United States | News & Politics

The State Department announced on Friday that it was planning to send Israel more than $6.5 billion of weapons aid that included Apache attack helicopters and combat land vehicles, bypassing a congressional review process.

The packages of four weapons systems had been under review for months by the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The State Department is supposed to wait for approval from the top two members on each of those committees before announcing the aid. But in this case, the department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio circumvented that norm.

It was the third time that the Trump administration has bypassed this part of the congressional process, called informal review, to send weapons to Israel.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/35165751

Cable news people call them “prison camps” or “Trump prison camps,” but look in any dictionary: prisons are where people convicted of crimes are held. As Merriam-Webster notes, a prison is:

“[A]n institution for confinement of persons convicted of serious crimes.”

But what do you call a place where people who’ve committed no criminal offense (immigration violations are civil, not criminal, infractions)? The fine dictionary people at Merriam-Webster note the proper term is “concentration camp”:

“[A] place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard.”

For example, over the weekend, Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner read the riot attack at the possibility that ICE will bring Minneapolis to Philadelphia. He was not ... nuanced. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Last week, during a news conference about proposed restrictions on immigration enforcement in Philadelphia, the district attorney said he would “hunt down” and prosecute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who commit crimes in the city. “There will be accountability now. There will be accountability in the future. There will be accountability after [Trump] is out of office,” Krasner said. “If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities.”

This got up the nose of Governor Josh Shapiro, who has aspirations to improve his living arrangements with an eye on a run-down piece of property in Washington. Shapiro and Krasner don’t dance, and Shapiro seems to be exercised further by Krasner’s recent broadsides.

Shapiro, who is Jewish and is a rumored presidential contender, was interviewed a dozen times last week on national media while promoting his new memoir and condemned ICE’s tactics during all of them. During an interview Thursday on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, Shapiro was asked about Krasner’s comparison of ICE agents to Nazis and called the comments “unacceptable. ... It is abhorrent and it is wrong, period, hard stop, end of sentence,” Shapiro said.

Bullshit. Period. Hard stop. End of sentence. Krasner wasn’t calling anyone a Nazi. He was saying that any federal agents who commit street crimes in his jurisdiction can expect to hear footsteps for the rest of their lives. Which I think should be the case of people up and down this administration. I think the overriding mission of a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress should not be vengeance but justice for offenses against the law and the republic.

In wake of Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to ‘take over’ voting, senator Ruben Gallego urges citizens to take a stand and give the ‘ultimate response’

Archive: [ https://archive.is/UbpBR ]

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24615476

They had come to say a prayer for the father, the son and the holy ghost.

The father was Donald Trump, who, despite sending federal militias to roam Minneapolis, threatening to invade Greenland and telling lies by the dozen, remains the lord and saviour of the religious right.

The son was his protege, Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who, despite documented human rights violations and mass detentions that swept up 3,000 children, was praised by a congressman for leadership that displays “character” and “conscience”.

And the holy ghost was the Republican party’s moral spine, now reduced to a phantom thread. “The power of Trump compels you!” as The Exorcist nearly said.

They had gathered on Thursday in the cavernous ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel for the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event where past speakers have included Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Bono, Tony Blair and Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative.

Trump, of course, can be relied upon to make it feel less a church sermon than a knockabout campaign rally. “Good God!” and “Jesus Christ!” are more likely to be exclamations from horrified onlookers than earnest pronouncements from the truly faithful.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/42717125

A rising number of American homeowners are ready relocate this year due to extreme weather events and other climate-related concerns.

Some 49 percent of those who own a house are considering moving in 2026 due to climate events, according to a survey of 1,000 American adults by insurance provider Kin Insurance. Also a concern among homeowners is the rising cost of homeownership, the study noted.

“Kin uncovered that climate is driving decisions about where people live and the rising costs of homeownership are changing when and how people buy homes,” the study noted. The study also found that nearly all homeowners are concerned about severe weather damaging their homes.

Kin’s survey found that within the 49 percent of homeowners who want to move, 19 percent “definitely” are considering it, while 30 percent are “somewhat” considering it. Some 45 percent said they were not considering a move.

As for how far away they want to move, Kin broke up respondents’ intentions into three groups:

• Moving within their current city or community: 41 percent
• Moving to a different city or community in their state: 35 percent
• Moving to another state: 25 percent.

For those considering a move to another state, more than half of respondents wanted to avoid disaster-prone states like Florida and California and preferred to move to what they perceived as low-risk states, including Vermont, New Hampshire, Delaware, and Connecticut.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/54319685

"Do the right thing: Get off of corporate welfare and pay all of your workers a living wage with good benefits," the democratic socialist senator implored Walmart's multibillionaire owners.

The new head of the Los Angeles Fire Department admitted last month the after-action report was edited to ‘soften language and reduce explicit criticism’

A new database of sworn affidavits filed by the ACLU shows masked agents detaining citizens based on race without warrants, ignoring IDs, and pointing weapons at them.

The policy change makes it easier for the president to discipline or remove up to 50,000 employees, another push in the administration’s campaign to reshape the federal work force.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/33806396

A House hearing exposed sharp divisions over whether loosening environmental laws and expanding logging will protect communities from catastrophic fires. Scientists urged a shift toward investing in fire-resilient homes and landscapes.

Lawmakers from both parties agreed at a congressional hearing Tuesday that the federal government must act to address the growing threat of catastrophic wildfires, but they were sharply divided over how, and whether pending legislation known as the Fix Our Forests Act offers the right path forward.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/33772216

Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study.

The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that from 2006 to 2020, long-term exposure to tiny particulates from wildfire smoke contributed to an average of 24,100 deaths a year in the lower 48 states.

"Schumer needs to get the hell out," said Rep. Delia Ramirez. "He continues to demonstrate to us that he can't meet the moment."

ICE have violated judges' orders, carried out illegal arrests, and botched court filings - shock and awe has been their plan all along