

"Tarrant County is the largest red county in the nation," Monacelli explained. "I cannot emphasize enough how big this is."

Adam Carlson, founding partner of polling firm Zenith Research, noted that Rehmet's victory was truly remarkable given the district's past voting record.

"The recent high water mark for Dems in the district was 43.6% (Beto 2018)," he wrote, referring to Democrat Beto O'Rourke's failed 2018 US Senate campaign. "Rehmet’s likely to exceed 55%. The heavily Latino parts of the district shifted sharply to the left from 2024."

Polling analyst Lakshya Jain said that the big upset in Texas makes more sense when considering recent polling data on voter enthusiasm.

"Our last poll's generic ballot was D+4," he explained. "Among the most enthusiastic voters (a.k.a., those who said they would 'definitely' vote in 2026)? D+12. Foreseeable and horrible for the GOP."

Bud Kennedy, a columnist for the Forth Worth Star-Telegram, argued that Rehmet's victory shows that "Democrats can win almost anywhere in Texas" in 2026.

Kennedy also credited Rehmet with having "the perfect résumé for a District 9 Democrat" as "a Lockheed Martin leader running against a Republican who had lost suburban public school voters, particularly in staunch-red Republican north Fort Worth."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

Some quotes from this demon:

“People want enforcement but they don’t want cruelty,” Nuñez-Neto said of ICE, whose agents are hunting people door-to-door in Minnesota and who receive challenge coins stamped with a skull that looks like the Nazi Totenkopf. “Let’s not abolish ICE. Let’s abolish the cruelty.”

Nuñez-Neto recommended that protesters understand that ICE agents are people, too.

“I think it would help both sides to appreciate the fact that that’s a human being across from you who may or may not want to do the things they’ve been ordered to do. In my long history being in and out of the Department [of Homeland Security], it is very often what makes the news are the terrible things that happen but what doesn’t get reported are the … stories about agents bringing toys into the border patrol station,” he said.

I, for one, only hope he experiences the exact amount of violence that he is enabling.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/24012

In a letter to state and local officials, the human rights organization DAWN warned on Friday that any investment in Israeli sovereign debt by New York City would violate local and international law.

The 26-page letter — directed to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and the state and city comptrollers — took aim at Israeli bonds, a financial instrument that invests in the Israeli government for a set period and then is paid back with interest.

“New York is using taxpayer money to finance a military the entire world has watched commit war crimes.”

Israeli bonds have emerged as a crucial source of funding for the Israeli government, with money from bond sales flowing into the country’s coffers and allowing it to continue its genocidal campaign in Gaza and displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank.

“There’s no complicated analysis needed here: New York is using taxpayer money to finance a military the entire world has watched commit war crimes and crimes against humanity for years,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director. (Mamdani, City Comptroller Mark Levine, and the other elected officials named in the letter did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.)

On top of the financial risk of holding Israeli debt and the moral imperative of ceasing to fund the Israeli government, divesting from Israel bonds would simply put New York more in line with the opinions of its own citizens, said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, DAWN’s director for Israel and Palestine.

“Where you put your money — that means something,” Schaeffer Omer-Man told The Intercept. “We’ve seen a massive shift in public opinion over the past few years as a result of the Gaza war. The political class hasn’t necessarily caught up yet, but support for Palestinians and disapproval for Israel’s behavior, actions, and policies is at an all-time high.”

New York State’s Common Retirement Fund held $352 million worth of Israel bonds as of March 2024, making it one of the largest holdings in the U.S., according to DAWN. And while former City Comptroller Brad Lander allowed the bonds held in city-controlled portfolios to lapse in 2024 — earning DAWN’s praise — the city’s new comptroller, Levine, has pledged to reinvest.

“Brad Lander understood this and divested,” said Jarrar. “Mark Levine’s promise to reinvest is a promise to keep funding Israel’s war machine with New Yorkers’ money.”

DAWN pledged to explore legal action against the state for its investment should it decline to divest in the bonds, as well as against the city should Levine’s plan move forward.

Levine’s announcement of his intent to purchase Israeli government bonds put him at odds with Mamdani, a longtime critic of Israel whose campaign did not shy away from a continued support for Palestinians despite continuous attacks smearing him as an antisemite.

“There’s a potential conflict coming up,” said Schaeffer Olmer-Man. “I hope that Mamdani holds his ground and exerts whatever influence he has to ensure these imprudent and arguably illegal investments do not renew.”

So far, Mamdani has held fast and signaled his opposition to Levine’s plan.

“I’ve made clear my position, which is that I don’t think that we should purchase Israel bonds,” Mamdani told reporters in an unrelated press conference on January 21. “We don’t purchase bonds for any other sovereign nation’s debt, and the comptroller has also made his position clear, and I continue to stand by mine.”

“You appear to be asking that the City’s pension funds treat Israel better than all other countries.”

The standoff between the mayor and comptroller is an exact reversal of the dynamic that existed between former Mayor Eric Adams, a staunch supporter of Israel and bonds backer, and Lander, the former comptroller who allowed the city’s investment to lapse. At the time, Lander — a self-professed liberal Zionist who has been outspoken in his criticism of the genocide in Gaza — said he as simply doing his job as the steward of the city’s investments.

