United States | News & Politics

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6991710

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12607

An official U.S. military social media account on Monday shared a photo collage that included a symbol long affiliated with extremist groups — and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

In a post on X trumpeting the deployment of troops to the Caribbean, U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, shared an image that prominently displayed a so-called Jerusalem cross on the helmet of a masked commando.

The Jerusalem cross, also dubbed the “Crusader cross” for its roots in Medieval Christians’ holy wars in the Middle East, is not inherently a symbol of extremism. It has, however, become popular on the right to symbolize the march of Christian civilization, with anti-Muslim roots that made it into something of a logo for the U.S. war on terror.

Tattoos of the cross, a squared-off symbol with a pattern of repeating crosses, have appeared on the bodies of people ranging from mercenaries hired by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to Hegseth himself.

Now, the symbol has reared its head again to advertise President Donald Trump’s military buildup against Venezuela — an overwhelmingly Catholic country — and boat strikes in the Caribbean.

U.S. military forces are deployed to the #SOUTHCOM area of responsibility in support of #OpSouthernSpear, @DeptofWar-directed operations, and @POTUS' priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland. pic.twitter.com/vLvg9fQ5Lx

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 8, 2025

“As with all things Trump, it’s a continuation, with some escalation, and then a transformation into spectacle,” said Yale University historian Greg Grandin, whose work focuses on U.S. empire in Latin America.

The social media post came amid rising controversy over a series of strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, dubbed Operation Southern Spear.

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Hegseth is alleged to have ordered a so-called “double-tap” strike, a follow-up attack against a debilitated boat that killed survivors clinging to the wreckage for around 45 minutes. The U.S. has carried out 22 strikes since the campaign began in September, killing a total of 87 people.

The Pentagon’s press office declined to comment on the use of the Jerusalem cross, referring questions to SOUTHCOM. But in a reply to the X post on Monday, Hegseth’s deputy press secretary Joel Valdez signaled his approval with emojis of a salute and the American flag. In a statement to the Intercept, SOUTHCOM spokesperson Steven McLoud denied that the post implied any religious or far-right message.

“The graphic you’re referring to was an illustration of service members in a ready posture during Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR,” McLoud told The Intercept. “There is no other communication intent for this image.”

The original image of the masked service member appears to have come from an album published online by the Pentagon that depicts a training exercise by Marines aboard the USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea in October. The photo depicting the cross, however, was removed from the album after commentators on social media pointed out its origins.

Amanda Saunders, a spokesperson for the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, the Pentagon-run photo agency, said she was unable to comment directly but forwarded the request to the Marine unit involved in the exercise.

“Content on DVIDS is published and archived directly by the registered units,” she said, “so we don’t have control over what is posted or removed, nor are we able to comment on those decisions.”

Hegseth and the Cross

The Jerusalem cross’s popularity on the right has surged in part thanks to featuring in various media, including the 2005 Ridley Scott film “Kingdom of Heaven” and video games, according to Matthew Gabriele, a professor of medieval studies at Virginia Tech and a scholar of Crusader iconography.

“It supports the rhetoric of ‘defense of homeland.’”

“It supports the rhetoric of ‘defense of homeland,’” Gabriele told The Intercept, “because the crusaders, in the right’s understanding, were waging a defensive war against enemies trying to invade Christian lands.”

The symbol’s position of prominence in official military communications is just the latest example of a trollish extremism by the Trump administration’s press teams, which have made a point of reveling in the cruelty wrought on its perceived enemies at home and abroad, or “owning the libs.”

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Monday’s post may also be intended as Hegseth putting his thumb in the eye of the Pentagon’s old guard. Hegseth’s embrace of the symbol — in the form of a gawdy chest tattoo — once stymied, however temporarily, his ambitions in the military.

Folling the January 6 insurrection, according to Hegseth and reporting by the Washington Post, Hegseth was ordered to stand down rather than deploy with his National Guard unit ahead of the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden. The decision to treat Hegseth as a possible “insider threat” came after a someone flagged a photo of a shirtless Hegseth to military brass, according to the Washington Post.

“I joined the Army in 2001 because I wanted to serve my country. Extremists attacked us on 9/11, and we went to war,” Hegseth wrote “The War on Warriors,” his 2024 memoir. “Twenty years later, I was deemed an ‘extremist’ by that very same Army.”

