United States | News & Politics

The EU fined Elon Musk over issues which had nothing to do with free speech, and yet he's crying victim again

A New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses. She was later hailed as a hero.

Childhood infections have fallen by 99 percent since the vaccine was recommended, with hardly any major side effects.

The “emergency billionaires tax” would offset the billions of dollars being stripped from CA Medicaid recipients.

Even recent feeble reforms have been rolled back when Trump appointees took the reins.

Are you on Trump's naughty list?

Yet again not even bothering to try to hide the narcissism & bigotry.

Since beginning operation “Midway Blitz” – an aggressive push to arrest immigrants with criminal records in Chicago – Trump’s modern brownshirts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), have unleashed a wave of reactionary violence most recently culminating in an attack on a teacher at a pre-kindergarten school, Rayito del Sol. But the people of Chicago are organizing together to fight back, and you can too.

The entirety of I.C.E’s operation in Chicago has been marked with extrajudicial murders, lies to community officials, illegal detainments, unprovoked street brawls against citizens exercising their right to observe, and the tear-gassing of children in residential areas (a war crime).

I.C.E has been particularly brutal in its attacks around schools, as they have targeted both school officials and parents attempting to drop off or pick up their children in recent weeks, a tactic which resulted in the murder of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez in October. Until recently this tactic of targeting individuals on their way to and from schools was limited to off campus grounds, however, on November 6th I.C.E escalated their assaults on education yet again by detaining a Pre-k teacher who was already inside the Rayito del Sol daycare building and was attempting to go to work. I.C.E did this without a judicial warrant to enter the building, and according to parents interviewed at the school, made the arrest at a time of peak traffic of children and parents, traumatizing many already afraid to go to school due to fears of detention. The educator was then reportedly taken to the Broadview detention facility, which, based on the statements of judge Robert Gettleman in a recent trial, currently is forcing detainees to sleep on the floor or in plastic chairs next to overflowing toilets, and is where I.C.E agents have reportedly been Illegally attempting to force individuals to sign “voluntary” deportation orders without legal counsel present.

New Orleans, LA – On Thursday December 4, a crowd of 30 people packed the city council chamber to demand that the city stand up against ICE and Border Patrol operations in the city.

Operation “Swamp Sweep” began in New Orleans and surrounding areas this past Monday, December 1. A host of federal agents have descended on the city, including Gregory Bovino, chief of Border Patrol operations, who also made stops in Chicago and Charlotte earlier this year.

During a rally before the meeting, speakers united on the need to challenge city leadership, including Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, not to collaborate with ICE.

“Children are skipping school because they are afraid of ICE, parents are unable to go to the grocery store, workers are losing their jobs and losing their businesses. And our city councilors have not even put immigration on the agenda!” stated Rory Macdonald of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

After the rally, attendees filed into the meeting. They held paper signs reading “No collaboration with ICE/DHS” and sat together in a large clump in the center of the chambers. The much talked about immigration sweeps were not on the agenda, but residents organized public comment on other items to force council members to face the issue.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6952363

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11967

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, considered by some to be the frontrunner to be the next Democratic presidential nominee, said during a panel on Wednesday that he wants his party to be a “big tent” that welcomes large numbers of people into the fold. But he’s “adamantly against” one of the most popular proposals Democrats have to offer: a wealth tax.

In October, progressive economists Emmanuel Saez and Robert Reich joined forces with one of California's most powerful unions, the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) United Healthcare Workers West, to propose that California put the nation’s first-ever wealth tax on the ballot in November 2026.

They described the measure as an "emergency billionaires tax" aimed at recouping the tens of billions of dollars that will be stripped from California's 15 million Medicaid recipients over the next five years, after Republicans enacted historic cuts to the program in July with President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which dramatically reduced taxes for the wealthiest Americans.

Among those beneficiaries were the approximately 200 billionaires living in California, whose average annual income, Saez pointed out, has risen by 7.5% per year, compared with 1.5% for median-income residents.

Under the proposal, they would pay a one-time 5% tax on their total net worth, which is estimated to raise $100 billion. The vast majority of the funds, about 90%, would be used to restore Medicaid funding, while the rest would go towards funding K-12 education, which the GOP has also slashed.

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The proposal in California has strong support from unions and healthcare groups. But Newsom has called it “bad policy” and “another attempt to grab money for special purposes.”