“We consulted our guidelines and made the prudent decision to follow them, and therefore not to continue investing in the sovereign debt of just one country,” said Lander in a July 13 letter penned in response to an ally of Adams critical of the move to wind down the city’s bonds position. “You appear to be asking that the City’s pension funds treat Israel better than all other countries. That would also be politically motivated, and inconsistent with fiduciary duty.”

The post Zohran Mamdani Wants NYC to Divest From Israel — But New Comptroller Pledges to Buy War Bonds appeared first on The Intercept.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23689

US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday demanded the removal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—a key architect of President Donald Trump's violent mass deportation campaign—as well as concrete reforms in exchange for any new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In remarks on the Senate floor, Sanders (I-Vt.) called ICE a "domestic military force" that is "terrorizing" communities across the country. The senator pointed specifically to the agency's ongoing activities in Minnesota and Maine, where officers have committed horrific—and deadly—abuses.

Sanders said that "not another penny should be given" to ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) "unless there are fundamental reforms in how those agencies function—and until there is new leadership at the Department of Homeland Security and among those who run our immigration policy." The senator has proposed repealing a $75 billion ICE funding boost that the GOP approved last summer, an end to warrantless arrests, the unmasking of ICE and CBP agents, and more.

"To be clear, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller must go," Sanders said Wednesday, condemning the administration's attempts to smear Renee Good and Alex Pretti, US citizens who were killed this month by federal agents in Minneapolis.

Watch Sanders' full remarks, which placed ICE atrocities in the context of Trump's broader "movement toward authoritarianism":

Sanders' speech came as the Senate is weighing a package of six appropriation bills that includes a DHS bill with over $64 billion in funding—with $10 billion earmarked for ICE. Democrats have called for separating the DHS measure from the broader package and pushed reforms to ICE as a condition for passage.

Punchbowl reported Thursday morning that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the Trump White House are "negotiating a framework to pass five of the six outstanding FY2026 funding bills, as well as a stopgap measure for the Department of Homeland Security," ahead of a possible government shutdown at the end of the week.

"Under this framework, Congress would pass a short-term DHS patch to allow for negotiations to continue over new limits on ICE and CBP agents as they implement President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown," the outlet added. "If Schumer and the White House come to an agreement, there would still likely be a funding lapse over the weekend. The House, which is slated to return Monday, would have to pass the five-bill spending package and the DHS stopgap."

In addition to demanding ICE reforms, a growing number of congressional Democrats are calling for Noem's ouster as DHS chief in the wake of Pretti's killing. Noem falsely claimed Pretti "arrived at the scene" in Minneapolis "to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement." Noem has attempted to blame Miller—who also smeared Pretti—for the lie.

More than three-quarters of the House Democratic caucus is now backing articles of impeachment against Noem, accusing her of obstruction of Congress, violation of the public trust, and self-dealing. Trump has thus far rejected calls to remove Noem, saying they "have a very good relationship."

"The two agents who shot and killed Alex Pretti are now on leave, but Trump still backs Noem instead of firing her," Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), the leader of the impeachment push, said late Wednesday. "I’m leading 174 members with articles of impeachment against Noem. The public is crying out for change. Enough is enough."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23756

Mamdani may appear to occupy the office, but the office actually occupies him.

There is a seduction in the story of Zohran Mamdani. The insurgent from Queens. The son of an African exile, an anti-colonial academic, a Freedom Rider participant father, and a South Asian Golden Globe-winning cinematic royalty. A hunger striker for taxi drivers. A face of the "new" New York—brown, Muslim, diasporic, fluent in solidarity, in TikTok, and in that tender performance of Left political hope that allows American liberalism to feel clever rather than culpable.

"Once-in-a-generation political talent," as Mehdi Hasan called him. A democratic socialist for the city that invented derivatives and foreclosure. A rent-freeze prophet in the kingdom of landlords. A soft-spoken radical for a metropolis that still mistakes moderation for modernity.

Mamdani's campaign and his victory should have been beautiful.

Mamdani's candidacy is not merely a question of charisma, policy, or diasporic pride. It is a test of whether insurgency can survive within institutions designed precisely to prevent it. It asks whether one can bend the arc of history inside a party whose nefarious genius lies in its ability to absorb dissent rather than confront it. It stages, once again, the familiar American drama: how radical language becomes managerial grammar the moment power peers back and says, enter, but only if you behave.

It is a structural inquiry into how the Democratic Party functions as a containment architecture—a velvet noose that dresses obedience as participation. It is about how the socialist idiom, once spoken within the frame of its liberal, or "democratic" compromise, mutates into a rhetoric of affordability and inclusion, stripped of its capacity to defeat capitalist antagonism.

The Mamdani phenomenon reveals a pattern already visible in the trajectories of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: the progressive who enters the political arena to rupture the machine only to end up adopting the party line and circulating to manufacture their mass of consent for compromise. The story is not betrayal in the colloquial sense, but betrayal in the historical one—it is the betrayal of possibility inherent to liberal hegemony's architecture of containment.

Read more via Scalawag: Zohran Mamdani and the Sorcery of Soft Rebellion.

From Scalawag via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23732

The FBI's Wednesday raid on an elections center in Fulton County, Georgia is raising alarms about President Donald Trump's plans to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections.

Shortly after FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations center to search for materials related to the 2020 presidential election, Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory warned that this kind of operation would likely be spreading to other counties and states.

"Fulton County is right now the target, the only county right now fighting over an election that already happened," she said, referring to Trump's election loss that he has refused to concede more than five years after it happened. "But it is coming to a place near you. This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue."