Hegseth was hardly chastened by the episode and has since gotten more tattoos with more overt anti-Muslim resonance, including the Arabic word word for “infidel,” which appeared on his bicep sometime in the past several years. It’s accompanied by another bicep tattoo of the Latin words “Deus vult,” or “God wills it,” yet another slogan associated with the Crusades and repurposed by extremist groups.

The use of the image to advertise aggressive posturing in a majority-Christian region like Latin America may seem odd at first glance. In the context of renewed U.S. focus on Latin America, however, it’s a potent symbol of the move of military action from the Middle East to the Western Hemisphere.

“They’re globalizing the Monroe Doctrine.”

The post comes on the heels of the release of the Trump’s National Security Strategy, a 33-page document outlining the administration’s foreign-policy priorities that explicitly compared Trump’s stance to the Monroe Doctrine, the turn-of-the-century policy of U.S. dominance in Latin America in opposition to colonialism by other foreign powers. Grandin, the Yale historian, described the document as a “vision of global dominance” based on a model of great-powers competition that can lead to immense instability.

“They’re globalizing the Monroe Doctrine,” Grandin said. “I’m no fan of the hypocrisy and arrogance of the old liberal international order, but there’s something to be said for starting from a first principle of shared interests, which does keep great conflict at bay to some degree.”

The post Official Propaganda for Caribbean Military Buildup Includes “Crusader Cross” appeared first on The Intercept.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6991705

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12605

The revelation that Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, is playing a key role in Paramount Skydance's hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery underscores the extent to which the current administration's open corruption "is fundamentally distorting economic and governmental policymaking at the direct expense of the interests of the American people," a watchdog group said Tuesday.

Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partner, is listed in a regulatory filing as one of the organizations financing Paramount's $108 billion bid for Warner Bros., which owns CNN. Ethics experts say Kushner's involvement represents another glaring conflict of interest on top of preexisting concerns about the bid, stemming from Trump's relationship with Paramount CEO David Ellison and his billionaire father, GOP megadonor Larry Ellison.

"America is devolving into a caricature of crony capitalism," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Tuesday. "Factions aiming to shrink media competition are fighting over who can show the greatest fealty to Donald Trump. Paramount seems to have won the prize, bringing in presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner—whose investment vehicle is flush with Saudi funds, deposited only because of his personal relationship with Donald Trump—as a partner."

"A working antitrust policy would block the merger of Warner Bros. Discovery with one of the existing media goliaths. It would never be influenced by personal connections to the president," Weissman added. "This case underscores that the corruption pervading the Trump administration isn’t just about making Trump and his family and hangers-on ever richer. That corruption is fundamentally distorting economic and governmental policy making, at the direct expense of the interests of the American people.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that "the Warner Bros. merger was already suspect, but now Trump’s family is getting in on the act."

"Paramount already had deep ties to the White House," he added, "now Trump's family will directly profit if they win."

Asked Monday about Kushner's financing role, Trump said he has "never spoken to him about it."

Paramount, which the Trump administration reportedly favored to take over Warner Bros., announced its bid for the company days after the streaming behemoth Netflix and Warner Bros. leadership reached an $83 billion acquisition deal. The president immediately criticized the Netflix agreement and pledged to intervene in the federal review process.

"The blurred line between running the government and the family's business interests is expanding each day," Scott Amey, general counsel with the Project On Government Oversight, told Reuters.

Antitrust experts and advocates have argued that both of the proposed mergers are likely illegal and should be blocked.

Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Monday that either merger "would further deepen the media consolidation crisis that is eroding our creative economy and freedom of expression."

"Paramount specifically would be well-positioned to manipulate the news to please the president, which David Ellison made clear it intends to do in an interview earlier today," said Stoller. "There is a reason that policymakers and workers in Hollywood have come out against each iteration of this deal. Rather than allowing further consolidation in the industry, policymakers must reregulate the market with prohibitions on vertical integration.”

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A prominent genocide prevention group has termed Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks on Israel’s war on Gaza as “outright genocide denial”, in a statement released on Tuesday.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security said Clinton had misdiagnosed Israel’s battered reputation among Americans during her talk at the Israel Hayom Summit on 2 December.

In her talk, the former US first lady and secretary of state said Israel “has the worst PR of any group”, blaming TikTok, in particular, for presenting what she called “pure propaganda”, referring to Israeli violence against Palestinians during its genocide in Gaza.

