United States | News & Politics

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.

— (@)

“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.

Since Israel began bombarding Gaza and starving its population of more than 2 million Palestinians in October 2023, the consensus that the Israeli government is committing genocide has steadily grown to include international and Israeli human rights groups, a United Nations panel, Holocaust scholars, and nearly 40% of Jewish Americans, according to one striking recent survey.

But in 10 words, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday waved away the findings of respected groups like Amnesty International and renowned experts like Brown University professor Omer Bartov, when she commented on why young Americans are expressing support for Palestinians.

"They were getting their information from social media, particularly TikTok," said Clinton.

Without pointing to any evidence, the former secretary of state said young people in the US are "seeing short-form videos, some of them totally made up, some of them not at all representing what they claim to be showing, and that’s where they get their information" about Israel's attacks on Gaza.

She added that "it’s not just the usual suspects"—without naming who those pro-Palestinian "suspects" are.

"It’s a lot of young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand," she said. "A lot of the challenge is with younger people."

Hillary Clinton blames TikTok and “totally made up” videos for young people’s views on Israel and Palestine.

She says social media influenced “not just the usual suspects” but also “young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand.” https://t.co/rUVXRqK2rK pic.twitter.com/hAwG7Gbhwf
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) December 2, 2025

Her remarks echoed those of former Obama White House speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, who spoke recently about the challenges Zionists are presented with when they try to defend Israel to young Jewish people who have seen widely available, credible images and news out of Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and is continuing to restrict humanitarian aid despite a ceasefire deal reached in October.

"Anything that we try to say to them, they’re hearing it through this wall of carnage," Hurwitz lamented last month, drawing condemnation.

Clinton was speaking at an event in New York City for Israel Hayom, the most widely read newspaper in Israel, which is run by billionaire Miriam Adelson, a megadonor to President Donald Trump. Adelson published an editorial in the Jewish Journal in November 2023 saying pro-Palestinian protesters "are dead to us," and her late husband, Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, said in 2014 that the Palestinians are "an invented people."

Jeremy Slevin, a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), pointed to the irony of Clinton attending an event associated with the Adelsons and then claiming that "the kids are being radicalized by anti-Israel propaganda."

— (@)

Clinton has frequently claimed that pro-Palestinian Americans, particularly students who took part in nationwide campus protests last year as they urged the Biden administration to comply with US law and stop funding Israel's attacks on Gaza, are simply misinformed about Palestine and ignorant of history, particularly pointing to the 2000 Camp David Summit hosted by former President Bill Clinton.

The former secretary of state has repeated the claim that the Palestinians were offered a "generous deal" at the meeting and "walked away"—a "myth" that Camp David negotiator Robert Malley has debunked, warning it's been used by Clinton and others to "justify Israel's genocide."

Robert Malley on the myth of “Palestinians walked away” at Camp David (July 2000):

➤ Malley says the popular story pushed since 2000 – that Arafat rejected a “generous offer” – is contradicted by the actual record. Israeli PM Barak sidelined the Palestinians for a year,… pic.twitter.com/3vlf1Rl4qj
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 28, 2025

"She’s the one getting the history wrong," including at the Israel Hayom event, said Drop Site News on Tuesday.

A number of observers took issue with Clinton's suggestion that anti-Israel sentiment in the US is being driven solely by young people, with Just Security executive editor Adil Haque issuing a "periodic reminder that the biggest shift in attitudes toward Israel and Palestine has been among older Democrats."

In 2022, 43% Democratic voters ages 50 and up had an unfavorable view of Israel. That percentage has risen sharply since Israel began its onslaught in Gaza, with 66% of those voters reporting an unfavorable view in a Pew Research Center poll this year.

Meanwhile, 71% of Democrats ages 49 and under opposed Israel in the same poll, and 62% of them had expressed opposition in 2022, denoting a less extreme shift in opinion.

"Democrats get their news from CNN more than other mainstream sources," said Haque, pointing to the network's recent investigation about Palestinian aid-seekers who were killed by Israeli forces. "If you're a 60-year-old with grandkids and you read or watch CNN's Gaza reporting, you don't need TikTok to know that what's happening is very, very wrong."

Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs at the Center for International Policy, also suggested Clinton has an inaccurate view of who opposes Israel's ongoing attacks on Palestinians.

"I’m nearly 50. I don’t use TikTok. I listen to NPR 'Morning Edition' and read the Financial Times daily," said Williams. "I’m a lawyer who has worked on Israel-Palestine issues for the last 20 years. The evidence I’ve seen that Israel committed atrocities including genocide in Gaza is overwhelming."