Commissioner Mo Ivory: Fulton County is right now the target, the only county right now fighting over an election that already happened. But it is coming to a place near you. This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue. pic.twitter.com/0HvPMMoQO8
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) January 28, 2026

In a Wednesday interview on MSNOW, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) described the raid on the elections center as a "seismic event" that should be a flashing red light for US voters.

"This should have people across the country absolutely shook," Ossoff said. "This is a huge deal. This is an FBI raid on the Fulton County Elections office. [Trump's] conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have been based in Georgia from the very start... this is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections. He tried to steal power when he lost it in 2020. We have to be prepared for all kinds of schemes and shenanigans."

Ossoff: "This is a seismic event. This should have people across the country absolutely shook. This is a huge deal. This is an FBI raid on the Fulton County Elections office ... This is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections. He tried to steal power when he lost it in… pic.twitter.com/vb8YwcP3Pa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2026

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) noted that US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was spotted at the elections center during the FBI raid, which he said was wholly unprecedented given that her job is supposed to be focused on foreign national security threats.

Warner then posited two explanations for her presence on the ground in Fulton County.

"Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus," Warner wrote in a social media post, "in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees 'fully and currently informed' of relevant national security concerns."

The other option, said Warner, is that Gabbard "is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy."

ProPublica published a report on Thursday that dove into the specifics of the search warrant executed at the Fulton County election center that allowed federal agents to seize 2020 election ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data, and voter rolls.

Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told ProPublica that he has never seen a search warrant of this nature.

"The idea that federal officials would seize ballots in an attempt to prove fraud is especially dangerous in this context," said Hasen, "when we know there is no fraud because the Georgia 2020 election has been extensively counted, recounted, and investigated."

Derek Clinger, a senior counsel at the State Democracy Research Initiative, an institute at the University of Wisconsin Law School, told ProPublica that the sweeping search warrant marked "a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to expand federal control over our country’s historically state-run election infrastructure."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23631

Demonstrators occupied the lobby of a Hilton Garden Inn in Manhattan on January 27. Protesters took over the lobby, demanding that the corporation leave Manhattan and stop cooperating with ICE.

Manhattan, New York, Tuesday Evening: The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested dozens of protesters on Tuesday evening at an anti-ICE protest inside a Manhattan hotel, marking the first mass arrest under the new administration of New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani.… https://t.co/f9nuDIsaF8 pic.twitter.com/H6vwc9sajz

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 28, 2026

Hilton has faced backlash nationwide due to the fact that they are housing ICE agents all around the country, including in Minneapolis, where tens of thousands of people are protesting ICE and demanding justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Protesters were arrested by the NYPD unit in charge of counterterrorism and protest control, the Special Response Group (SRG).

Zohran Mamdani, along with other social-democratic officials within the Democratic Party, have recently called for ICE to be abolished in the wake of popular outrage against Trump’s immigration crackdown. At the same time, he has distanced himself from calls he made to defund the NYPD during his campaign; he even apologized for his statements on the racist character of the police, committing that his office would work together with the police to “keep New York City safe.”

But those of us who protested the genocide in Palestine know that NYPD doesn’t care about our safety. They are the ones who crack down on us when we take the streets and our school campuses to demand an end to the United States’s complicity in the murder of tens of thousands of people.

When asked about the arrests at a press conference, Mamdani reiterated his promise to work with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to disband the infamous SRG unit because, “We don’t believe there should be a unit that has both counterterrorism responsibilities and responsibilities to responding to protests.” Mamdani went on to say that that NYPD has the responsibility to respond to protests before going on to say, in the very same breath, that he praised protesters who are standing up against ICE. This double-speak shows exactly the contradiction facing Mamdani as mayor of the finance capital of the United States.

While politically Mamdani has room to call for the abolition of ICE because the slogan has become so deeply felt among the population and so could make people more sympathetic to the Democratic Party, he is at the head of one of the most brutal, racist police forces in the country; NYPD has collaborated with ICE for decades and today represses us for protesting their attacks on immigrants. Put simply, you cannot be a socialist who fights for the rights of workers and the oppressed and also be the head of NYPD which represses their movements.

“La migra! La policía! Son la misma porquería.” We have learned the meaning of those words from our immigrant siblings who are fighting ICE terror. ICE and the police are parts of the same system that targets and oppresses immigrants and the entire working class — both parties of the ruling class support that system. It’s time that we — and especially the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who organized tens of thousands of people to elect Mamdani on the promise that he would fight for the rights of the working class and oppressed — break with the Democratic Party. DSA must put all its efforts toward organizing against ICE in our workplaces and schools, at the same time that we build the forces for a socialist party for and made up of the working class — one that represents our interests and puts all its efforts to build the national strike we need to defeat the reactionary offensive against the most vulnerable of our class.

The post The First Mass Arrest on Zohran Mamdani’s Watch Targeted Anti-ICE Protesters appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

Recently, Democratic Senators in the US have been looking at shutting down the government again due to events like the more recent extrajudicial killing in Minneapolis.

This brought me down a rabbit hole, because the Dems seem to be doing so at the behest of the "Searchlight Institute". The Searchlight Institute is a think-tank devoted to making the democrats take worse policy positions in the name of "what is popular". One time they came up with the idea to "play down causes like climate change and L.G.B.T.Q. rights to appeal to more voters" despite these things obviously being very popular. This makes me think they are behind a lot of Democratic policy decisions. But what is tying them to the ICE policies recently?