Meanwhile, several of his longtime consultants, including Dan Newman and Brian Brokaw, have launched a campaign alongside “business and tech leaders” to kill the measure, which they’ve dubbed “Stop the Squeeze." They've issued familiar warnings that pinching the wealthy too hard will drive them from the state, along with the critical tax base they provide.

At Wednesday's New York Times DealBook Summit, Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Newsom about his opposition to the wealth tax idea, comparing it to a proposal by recent New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who pledged to increase the income taxes of New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million per year by 2% in order to fund his city-wide free buses, universal childcare, and city-owned grocery store programs.

Mamdani's proposal was met with a litany of similar warnings from Big Apple bigwigs who threatened to flee the city and others around the country who said they'd never move in.

But as Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein explained in October for the American Prospect: "The evidence for this is thin: mostly memes shared by tech and finance people... Research shows that the truth of the matter is closer to the opposite. Wealthy individuals and their income move at lower rates than other income brackets, even in response to an increase of personal income tax." Many of those who sulked about Mamdani's victory have notably begun making amends with the incoming mayor.

Moreover, the comparison between Mamdani's plan and the one proposed in California is faulty to begin with. As Harold Meyerson explained, also for the Prospect: "It is a one-time-only tax, to be levied exclusively on billionaires’ current (i.e., 2025) net worth. Even if they move to Tasmania, they will still be liable for 5% of this year’s net worth."

"Crucially, the tax won’t crimp the fortunes of any billionaire who moves into the state next year or any later year, as it only applies to the billionaires living in the state this year," he added. "Therefore... the horrific specter of billionaire flight can’t be levied against the California proposal."

Nevertheless, Sorkin framed Newsom as being in an existential battle of ideas with Mamdani, asking how the two could both represent the Democratic Party when they are so "diametrically opposed."

"Well, I want to be a big-tent party," Newsom replied. "It's about addition, not subtraction."

Pushed on the question of whether there should be a "unifying theory of the case," Newsom responded that “we all want to be protected, we all want to be respected, we all want to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. We have fundamental values that I think define our party, about social justice, economic justice.”

"We have pre-distribution Democrats, and we have re-distribution Democrats," he continued. "Therein lies the dialectic and therein lies the debate."

Polling is scarce so far on the likelihood of such a measure passing in California. But nationally, polls suggest that the vast majority of Democrats fall on the "re-distribution" side of Newsom's "dialectic." In fact, the majority of all Americans do, regardless of party affiliation.

Last year, Inequality.org examined 55 national and state polls about a number of different taxation policies and found:

A billionaire income tax garnered the most support across party identification. On average, two out of three (67%) of Americans supported the tax including 84% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.

In national polls, a wealth tax had similarly high levels of support. More than three out of five Americans supported the tax including 78% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 51% of Republicans.

That sentiment only seems to have grown since the return of President Donald Trump. An *Economist/*YouGov poll released in early November found that 72% of Americans said that taxes on billionaires should be raised—including 95% of Democrats, 75% of independents, and 48% of Republicans. Across the board, just 15% said they should not be raised.

Support remains high when the proposal is more specific as well. On the eve of Mamdani's election, despitre months of fearmongering, 64% of New Yorkers said they backed his proposal, including a slight plurality of self-identified conservatives, according to a Siena College poll.

Many observers were perplexed by how Newsom proposes to maintain a “big tent” while opposing policies supported by most of the people inside it.

"A wealth tax is a big tent policy unless the only people you care about are billionaires," wrote Jonathan Cohn, the political director for Progressive Mass, a grassroots organization in Massachusetts, on social media.

"Gavin Newsom—estimated net worth between $20 and $30 million—says he's opposed to a billionaire wealth tax. Color me shocked," wrote the Columbia University lecturer Anthony Zenkus. "Democrats holding him up as a potential savior for 2028 is a clear example of not reading the room."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6952394

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11939

A detailed investigation released Thursday reveals that the e-commerce behemoth Amazon is using its market dominance and political influence to gain a foothold in local governments' purchasing systems, locking school districts into contracts that let the corporation drive up prices for pens, sticky notes, and other basic supplies.

The new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), titled Turning Public Money Into Amazon’s Profits: The Hidden Cost of Ceding Government Procurement to a Monopoly Gatekeeper, is based on purchasing records from nearly 130 cities representing more than 50 million Americans.

ILSR found that "cities, counties, and school districts spent $2.2 billion with Amazon in 2023—a nearly fourfold increase since 2016."

"Through its Amazon Business platform, the company has maneuvered to become the default source for office products, classroom materials, cleaning supplies, and other routine goods," the report states. "Today, it is embedded in most local governments, making inroads into state agencies, and dominating a new program designed to reshape how federal agencies buy commercial products."

Unlike the fixed pricing that's typical for government contracts, the agreements that Amazon has secured with local governments across the US entail "algorithm-driven pricing" to "covertly raise prices and inflate costs for governments."

"The result is dramatic price variation: One city bought a 12-pack of Sharpie markers for $8.99, while a nearby school district paid $28.63 for the identical pack that same day," ILSR said. "Our data contain thousands of similar examples, with some agencies paying double or even triple what others paid for the same items."

1. Hard to believe, but Amazon has persuaded schools and cities across the country to abandon competitive bidding and fixed price contracts. Instead, they're signing contracts with Amazon that specify dynamic pricing. The result: Paying $37 for 12 pens or $74 for 36 markers. pic.twitter.com/afIIkPucZL
   — Stacy Mitchell (@stacyfmitchell) December 5, 2025

Overall, ILSR found that school districts bound to Amazon contracts spend twice as much per student as school districts without an agreement with the $2.5 trillion company.

“Public officials should be deeply concerned by what we found,” Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director of ILSR, said in a statement. “Amazon is reshaping public procurement in ways that expose taxpayer dollars to waste and risk. It has persuaded cities and schools to abandon safeguards meant to ensure fair prices and accountability—while driving out independent suppliers, eroding competition, and putting Amazon in a position to dictate terms.”

Having gained sweeping access to local government purchasing processes, Amazon is increasingly inserting itself into state and federal systems. ILSR noted that "Amazon dominates the General Services Administration’s Commercial Platforms Program, a new system for agencies to make purchases below $15,000 that do not require competitive bids."

"During the first two years of the program’s pilot phase," the group found, "Amazon captured 96% of sales."

ILSR emphasized that Amazon's dominance is by no means inevitable and can, with concerted action, be rolled back.

"A handful of cities and counties have recognized the risks of relying on Amazon and taken steps to restore transparency and keep public dollars local," the report observes. "Tempe, Arizona rejected an Amazon group-purchasing contract after hearing concerns from a local business owner. Between 2017 and 2023, the city cut its Amazon spending by 84% while increasing purchases from local suppliers. Phoenix likewise prioritizes local bids and has spent almost nothing with Amazon over the last decade."

Kennedy Smith, co-author of the report, said that "when local officials put real safeguards in place and prioritize local suppliers, they save money, strengthen their economies, and restore public control over public dollars."

To keep their procurement system free of the kinds of tactics Amazon uses to line its pockets with taxpayer money, ILSR urged state and local governments to prohibit so-called "dynamic pricing" in purchasing contracts and to prioritize buying from local businesses.

"By reclaiming control of public procurement, governments can safeguard dollars, strengthen local businesses, and ensure that the goods that sustain our schools and public services are supplied through systems that are transparent, competitive, and democratic," the group said.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

New Orleans, LA – On Monday, December 1, 100 people rallied in Lafayette Square and marched to City Hall in the pouring rain to oppose Trump’s latest assault on immigrants in Louisiana, dubbed Operation “Swamp Sweep.”

December 1 marked the first day of Swamp Sweep, an anti-immigrant operation that has sent 250 federal agents to Louisiana – specifically to New Orleans and surrounding areas – attempting to make 5000 arrests. This operation mirrors similar federal deployments in cities such as Washington D.C., Memphis and Charlotte. Like other cities, New Orleans showed up to resist the crackdown.

The protest began with a rally featuring speakers from several organizations that are a part of an ad-hoc No Trump, No Troops coalition leading the way in the fight against federal occupation in the city.

“As a New Orleans resident it is my duty to stand up for my undocumented brothers and sisters to fight this terror that is coming down on them right before the holidays. I’ll be damned to have these families broken up in my own city!” said Anthony Franklin, a member of Students for a Democratic Society. Franklin drew direct comparisons between the federal occupation of ICE, Border Patrol, and the National Guard in New Orleans today and repression by the National Guard in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, stating, “We didn’t need the National Guard then, and we don’t need them now!”

Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.

The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.

The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6942052

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11592

Two immigration detention centers in Florida have gained notoriety for inhumane conditions since Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, in close alignment with President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant agenda, has rapidly scaled up mass detention in the state, and a report released Thursday detailed how human rights violations at the two facilities amount to torture in some cases.

Amnesty International published the report, Torture and Enforced Di**sappearances in the Sunshine State, with a focus on Krome North Service Processing Center and the Everglades Detention Facility, also known by its nickname, "Alligator Alcatraz."

As Common Dreams has reported, many of the people detained at the facilities have been arbitrarily rounded up by immigration agents, with a majority of the roughly 1,000 people being held at Alligator Alcatraz having been convicted of no criminal offense as of July.

Amnesty's report described unsanitary conditions, with fecal matter overflowing from toilets in detainees' sleeping areas, authorities granting only limited access to showers, and poor quality food and water.

Some of the treatment amounts to torture, the report says, including Alligator Alcatraz's use of "the box"—a 2x2 foot "cage-like structure people are put in as punishment—which inmates have been placed in for hours at a time with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.

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“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International USA. “This is unreal—where’s the oversight?”

At Krome, detainees have been arbitrarily placed in prolonged solitary confinement—defined as lasting longer than 15 days—which is prohibited under international law.

"The use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the ‘box’ at 'Alligator Alcatraz' amount to torture or other ill-treatment," said Amnesty.

The report elevates concerns raised in September by immigrant rights advocates regarding the lack of federal oversight at Alligator Alcatraz, with nearly 1,000 men detained at the prison having been "administratively disappeared"—their names absent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detainee locator system.

"The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer," said Amnesty.

The state of Florida has not publicly confirmed the number of people detained at Alligator Alcatraz.

One man told Amnesty, "My lawyers tried to visit me, but they weren’t let in. They were told that they had to fill out a form, which they did, but nothing happened. I was never able to speak with them confidentially.”

At Krome, detainees described overcrowding, medical neglect, and abuse by guards when Amnesty researchers visited in September. ICE has constructed tents and other semi-permanent structures to hold more people than the facility is designed to detain.

The Amnesty researchers were given a tour of relatively extensive medical facilities at Krome, including a dialysis clinic, dental clinic, and a "state-of-the-art" mental health facility—but despite these resources, detainees described officials' failure to provide medical treatment and delays in health assessments. Four people—Ramesh Amechand, Genry Ruiz Guillen, Maksym Chernyak, and Isidro Pérez—have died this year while detained at Krome.

"It’s a disaster if you want to see the doctor," one man told Amnesty. "I once asked to see the doctor, and it took two weeks for me to finally see him. It’s very slow.”

Researchers with the organization witnessed "a guard violently slam a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man’s injured hand," and people reported being "hit and punched" by officials at Krome.

In line with the Trump administration, DeSantis and Republican state lawmakers have sought to make Florida "a testing ground for abusive immigration enforcement policies," said Amnesty, with the state deputizing local law enforcement to make immigration arrests and issuing 34 no-bid contracts totaling more than $360 million for the operation of Alligator Alcatraz—while slashing spending on healthcare, food assistance, and disaster relief. Florida has increased the number of people in immigration detention by more than 50% since Trump took office in January.

The organization called on Florida to redirect detention funding toward healthcare, housing, and other public spending, and to ban "shackling, solitary confinement, and punitive outdoor confinement" in line with international standards.

"At the federal level, the US government must end its cruel mass immigration detention machine, stop the criminalization of migration, and bar the use of state-owned facilities for federal immigration custody," said Amnesty.

Fischer emphasized that the chaotic and abusive conditions Amnesty observed at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome "are not isolated."

"They represent a deliberate system of cruelty designed to punish people seeking to build a new life in the US,” said Fischer. “We must stop detaining our immigrant community members and people seeking safety and instead work toward humane, rights-respecting migration policies.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6942091

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11605

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said, “If there is intelligence to 'absolutely confirm' this, the Congress is ready to receive it.”

The post Pentagon Claims It “Absolutely” Knows Who It Killed in Boat Strikes. Prove It, Lawmaker Says appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams today signed two executive orders that will ensure city agencies continue to make sound financial decisions that protect taxpayer dollars and that protect New Yorkers’ right to practice their religion at houses of worship without harassment, while protecting freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.

Executive Order No. 60 prohibits mayoral agency heads, agency chief contracting officers, and any other mayoral appointees with discretion over contracting from engaging in procurement practices that discriminate against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens, or those associated with Israel.

The executive order also prohibits the chief pension administrator and mayoral trustees to the city pension system from opposing divestment from bonds and other assets that would discriminate against the State of Israel, Israeli citizens, or those associated with Israel.