Author Jason Overstreet wondered how Clinton would explain the findings of human rights groups like Amnesty International and Israel-based B'Tselem, which pointed to testimonies by Israeli soldiers and the documented destruction of Gaza's food system when it concluded in a report in July that Israel is committing genocide in the exclave.

"I guess Hillary Clinton also thinks that Amnesty International called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide because they saw some videos on TikTok and just 'did not know history,'" said Overstreet. "Young people’s views on Israel are based on young people knowing that Israel has committed genocide."

Kei trucks have a new fan.

The Chicago Tribune filed a lawsuit against AI search engine Perplexity on Thursday alleging copyright infringement. The suit, seen by TechCrunch, was filed in a federal court in New York.

The Tribune alleges that its lawyers contacted Perplexity in mid-October asking if the AI search engine was using its content, according to the complaint. Perplexity’s lawyers replied it did not train models with the Tribune’s work, but that it “may receive non-verbatim factual summaries,” the lawsuit claims.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6931658

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11336

The family of Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza Medina, believed killed by the US military in a boat bombing in the Caribbean Sea on Sept. 15, has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accusing US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth of murder over the unlawful attack.

"From numerous news reports, we know that [Hegseth] was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza and the murder of all those on such boats," reads the petition, filed Tuesday on behalf of Carranza's family by Dan Kovalik, a human rights attorney based in Pittsburgh.

"Secretary Hegseth," the petition continues, "has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings."

The complaint also notes that President Donald Trump, the commander in chief of the US military, "ratified the conduct of Secretary Hegseth described herein.”

First reported on by The Guardian, the filing of the petition with the IACHR—an autonomous body under the charter of Organization of American States (OAS) designed to uphold human rights in the Western Hemisphere—could result in the initiation of an investigation and the release of findings about the bombing that took the life of Carranza and two other individuals believed to be aboard the vessel.

The petition, the outlet noted, "marks the first formal complaint over the airstrikes by the Trump administration against suspected drug boats, attacks that the White House says are justified under a novel interpretation of law." Experts in international human rights law have stated from the outset that the administration's justifications lack legal basis and that the attacks constitute unlawful criminal acts.

According to The Guardian:

Carranza, 42, appears to have been killed in the second strike of the Trump administration’s bombing campaign, on 15 September. The administration has publicly disclosed 21 strikes on alleged drug boats. Carranza’s family says he was a fisher who would often set out in search of marlin and tuna.

On the day of the strike, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that “This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility”. Trump attached video marked “unclassified” of a small boat floating in the water before it was struck.

Both Hegseth, the highest-ranked civilian at the Pentagon, and Trump have been under growing scrutiny for the series of boat bombings that have resulted in the extrajudicial killing of over 80 people since September. Experts have said the killings should be seen as "murder, plain and simple."

New revelations about a strike on Sept. 2, in which two survivors of an initial bombing were later killed as they clung to the exploded boat on which they were traveling, has evelated that concern in Washington, DC this week with lawmakers seeking answers about the attack which, even if one accepted the legality of the initial strike under the construct the Trump administration has tried to claim, would constitute a clear human rights violation amounting to a war crime.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse in October, Katerine Hernandez, Carranza's wife in Colombia, said her husband was "a good man" devoted to fishing and providing for his family. "Why did they just take his life like that?" she asked.

Hernandez denies that Carranza was involved in drug trafficking, as Trump and Hegseth have alleged without providing evidence, but also suggested that even if drug trafficking was taking place, it would not justify his murder. "The fishermen have the right to live," she said. "Why didn't they just detain them?"

In a Tuesday statement, the IACHR urged the US government to "ensure respect for human rights" during any and all extraterritorial military operations in the region, noting the deaths of a high number of persons both in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, where other strikes have taken place.

"While acknowledging the seriousness of organized crime and its impact on the enjoyment of human rights, the Commission recalls that States are obliged to respect and ensure the right to life of all persons under their jurisdiction," the statement reads.

"According to the Inter-American jurisprudence, this duty extends to situations when State agents exercise authority or effective control, including extraterritorial actions at sea," it continues. "When lethal force is used by security or military personnel outside national territory, States have the obligation to demonstrate that such actions were strictly lawful, necessary, and proportionate, and to investigate, ex officio, any resulting loss of life. These obligations persist irrespective of where the operations occur, or the status attributed to the individuals affected. Likewise, persons under State control must always enjoy full respect for due process and humane treatment."