“Secretary Clinton’s framing is not at all an accurate reflection of why Americans are growing more critical of Israel,” the institute said.

The institute added that Americans did not fall prey to propaganda, but rather to years of videos “uploaded by Palestinian journalists, ordinary people trying to survive in Gaza, IDF soldiers, and ordinary Israelis themselves”, referring to the Israeli army in using the acronym "IDF".

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56637513

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56633438

We already know anyone still visiting the US supports fascism, but now the US wants to be sure.

Lets try this link...

Why the NSPM-7 fueled FBI blacklist isn’t considered news

People not Politicians, the main organization behind the effort, said they submitted more than 300,000 signatures to the secretary of state’s office, nearly triple the number required to block the map from going into effect. Missouri’s Republican secretary of state now needs to review the signatures.

All over the world democratic socialism failed in the face of ascendant fascism, as a fickle fascination with form saw “socialists” ally themselves to bourgeois republics. The many millions of dead call to us from beyond the grave to not repeat this mistake.

The post The DSA Is Repeating the Historic Failures of the Social Democrats appeared first on Left Voice.

Many on the U.S. Left are viewing the current political moment with optimistic caution. They see Mamdani’s victory as evidence of the viability of the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) strategy of electoral entryism in the Democratic Party as a program for achieving socialism on a broad scale. It is in this climate that Left Voice has called on the DSA to break from the reactionary capitalist graveyard of social movements that is the Democratic Party. It’s vital in this disruptive moment to keep a clear analysis of what is happening, what we want to happen, and what history tells us could happen.

Build a Working-Class Party to Defeat the Far-Right

So what does this have to do with Zohran Mamdani? For one thing, his election has created new enthusiasm for the politics of parliamentary socialism, with many newly activated adherents perhaps unfamiliar with how tired and trite some of the arguments for that strategy are. As the DSA debates the merits of a dirty break, a clean break, a party surrogate model, and myriad other “strategies,” they ignore the history of failure penned in blood by their parliamentary forebears, and even fall short of the progressive credentials those groups had. If the SPD in Germany and PSI in Italy were ultimately reduced to the political status of liberals, they still proposed a more progressive agenda than the DSA does now. After all, what good is it to infiltrate the Democratic Party, the most important imperialist party in the world, with a socialist Trojan horse just to end up another liberal albatross? And yet they call to us to join them in the marsh. We, on the contrary, are urging them to change course.

We should also examine the historical role of the elected socialists. What happens when a revolutionary philosophy is applied as an administrative force within a capitalist country?

The legacy of the so-called Sewer Socialists in places like Milwaukee serves as an important lesson. Having accomplished remarkable achievements, like the namesake installation of the sewer system, these officials presided over roughly 40 years of massively popular electoral successes, creating a seemingly unbreakable coalition in the process. While it is hardly fair to task them with defeating the national repression of McCarthyism single handedly, their failure was most importantly in not tying their achievements to a broader revolutionary socialist movement. They occupied a political wilderness in spite of recurring victories, while primarily implementing ideas that were largely amenable to private capital and slapping a buzzword on it. When the hammer of reaction came down nationwide, they stood alone amidst the wonders they had made, unable to rally a fight against it. A lot could have happened in 40 years, but didn’t.

It is in this spirit that rank-and-file DSA members should reorient their organization away from the reformist strategy condemned by history. With the Far Right emboldened and normalized, now is not the time for timidity. This is also not to condemn the powerful role of electoral campaigns. Taking executive positions such as the mayor of New York City without a revolutionary program only leads to well-meaning progressives presiding over the systems they campaigned against, and “socialists” representing billionaires.

The idea of a “right to repair” — a requirement that companies facilitate consumers’ repairs, maintenance, and modification of products — is extremely popular, even winning broad, bipartisan support in Congress. That could not, however, save it from the military–industrial complex.

Lobbyists succeeded in killing part of the National Defense Authorization Act that would have given service members the right to fix their equipment in the field without having to worry about military suppliers’ intellectual property.

Under one version, co-sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mt., defense companies would have been required to supply the information needed for repairs — such as technical data, maintenance manuals, engineering drawings, and lists of replacement parts — as a condition of Pentagon contracts.