Searchlight Institute recently (PDF) did a poll (PDF) that, according to them, said they should "reform ICE" and not use words like "abolish" since Americans are too baby to know what that means, apparently.

58% of voters want ICE to be reined in. These voters prefer reforming ICE (30%, the top testing option) to eliminating the agency entirely (19%)

Even by their own polling, the American public has a big appetite for curtailing ICE abuses when specifically laid out:

bipartisan majorities oppose detaining American citizens (73% say this should not be allowed), entering private homes without warrants (79%), or wearing plain clothes or uniforms that don’t identify the agency (63% and 70%, respectively). The issue of agents wearing masks was more polarizing, with 55% of voters overall saying they opposed the practice.

Their memo also has this as their header:

Re: Play Hardball: Use Your Leverage to Reform ICE

Which brings me to the conclusion that the egghead behind this think-tank, former Harry Reid aide Adam Jentleson, is trying to get ahead of any potential Abolish ICE trend that could catch on in the Democratic party ranks. Maybe they think it will be another Abolish the police BLM movement or something, what president got elected after the BLM protest movement, by the way? I forgor

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23464

Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in St. Paul on Tuesday to demand that state officials take action to bring the federal agents who killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti to justice.

"We are demanding that they bring charges against the killer officers," said Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for Minnesota, which organized the protest. "We want the identity of the officers. We know the federal government is not investigating. They are lying to the American people. They are denying us justice. It is time for the state to do their job."

The crowd then broke out into a raucous chant: "Do your job! Do your job!"

— (@)

The protest, which took place outside Walz's office in the Minnesota state Capitol building, came as the governor negotiates an end to federal immigration agents' takeover of Minnesota with Trump border czar Tom Homan, who was recently dispatched to oversee the Trump administration's operation in the state following the departure of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino.

The Trump administration appears on the back foot after the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, over the weekend, by a gang of federal agents, which was caught on camera and heightened the already simmering national anger at Trump's deployments around the US.

Minneapolis has become the epicenter of this outrage, with more than 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents deployed as part of what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said is "the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out."

In addition to the slayings of Good and Pretti, agents have been documented engaging in relentless brutality against the people of Minnesota, including many US citizens. Cases abound of residents being subject to explicit racial profiling, being threatened and assaulted for engaging in First Amendment-protected protest and legal observation, and being detained and interrogated as part of unconstitutional "citizenship checks."

Minnesota state officials, including Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, have faced mounting pressure to pursue criminal charges against Jonathan Ross, the agent who killed Good earlier this month. But Minnesota’s public safety commissioner has said “it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible,” for a local investigation to continue “without cooperation from the federal government.”

According to Walz's office, he outlined two main goals in his closed-door meeting with Homan: He wants the administration to dramatically reduce the massive presence of agents in the state and to give state investigators a role in the investigations of Good and Pretti's deaths.

— (@)

A drawdown of agents reportedly began after a call between Walz and Trump on Monday, during which the governor said he would look for the state to work with the federal government “in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals.” Trump characterized it as a “request to work together with respect to Minnesota.”

But Suleiman Adan, the deputy executive director of CAIR Minnesota, told Common Dreams that such a compromise is inadequate, calling on Walz “to use every legal and political tool at his disposal.”

"That means empowering county attorneys to open their own inquiries, collecting and preserving bystander video and witness statements, and going to court when necessary to try to compel or preserve evidence," he said. "It also means using the governor’s political leverage, public pressure, legal action, and intergovernmental channels to make non-cooperation itself a public issue, not something that happens quietly behind closed doors."

According to a report on Wednesday by NBC News, DHS itself is conducting federal inquiries into its own agents' killings of Pretti and Good, which has raised immediate concerns about impartiality, especially after top officials have jumped to preemptively exonerate the agents while labeling the victims as "domestic terrorists."

Rather than simply serve a role in a federal investigation, CAIR wants Walz to demand an independent state-level investigation run by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), which attained a restraining order to prevent federal agents from destroying evidence in Pretti's case.

"Minnesotans are asking, 'Are we safe here anymore?' and they need actionable leadership, not half-measures," Adan said.

Adan said it was unclear at this point what guarantees Walz has secured to ensure proper oversight of agents and the protection of civil rights.

“While Governor Walz has met with Border Czar Tom Homan as part of efforts to address the situation, that meeting has not yet translated into real protections for community members on the ground,” he continued. “We are concerned that any agreement that normalizes or legitimizes an expanded federal enforcement presence without binding constraints, transparent accountability, and independent oversight does not protect Minnesota residents and undermines public trust.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23430

President Donald Trump reacted dismissively to news that an assailant sprayed an unidentified substance at US Rep. Ilhan Omar during a town hall meeting, and insinuated without a shred of evidence that she may have staged the attack herself.

ABC News reporter Rachel Scott on Wednesday asked Trump if he had seen video of the incident, in which a man named Anthony Kazmierczak charged toward Omar (D-Minn.) and sprayed her with an unknown substance from a syringe before being restrained by security forces.

Shortly after, Kazmierczak was taken into police custody and charged with third-degree assault.

Trump indicated that he hadn't seen the video, and then started lobbing personal insults at the Minnesota congresswoman.

"I think she's a fraud," Trump told Scott. "I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her."

When Scott asked Trump to clarify whether he'd seen the video or not, he said he hadn't, before adding, "I hope I don't have to bother" watching it.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Omar arranged to have someone attack her, and social media posts uncovered by the Daily Beast suggest that Kazmierczak was a Trump supporter.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pointed the finger at Trump and Vice President JD Vance shortly after the attack on Omar.

"It is not a coincidence that after days of President Trump and VP Vance putting Rep. Omar in their crosshairs with slanderous public attacks, she gets assaulted at her town hall," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a social media post. "Thank God she is okay. If they want leaders to take down the temp, they need to look in the mirror."

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said she was "disgusted and outraged" by the attack on Omar, and she laid the blame for the assault on Trump.

"Let’s be clear: nonstop hate and dangerous rhetoric from Trump and his allies has fueled this type of violence," she wrote. "I stand with Rep. Omar. I stand with Minnesota. This must stop."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also condemned the attack on Omar, insisting that "the cruel, inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric by our nation’s leaders needs to stop immediately."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23323

This a breaking story... Check back for possible updates...

Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was assaulted on Tuesday evening during a town hall event in Minneapolis by a man who squirted some kind of liquid from a syringe on the lawmaker amid heightened tensions in the state and following a series of baseless allegations and intensifying insults against her by US President Donald Trump.

During public remarks to local constituents—just as she called for ICE to be abolished and that Secratary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem should "resign of face impeachment"—video footage of the attack shows a man wearing a black jacket sitting in the front row abruptly rise from his seat and lunge toward Omar's podium as he sprays something at her with a syringe in his right hand.

While apparently unharmed, Omar first backs away before charging at the man before he is tackled by security and other bystanders intervene.

Watch:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) assaulted during town hall meeting: "Here's the reality that people like this ugly man don't understand; we are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us." pic.twitter.com/Ud5l3yP4lQ
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 28, 2026

"Oh my god," someone off camera can be heard saying, "He sprayed something on her."

Maintaining her composure after the man was subdued, Omar said, "Here's the reality that people like this ugly man don't understand; we are Minnesota strong and we will stay resilient in the face of whatever they might throw at us."

Over recent weeks—as Minnesota has been the focus of nationwide outrage due to the authoritarian tactics used by federal immigration agents deployed and the killing of two observers, Renee Good and Alex Pretti—Trump, a racist, has repeatedly targeted Omar with false suggestions that she has perpetrated fraud due to her personal financial disclosures and used her Somali heritage to insult her as a "garbage person."

— (@)

"I’m ok. I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work," Omar said in a post shortly after the incident. "I don’t let bullies win. Grateful to my incredible constituents who rallied behind me. Minnesota strong."

Many credited Omar for her fortitude in the face of the attack, both during and after.

"llhan is toughest lawmaker in Congress," said journalist Pablo Manríquez. "No one gets more hate, then goes right back to doing the work."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23179

“A powerful KKE, steadfast in every trial, ready to answer history’s call, for socialism!””. With this slogan, the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) opens this week and will be held on 29, 30, and 31 January 2026.

As 902 portal stresses out, "the members and friends of the KKE and the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) welcome the 22nd Congress with a deep sense of responsibility and pride, with militant yet realistic optimism rooted in the justice of our struggle and in the necessity of advancing our Programme—for a society free from exploitation, capitalist barbarism, and imperialist wars."

A society based on dignity, social prosperity, and collective rights, corresponding to the contemporary needs of the working class, the popular strata, and the youth of the 21st century.

Following a long, organized, and politically substantive pre-Congress internal Party process—culminating in the Regional Committee Conferences and the election of delegates—all preparations have been completed and the Congress is ready to begin.

The major opening event of the 22nd Congress will take place on Wednesday, 28 January, at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 7:00 p.m.), at the Galatsi Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, featuring a speech by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas. The opening event will also include the theatrical performance “The Manifesto” by Bertolt Brecht, a poetic stage adaptation of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

On Thursday, 29 January, the Congress proceedings will continue at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the KKE in Perissos, with the presentation of the Central Committee’s report to the Congress by Dimitris Koutsoumbas.

The work of the 22nd Congress will include interventions by the delegates, discussion, and the adoption of the Congress Resolution. The Congress will conclude on Saturday, 31 January, with the election of the new Central Committee and the Central Committee for Financial Audit of the Communist Party of Greece.

Messages of solidarity from Communist and Workers’ Parties to the 22nd Congress of the KKE:

dozens of Communist Parties worldwide,have sent messages of greetings to the 22nd Congress. These messages are being translated and will be published in the newspaper Rizospastis, the organ of the Central Committee of the KKE, and on the KKE’s news portal 902.gr

The list of parties that have sent greetings so far (as of Tuesday 27/1 evening) is as follows:

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS), Argentinian Communist Party, Communist Party of Australia, Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil, Communist Party of Britain, Communist Party of Cuba, Force of the Revolution (Dominican Republic), Communist Workers' Party – For Democracy and Socialism (Finland), Revolutionary Party-Communists (France), Communist Party (Germany), German Communist Party, Tudeh Party of Iran, Communist Party of Ireland, Workers' Party of Ireland, Communist Party of Israel, Communist Front (Italy), Shiso-Undo (Japan), Japanese Communist Party, Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan, Lebanese Communist Party, Communist Party of Luxembourg, Communist Party of Mexico, New Communist Party of the Netherlands, Communist Party of Pakistan, Palestinian Communist Party, Palestinian People's Party, Paraguayan Communist Party, Communist Party of the Philippines (PKP 1930), Russian Communist Party (Internationalists), Organisation of Communists (Russia), Communists in Catalonia, Communist Workers Party of Spain, Communist Party of Sri Lanka, JVP Sri Lanka, Communist Party of Swaziland, Communist Party of Sweden, Syrian Communist Party, Communist Party of Turkey, ML Today (USA), Communist Workers' Platform USA, Communist Party of Venezuela, Communist Party of Vietnam.

**IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM**©

From In Defense of Communism via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22958

"God Bless sewer socialism." That's what historian David Austin Walsh had to say about New York City's swift response to the largest blizzard it's seen in five years, which dumped over a foot of snow on the five boroughs this weekend.

The blizzard, part of Winter Storm Fern, which has ravaged the Northeastern United States, presented an early test for the city's left-wing mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who centered his insurgent campaign last year not simply on providing new free municipal services, but on making the ones New Yorkers already relied upon, like sanitation, more robust and accessible.

It was an agenda that led him to be compared to a breed of socialist mayor who focused less on lofty ideas and revolutionary rhetoric and more on using the power of government to remedy the everyday concerns of the public.

In October, just weeks before Mamdani's triumph in the general election, columnist E. J. Dionne Jr. wrote in the New York Times:

For history buffs, Mr. Mamdani has done the service of rekindling an interest in a largely forgotten American tradition, the “sewer socialists” who ran a significant list of cities in the last century. The most durable among them was Daniel Hoan, the socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1916 to 1940. You don’t get reelected that often by being a failure.

Many socialist mayors did not mind being associated with repairing the grubbiest of urban amenities because doing so underscored their aim of running corruption-free governments that did whatever they could to improve the lives of working-class people in their jurisdictions. When lousy (or nonexistent) sewer systems led to illness and death in low-income and immigrant neighborhoods, said Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, building and fixing sewers became a powerful example of what “common good” governance could accomplish.

Mr. Mamdani knows sewer socialism’s history and has no qualms about identifying with it.

This weekend was the first opportunity for New York's youngest mayor in over a century to put this philosophy into action in a test of competence that past mayors have infamously failed—from Bill de Blasio, who was lambasted over the underplowing of certain neighborhoods, to Michael Bloomberg, who took heat for ditching the blizzard conditions for Bermuda, to John Lindsay, whose disastrous lack of preparation for a 1969 blizzard resulted in the deaths of at least 42 people.

As Walsh wrote on Friday, with the storm prepared to bear down, "Mamdani has a unique opportunity to prove that sewer socialism works, but the crucial first test is going to be not fucking up the snowstorm this weekend."

— (@)

By then, Mamdani's preparations had long since begun, with the city fitting thousands of sanitation department trucks with snowplows, brining every highway and street in the city to make cleanup easier, and ensuring that enough shelter beds were available to protect those without homes from the elements.

The mayor also undertook a robust yet simple effort to communicate with New Yorkers about practical guidelines to stay safe through a series of upbeat PSAs and appearances on local news.

"Make no mistake, New Yorkers, the full power of this city's enormous resources is prepared, poised, and ready to be deployed," Mamdani said during a press conference on Saturday. "Every agency is working in lockstep with the other."

Though death tolls were considerably lower than in other storms of its magnitude, the blizzard did not pass without tragedy. At least one homeless man reportedly froze to death, while another six people have been found dead outside, though it's unclear if these deaths were weather-related.

— (@)

But in all, the Times said "the city largely appeared to be prepared for the weather."

Crews headed out to begin clearing roads at 8:30 am, when precipitation had reached the requisite two inches; shortly after 7 pm, [Department of Sanitation spokesperson Joshua Goodman] said every single street under city control had been plowed at least twice; tens of millions of pounds of salt had been spread across the five boroughs; and 2,500 sanitation workers were rotating on 12-hour shifts to continue the cleanup.

Mamdani, meanwhile, was praised for his active role in the cleanup effort and for maintaining high visibility, where past mayors were accused of shirking into the background.

One widely shared video shows the mayor personally shoveling snow to free a stranded driver in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, home to a large Hasidic Jewish community.

Rabbi Moishe Indig, the executive vice president of the Jewish Community Council of Williamsburg, called it "hands-on leadership."

— (@)

Even one of Mamdani's fiercest critics, Benny Polatseck, an aide to former Mayor Eric Adams, was complimentary to his response.

“Credit where due," he wrote Sunday afternoon on social media. "Looks like [Mamdani] is handling this storm very well so far."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23002

Rep. Ilhan Omar on Monday swiftly hit back at President Donald Trump after he announced that the US Department of Justice had launched an investigation into her family's finances.

In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that the DOJ is "looking at" Omar, whom the president described as having "left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars."

A detailed analysis of Omar's financial disclosures published by Snopes last week found that that while Omar's family net worth had jumped since she was first sworn into Congress in 2019, practically all of it was due to business ventures founded by her husband, Tim Mynett.

"The majority of value from the listed assets came from two businesses run by Mynett... and were thus labeled as 'Partnership Income,'" Snopes explained. "Omar's filing valued Mynett's winery, eSt Cru Wines, at about $1 million to $5 million. Mynett's venture capital management company, Rose Lake Capital, was valued between $5 million and $25 million."

Omar responded to Trump's claims of DOJ investigation by accusing him of trying to hide his own failures.

"Sorry, Trump, your support is collapsing and you’re panicking," the Minnesota Democrat wrote in a social media post. "Right on cue, you’re deflecting from your failures with lies and conspiracy theories about me. Years of 'investigations' have found nothing. Get your goons out of Minnesota."

Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, accused Trump of once again weaponizing the US Department of Justice to target his political opponents.

**"**The Justice Department’s ‘investigation’ of Representative Omar, a longtime critic of President Trump," Harvey said, "looks suspiciously like a continuation of Trump’s revenge campaign against Minnesota’s elected officials and anyone else who disagrees with him."

Trump last year directly pressured US Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict several political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Comey and James were both subsequently indicted, and the DOJ has since launched criminal probes into other Trump critics, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23007

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., questions Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government hearing on May 6, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

With two U.S. citizens shot to death in the streets of Minneapolis in just over two weeks, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents abducting and detaining children as young as 2 years old, Americans might be forgiven for expecting a forceful response from the country’s nominal opposition party.

Unfortunately, in the United States, that party is the Democrats. Their refusal to react proportionally to the threat of President Donald Trump and his army of secret police with “absolute immunity” is only making things worse.

Even before Alex Pretti was shot dead on Saturday — in the back, seconds after his concealed and holstered gun was disarmed by federal agents — the brutality of ICE and Custom and Border Protection’s occupation of Minneapolis demanded definitive action.

[

Related

Even Democrats Who Crafted ICE Funding Compromise Are Questioning It](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/21/democrats-ice-funding-compromise/)

When they had the chance, that’s not what Democrats delivered. At the federal level, seven House Democrats — including mainstream media darling Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and outgoing Maine Rep. Jared Golden — voted with their GOP counterparts last week to pass a bill giving even more money to ICE. That vote came after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to whip his caucus into opposing the legislation, instead simply “recommending” a no vote.

Senate Democrats reportedly plan to kill the bill — knowing it would force a government shutdown — but their commitment to holding the line must be treated with suspicion. One notable exception is Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., who introduced legislation to restrict ICE’s use of force, a bill she’s characterized as “the bare minimum.” Even that bill is unlikely to pass through the GOP-controlled House.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz was unable to meet the moment as early as January 7, when Renee Good was killed. Rather than forcefully show up for his constituents, Walz prioritized preemptively scolding protesters, posting: “Trump wants a show. Don’t give it to him.”

While Walz has been clear that he is angry over ICE’s presence in the state and has asked that they leave, he’s failed to provide any clear directives or policy proposals for expelling the agency from his state. Attorney General Keith Ellison has yet to bring any charges against Jonathan Ross, Good’s killer, something Walz could order him to do under state law.

Minnesotans are out in the streets calling for action, but beyond public statements, they’re not getting much material support from their leaders.

What Walz did do on January 20, days before Pretti’s killing, was to invite the president to “join me, and others in our community, to help restore calm and order and reaffirm that true public safety comes from shared purpose, trust, and respect.”

Mere hours after Pretti’s killing — and, importantly, drawing on the same playbook used with Good’s killing — the administration made clear there was no “shared purpose, trust, and respect” to “reaffirm” with Minnesota. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino both held press conferences in which they blatantly lied about the events of Pretti’s death, which was caught on video from multiple angles. Walz’s demand that “the state must lead the investigation” into Pretti’s death is falling on deaf ears, just as it did with Good’s killing.

[

Related

We Can Fight This: Minnesota’s General Strike Shows How](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/24/strike-minnesota-ice-renee-good-alex-pretti/)

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has been angrier, dropping “fuck” in his press conferences — something Democratic Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith has done as well. But this deployment of profanity only serves to remind the public that sound and fury often signifies nothing. Minnesotans are out in the streets calling for action, but beyond public statements, they’re not getting much material support from their leaders, least of all Frey, who earlier this month wouldn’t even entertain abolishing ICE, even after the agency killed one of his constituents.

Meanwhile, the Democratic base has been demanding action on ICE for months. Eager to make political hay, Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat with his sights set on the Senate seat held by Ed Markey, called ICE “cowards” and threatened to defund the agency and prosecute its officers. But Moulton and most elected Democrats fall short of calling to abolish the institution outright — a position now held by a plurality of voters.

Leaders like Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Democratic Governors Association, vaguely called on Saturday for “transparency and accountability” after “what happened today in Minneapolis,” without specifying what concrete steps might be taken to deliver either. Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle issued a statement in the wake of Pretti’s death that was heavy on the concern but light on substance. Former President Bill Clinton was more forceful, calling this a moment “where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come” but declining to suggest what, exactly, people should do.

Setting aside the morality of suppressing anger over state killings of civilians, it’s politically shortsighted on the part of Democrats and their allies. But the party is trapped in a world of its own creation, where committing to anything that might alienate mythical moderate conservative voters or, more importantly, donors, is anathema.

The party is trapped in a world of its own creation, where committing to anything that might alienate mythical moderate conservative voters or, more importantly, donors, is anathema.

One specific idea gaining traction is impeaching Noem, a plan all but guaranteed to fail. So are demands from border hawks like Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy that ICE agents stop wearing masks, end quotas, or give in to other “reforms.” ICE and DHS have shown no willingness to bend to any constraints, and when the White House tells them they’re shielded by “absolute immunity” for their actions, any efforts to reform a malignant agency are dead on arrival.

A strong opposition party would take the initiative and, even if done cynically, attach itself to the growing public anger for political gain. Steering the popular upswell into some form of action would allow Democrats to gain power and perhaps even win elections. Instead, they appear to understand their role as tamping down the energy and enthusiasm for change and ensuring whatever comes out of the Pretti outrage is defanged and does not challenge entrenched power structures.

[

Related

Kat Abughazaleh on the Right to Protest](https://theintercept.com/2025/11/01/briefing-podcast-kat-abughazaleh-indictment-protest/)

Fear of making an actual stand is so widespread there’s a cottage industry of advisers and think tanks devoted to encouraging elected Democrats to moderate at every turn. There’s something amoral to the whole project, exemplified by how the popularists — a group of centrist think tankers who endorse triangulation on issues based on polling results, as long as those issues aren’t Israel or Abolish ICE — have reacted to the occupation of Minneapolis.

Even after Good’s killing, Adam Jentleson, founder and president of the think tank Searchlight Institute, was smearing left organizing around “Abolish ICE” as a “political albatross” that’s unrealistic and damaging to the movement; now he’s seizing on Pretti’s death as a moment to course-correct. Paul E. Williams, who’s supposed to be the left-whisperer of the popularist cohort, said hours after Pretti’s killing (and reams of other evidence of abuse and torture at the country’s largest detention center) that he still didn’t have a problem with Democrats like Gluesenkamp Perez voting to fund ICE, only that she was criticizing Frey and Walz for their reaction to the shooting.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to oppose funding the agency on moral grounds after it kidnapped two children, aged 5 and 2, in a week, let alone the killing of American civilians. Much like the politicians they flatter, these groups have nothing of substance to offer — only empty gestures and grating platitudes.

But for the rest of us, they’re what we have. You don’t have to be a Democrat to understand that the party is an important part of organized opposition at the federal level. They need to wake up to the role we sorely need them to play and take action, before it’s too late.

The post It’s Time for Concrete Action on ICE. Sadly, We Have the Democrats. appeared first on The Intercept.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/22662

On the heels of mass protests demanding justice for those killed by federal agents and demanding ICE out of our communities, the capitalist state has escalated its assault with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) executing ICU nurse Jeffrey Pretti in broad daylight.

In response, Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on X, “A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement and the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists.”

Meanwhile on Truth Social, Donald Trump called Pretti a gunman, justifying the killing and attacking various Democrats.

Republicans are digging in their heels, maintaining that these federal forces can kill anyone that protests them, even in legal ways, like filming. They’re showing the public how the state can commit whatever type of violence it likes, when it likes.

Democrats, meanwhile, have responded with assurances that the state, through government channels, will fight this murder. During his press conference, Minnesota governor Tim Walz tried to pacify the masses fighting back in the streets, urging peaceful protest — despite the fact that he saw the same video many others did, where Pretti was being peaceful, yet killed execution style after being beaten by a gang of CBP agents.

At the same time, Walz claimed that the way to “fight” ICE was to bring more armed forces — the National Guard — to a city already being violently occupied. Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC), self-described democratic socialist also called for activating the National Guard, stating, “we can and must stop this.”

Both politicians claim this is about maintaining order and safety, but it is actually about protecting the private property of capital and repressing protests as more individuals become moved to action, bearing witness to their community members being murdered by the state via livestream.

The National Guard is not going to protect anyone. One force that aims their guns at our class siblings isn’t going to be stopped by another force that aims their guns at us too.

Meanwhile, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office agreed with Waltz and AOC’s calls. They stated the National Guard is needed to “assist the Sheriff’s Office in protecting life, preserving property, and helping to ensure the safety of all community members.” They went on to emphasize the Guard’s presence will “create a secure environment where all Minnesotans can exercise their rights safely.”

But we cannot trust the National Guard to “protect” us in any way, shape, or form. Its history is one of repressing the working class and oppressed. It has been deployed to crush strikes, suppress Black uprisings like in Detroit and Newark in 1967, and has even murdered peaceful student protesters, like at Kent State in 1970. This is not some type of protective force as these politicians try to frame it; it is an occupying army for capital.

Whether it is the police or National Guard, liberal politicians are reiterating that more “training” and technocratic solutions will prevent these horrors from continuing. So all we need are the better-trained cops that have “learned” from the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising or the better “trained” National Guard, along with maybe a few more body cameras — and crisis averted. Calls for better training have been around since the Civil Rights era, but training or body cameras won’t stop the fact that all of these forces are meant to impose themselves on the public through violence or the threat of violence in order to protect the system of capitalism and the status quo.

The response of Waltz and AOC makes it crystal clear that the Democrats have never been on our side in this fight. They have voted time and time again to increase ICE’s budget since its inception, they helped create this army that is now being weaponized against us. Hell, several recently voted to continue funding for DHS amidst the ongoing crisis around the country. It took two people being killed in cold blood in plain sight (along with countless others killed in detention centers) for Senate Democrats to finally oppose the bill that would continue funding ICE.

The fight against this violence falls to the working class, not the National Guard. We must build from the actions of January 23: unions must mobilize for a nationwide strike, and we must organize democratic assemblies in every workplace to broaden the struggle. We cannot wait for 2028, like some labor leaders suggest. The fight is up to us and the time now.

The post No, Tim Waltz and AOC, the National Guard Won’t Save Us appeared first on Left Voice.

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