The commission called on the US to "refrain from employing lethal military force in the context of public security operations, ensuring that any counter-crime or security operation fully complies with international human rights standards; conduct prompt, impartial, and independent investigations into all deaths and detentions resulting from these actions; and adopt effective measures to prevent recurrence."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6941851

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/11671

A new batch of data is offering more evidence that the US economy is in rough shape heading into the holidays.

The latest Economic Confidence Index released by Gallup on Thursday has found that Americans' confidence in the economy has fallen by seven points over the last month, and now stands at its lowest level in more than a year.

Overall, Gallup found that just 21% of Americans currently describe the economy as excellent or good, while 40% describe it as poor. The outlook for the near future also looks grim, as more than two-thirds of Americans surveyed said the economy is currently getting worse.

This deteriorating economic confidence is weighing on Americans' holiday shopping plans, as Gallup found that planned holiday spending expenditures have "plummeted" from just over $1,000 in October to $778 in November. The decline in spending expectations also occurred across all income groups, although it was particularly steep among low-income households, which slashed their estimated holiday spending by an average of $267.

Gallup noted that while it's common for shoppers to trim their spending plans the closer it gets to the holidays, the drop between October and November this year was the biggest it has ever recorded, even "surpassing the $185 drop seen during the 2008 global financial crisis."

The Gallup survey was not the only troubling economic data to drop on Thursday, as outplacement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas released its latest report showing that hiring in the US has slowed to its lowest level in the last 15 years, while layoffs now total their highest level since 2020, when the country was at the peak of the Covid-19 global pandemic.

The data on layoffs came just one day after global payroll processing firm ADP estimated that the US economy lost 32,000 jobs in November, with small businesses shouldering by far the most job losses.

President Donald Trump, who earlier this week dismissed concerns Americans might have about affordability as a "Democrat scam," has reportedly decided to hit the road in an effort to convince voters that they've never had it so good.

According to Axios, Trump next week will start touring the country to tout his administration's economic policies, and he is expected to "aggressively push back against criticism over the cost of everyday essentials—an issue that helped propel him to victory over Kamala Harris last year."

However, a new poll published by Politico on Thursday shows that Trump may have an uphill climb selling his economy even to his own voters.

Overall, the poll found that 37% of voters who backed Trump last year now say that the cost of living crisis is the worst they have experienced in their lifetimes, while only 24% of 2024 Trump voters say that the cost of living crisis at the moment is "not bad."

The poll also found that Trump's efforts to blame former President Joe Biden for the current state of the economy aren't flying, as 46% of voters say that Trump is most to blame for the current state of the economy, compared to 29% of voters who put the primary blame on Biden.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

The FBI sucks at its job but wants you to salute them anyway

A largely overlooked directive issued by the Trump administration marks a major shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, one that threatens bedrock free speech rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, is a presidential directive that for the first time appears to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39700332

Fred Hampton Assassinated (1969)

Thu Dec 04, 1969

On this day in 1969, the Chicago Police Department assassinated revolutionary socialist and Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark. "You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution."

Hampton also served deputy chairman for the national Panther party. In this capacity, he founded the Rainbow Coalition, a multi-racial class-conscious organization that included the Black Panthers, the Young Patriots, and the Young Lords, as well as an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them work for social change rather than fight amongst each other.

In 1967, Hampton was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a threat. The FBI attempted to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among activist and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers organization.

On December 4th, 1969, Hampton was assassinated in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. During the raid, another Panther, Mark Clark, was killed and several more were seriously wounded.

At a press conference the next day, police announced the arrest team had been attacked by the "violent" and "extremely vicious" Panthers, and had defended themselves accordingly.

In a second press conference on December 8th, police leadership praised the assault team for their "remarkable restraint", "bravery", and "professional discipline" in not killing all Panthers present.

Photographic evidence was presented of bullet holes allegedly made by shots fired by the Panthers, but this was soon challenged by reporters. It was later found that all but one of nearly 100 shots were fired by police.

Hampton's death was ruled a justified homicide at the time, although a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark won $1.85 million dollars in damages in 1982.

"You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution."

- Fred Hampton

• Date: 1969-12-04
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, www.zinnedproject.org, www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com.
• Tags: #Assassinations.
• Source: [www.apeoplescalendar.org](https://www.apeoplescalendar.org/calendar/events/fred-hampton-assassinated -1969)

Republicans are already spinning the report as a "nothing burger."