The filing included the December 1 memo signed by Trump, which claimed the subpoena had requested an “extremely broad set of materials” and blocked the release of 4,152 documents.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6977615

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12280

Republican congressional leaders unveiled a sprawling military policy bill late Sunday that would authorize $901 billion in US military spending for the coming fiscal year, just months after GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump pushed through the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who aggressively pushed cuts to Medicaid by peddling false claims of large-scale fraud, touted the 3,086-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as legislation that would "ensure our military forces remain the most lethal in the world."

The bill, a compromise of House and Senate versions of the annual legislation, would authorize $8 billion more in US military spending than Trump asked for in his 2026 budget request.

If passed, the 2026 NDAA would pump billions of dollars more into the Pentagon, a cesspool of the kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse that Johnson and other Republicans claim to be targeting when they cut safety net programs, stripping health insurance and food aid from millions. The Pentagon has never passed an independent audit and continues to have "significant fraud exposure," the Government Accountability Office said earlier this year.

"The surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."

Final passage of the NDAA would push total military spending authorized by Congress this year above $1 trillion, including the $150 billion in Pentagon funds included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.

Last month, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of watchdog and anti-war groups implored Congress not to approve any funding above the originally requested $892.6 billion, warning that additional money for the Pentagon would enable the Trump administration's lawless use of the military in US streets and overseas.

The groups also noted that "the surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."

"At such a time," they wrote in a letter to lawmakers, "bipartisan agreement to provide additional funds to the Pentagon would deliver a cruel message to the American public, one out of step with Democratic messaging over healthcare, reconciliation, and the shutdown."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6978975

A new nonprofit aims to harness the grassroots momentum of Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign as he takes office, following a similar path to Mayor Bill de Blasio that sparked corruption investigations and criticism from good government groups.

More than 650 people joined the first hour-long “mass call” Thursday night for Our Time, which is classified as a tax-exempt 501c4 social welfare organization. While technically separate from Mamdani and his incoming administration, the group can fundraise and lobby for his policies. Our Time plans to launch a round of campaign-style door-knocking next weekend to build support for Mamdani’s campaign promises, starting with universal child care.

“ Our mission at Our Time is to continue to grow the movement that we began building so that we can win, implement and defend the affordability agenda,” Jeremy Freeman, the new executive director told participants on the call, which was available in English, Spanish and Bangla.

The use of nonprofits to support mayoral issues is not new in New York City. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg also utilized a nonprofit, the Mayor’s Fund, to promote the public-private partnerships central to his agenda.

Our Time is more reminiscent of de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York, which became embroiled in protracted state and federal investigations over the role the mayor played in its fundraising.

While prosecutors never charged anyone from the de Blasio administration with wrongdoing, both the Southern District of New York and Manhattan district attorney’s offices issued memos admonishing the de Blasio administration for his fundraising practices and for soliciting donations from people with business before the city seeking favorable treatment.

Our Time organizers — all of whom are former Mamdani campaign volunteers -- said they are studying those previous efforts to avoid pitfalls.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6982977

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12384

Democratic US Sen. Ron Wyden was among those who emphasized Monday that President Donald Trump's erratic tariff policies have helped create the very conditions the White House is now citing to justify its new $12 billion relief plan for American farmers.

“Instead of proposing government handouts, Donald Trump should end his destructive tariff spree so American farmers can compete and win on a level playing field," said Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. "Donald Trump’s trade war is taxing families, killing markets for our farm goods, and driving farmers into bankruptcy."

"Trump’s plan to bail out farmers won’t even get agriculture communities back to even," the senator added. "They’re still paying more for fertilizer, equipment, and seeds, while grown-in-the-USA farm goods are facing more obstacles than ever in foreign markets. Don’t forget that all of this trade destruction and taxing was to raise money for Trump’s massive handouts to billionaires and the ultra-wealthy.”

Trump formally unveiled the relief plan Monday afternoon at a White House roundtable with top officials, lawmakers, and farmers of corn, soybeans, and other crops. Reuters reported that up to $11 billion of the funds are "meant for a newly designed Farmer Bridge Assistance program for row crop farmers hurt by trade disputes and higher costs." The other $1 billion is earmarked for commodities not covered by the program.

"Quite an admission that his policies have hurt Americans," economist Justin Wolfers wrote in response to the plan.

Farm Action, a farmer-led agricultural watchdog group, welcomed the relief package but said it's not enough to end suffering caused by "tariffs, soaring input costs, and years of volatile markets."

"The current problems facing our agriculture system have been decades in the making due to failed policy that prioritizes commodity crops for export, which only benefits global grain traders and meatpackers," said Joe Maxwell, Farm Action’s co-founder and chief strategy officer. "Without addressing the root causes of this issue, farmers will be left to continue relying on government assistance into the future. That is why Congress must take action and fix our failed subsidy system in the next farm bill."

Rebecca Wolf, senior food policy analyst at Food & Water Watch, said that "bailouts are a denigrating Band-Aid to farmers whom decades of misguided domestic policy have left vulnerable to trade wars."

"Trump’s tariff tantrum and belittling bailouts will deepen agricultural sector consolidation, funneling money to a powerful few corporations, while running farmers further into the ground," said Wolf. "If Trump is serious about helping farmers, lowering sector consolidation and dropping food prices, he needs to look in the mirror. Chaotic tariff tantrums are no way to run farm policy. US farmers need fair prices, regional food markets, and policies that reward sustainable, humane production models—not trade wars.”

The $12 billion relief program comes after months of Trump tariffs and retaliatory actions by key nations—particularly China—that have amplified challenges facing US farmers, a key political constituency for the president.

Farmers and organizations representing them have been vocal in their criticism of Trump's tariffs and his proposed policy responses to the problems that the duties have intensified. As the Washington Post summarized:

Earlier this spring, Trump’s tariffs on China prompted the country to halt purchases of US soybeans. Then, the president offered a $20 billion bailout to Argentina, whose soybean crop sales to China have replaced those from US farmers. Later, Trump announced that the United States would buy beef from Argentina to bring down prices for US consumers, opening a new rift between Trump and cattle ranchers.

The new assistance package is particularly aimed at helping soybean farmers, who have seen a precipitous drop in sales this year, leaving them with extra supply, as the price of soybeans fell.

In October, Illinois soybean producer John Bartman said in a message to the Trump administration that "we don't want a bailout, we want a market."

"Bailouts don't work. Bailouts are band-aids," Bartman added. "What Trump is doing is destroying our markets, and when those markets disappear, we're not gonna get them back."

Ryan Mulholland and Mark Haggerty of the Center for American Progress echoed that sentiment in an analysis last month, noting that "writing a check to farmers helps in the short term, but even in the most optimistic scenario, input costs are likely to remain high, demand volatile, the climate ever-changing, and corporate consolidation and investor ownership of land firmly entrenched."

"Planning for next year’s planting season will be extremely difficult, but without a comprehensive plan to make farming a more sustainable, more prosperous enterprise, planning in subsequent years likely will not be any easier," they added. "President Trump’s 'solution' is to simply pay off farmers. Farmers want trade, not aid. And they want government policy that supports farmers and the communities where they live over the long term."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

The Christmas display, which replaces Jesus, Mary and Joseph with a sign saying “ICE Was Here,” has drawn criticism from Catholic leaders and immigration officials.

Dec. 8, 2025

https://archive.ph/rQr8S

Bruna Ferreira released from ICE custody as she continues to fight against her removal from the country

The president, who drapes himself in the flag so inappropriately you’d think it would be filing HR complaints on a daily basis, is now preventing some the best potential US citizens from becoming US citizens.

The measure restricts immigration arrests around state courthouses. Republicans have criticized the law and suggested it would face legal challenges.

Source

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — On a recent afternoon, Giselle Garcia, a volunteer who has been helping an Afghan family resettle, drove the father to a check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She warned him and his family to prepare for the worst.

The moment the father stepped into the ICE office in California’s capital city, he was arrested.

Coming just days after the shooting of two National Guard troops by an Afghan national suspect, federal authorities have carried out increased arrests of Afghans in the U.S., immigration lawyers say as Afghans both in and outside the country have come under intense scrutiny by immigration officials.

---

They had fled Afghanistan under threat by the Taliban because the wife’s father had assisted the U.S. military, and they had asked for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, Garcia said. She is not identifying him or his family for fear other members could be arrested.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is considering a Republican-led drive, backed by President Donald Trump’s administration, to overturn a quarter-century-old decision and erase limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president.

A day after the justices indicated they would overturn a 90-year-old decision limiting the president’s power to fire independent agency heads, the court on Tuesday is revisiting a 2001 decision that upheld a provision of federal election law that is more than 50 years old.

Democrats are calling on the court to uphold the law.

The limits stem from a desire to prevent large donors from skirting caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party, with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate.