A SINGLE SUPREMACIST AGENDA CONNECTS VENEZUELA AND MINNEAPOLIS—AND IT IS STARTING TO OVER-REACH ~ Louis Further ~ “We live in a world in which, you can talk about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world… that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time…” That’s the ghoulish Goebbels clone, Stephen Miller — influential White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, and Homeland Security ‘Advisor’ since 2025 when interviewed hours after Trump/MAGA’s attack on Venezuela, which is illegal under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter [pdf]. He says you all you need to know about the priorities and impetus behind Trump/MAGA foreign ‘policy’: Might makes right. Here‘s fascist House representative Andy Ogles (Tennessee) last week “[the United States is…] the dominant predator, quite frankly, force in the Western hemisphere”; and Trump interviewed in the ‘New York Times’: “[I do…]not need international law… [my]… power is limited only by […my…] own morality”. Jaws dropped at the news from Venezuela; TV programmes were interrupted; a few public figures told everyone how they should be ‘outraged’; pundits reminded audiences that there is nothing ‘new’ in US war with South American countries and speculated on how likely was similar aggression on Colombia, Cuba, Mexico then even Greenland and Canada. Yet (substantive) consequences for Trump and his cult members are unlikely because bombing Venezuela and kidnapping its leader was an ‘official act’, from prosecution for which the US Supreme Court ruled in July 2024 Trump is immune. MAGA cult members voiced support… “It’s about time!”. “Good, now we can get ‘our’ oil back!”. “Here’s hoping there can be a peaceful transition of power”. Minnesota Republican Tom Emmer on Fox ‘News’ was typical: “God bless this president of peace, Donald J Trump”. Representative Randy Fine (Florida) was sure that invading Venezuela was OK because it… “put America first”. Would supporters have to lie about the lives which the takeover will save by curtailing the ‘import’ of drugs? Yes: most fentanyl goes anywhere but north to the US. Oil, then? Crude in Venezuela’s main oil-producing area (the so-called Orinoco Belt in the east of Venezuela) is amongst the ‘dirtiest’ and most damaging in the world. Anyway, it soon became clear that major petrochemical executives weren’t really keen on the idea – even though they were rumoured to have been given advanced notice of the attack. Explaining that, of course, did for one major oil company as punishment. Impulsivity? Could be: Trump is known to have a short attention span and be influenced by his latest encounter with a sycophant or some snippet on far right TV. Secretary of State Rubio is known to have had régime change in Central America on his list for decades. Such scattershot actions seem also to lie behind Trump’s cryptically-inspired indiscriminate bombing of villages in Nigeria. Although possibly more than 100 were killed during the attack, Democrats in Congress were more concerned at not having been given the chance to weigh in on the plans for Venezuela (which they might well have endorsed: “Maduro is one of the bad guys”) than they were about the dangers of such unprovoked aggression: internecine rivalry and violence have already begun; widespread and/or regional instability must follow. Nor has the US gained a viable ‘bargaining chip’ with and for NATO, Putin, China. Remember, Democrats did nothing in response to Trump’s many acts of piracy killing over 100 sailing in the Caribbean and Pacific. You could sympathise with Democrat congresspeople angry at Trump’s continual illegal bypassing of Congress… only the US legislature can sanction invasions (War Powers Resolution), impose tariffs, demolish and de-fund government institutions and so on. Rather, the Democrat line is fast becoming that the best the party can do now is hang on and set their hopes on ‘change’ in the Midterms in November this year, and/or the next presidential election two years later – assuming that they happen. It seems as though Trump/MAGA is testing limits – how far can he go to implement Project 2025 before something breaks. For instance, more agents are to be sent into Minneapolis after events there. RESISTANCE  On the fifth anniversary (6th January) of Trump’s attempted insurrection in 2021, the official Whitehouse website published a trough of lies and rubbish in an attempt to rewrite the narrative of those same events which surely half the nation saw for themselves as it happened. Similarly, within hours of the murder of Renee Good by an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent, the Department of Homeland Security took the unusual and unorthodox step of excluding local agencies in Minnesota from any ‘investigation’ into Good’s murder. Yet again widely viewed videos used in evidence already reveal – at the least – that an ICE agent stood in front of a vehicle preparing to exit a situation dangerous for its occupant (Good), and discharged his weapon (apparently in anger and retribution) at a moving vehicle – something which ICE training specifically prohibits [pdf]. Also within hours, resistance began, both spontaneous and hastily planned. From the unequivocally ‘forceful’ (with a capital ‘F’) imprecations of Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Frey and others in the city, to peaceful vigils and marches in Minneapolis to the planned thousand “ICE out for Good” events in all 50 states and at least 500 cities last weekend. Remarkable was the speed with which participants voiced – and were able to express – alarm and revulsion at the whole idea of scapegoating, kidnapping and violently trafficking (non white) guest-workers, and – not for the first time –  murdering them. Also significant was the network of neighbourhood resistance: observers; notification (“Alert: ICE nearby”, whistles) techniques; blocking and protecting tactics. There is also vehement resistance in Portland, Oregon, where two passengers in a vehicle were shot by ICE agents, on 8 January. And refusal, despite these events, to be intimidated. And courage. And solidarity: recent reporting suggests that ICE mobs are specifically recruiting ‘gun enthusiasts’ and ‘military fans’ in a $US100 (£75) million drive. There is anecdotal evidence that many of those already working for ICE are welcomed as members of far right militias like the Proud Boys. Accounts on social media like these in this Reddit thread suggest that the situation in Minnesota has rapidly deteriorated even further in the past week, with ICE gangs now behaving much as the Gestapo did in the 1930s and ‘40s. This returns us to where we began: the supremacist strategy underlying it all. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security now plans to deport almost a third of the country’s residents: ‘The peace of a nation no longer besieged by the third world’ – meaning: “we’ll be getting rid of as many non-whites as we can”. According to an official government post, ‘2026 will be the year of American Supremacy’. Congresspeople have a constitutional right to visit ICE detention centres; but last week were again prevented from properly visiting one in Minnesota. Nevertheless, neither Democrat leader listened to calls to try and curb ICE through spending cuts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Images: Radical Graffiti in Minneapolis, MN and Paris, France The post Notes from the US: Might makes right appeared first on Freedom News.

FROM RACIST ELECTORAL ENGINEERING TO HOLLOWING OUT PUBLIC HEALTH, TRUMP’S SECOND TERM IS CONSOLIDATING AUTHORITARIAN POWER ~ Louis Further ~ As anarchists we can’t get excited about constitutions such as that of the United States. But its 14th Amendment also guarantees citizenship (and hence protection against deportation) to non-white children who are born in the US – regardless of their parents’ origins. Any amendment to the constitution would be a lengthy and complex process requiring congressional majorities. But the US Supreme Court announced that it would hear Trump’s challenge to this ‘birthright citizenship’ Amendment, which seeks to annul those rights. This is unnecessary if judges wish to hear the case merely to re-affirm that they cannot amend the Constitution. Alternatively, if they uphold his challenge, they will unequivocally establish a supremacist dictatorship which is legally and officially above the law and against the constitution. Similarly, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case which would confer on Trump powers to sack state officials without cause or notice, something which the law also currently forbids. What’s more, the Court has finally sided with moves in Texas to redraw electoral maps along unequivocally racist lines. There is some token resistance to the kidnapping, abduction and trafficking of non-whites from the streets particularly in some of the United States’ larger cities. But one would hope this were much stronger in the light of the harm being done by the ICE raids – particularly since over 97% of those abducted are not criminals; just not white. Those attacked increasingly include Asian Americans. Trump’s overt racist abuse and threats towards the Somali population need little comment. Indeed, tirades like those reported here and ‘views’ reported here would probably be enough to end the career of a politician under most ‘normal’ circumstances. HEALTH Health has become a greater locus of dogma, dispute, dismay, distress, disease and death under Trump’s second term than in any recent presidency. Legislation and changes are driven by the MAGA belief that only the fittest should survive. Tenets of proven medical science are disregarded in favour of fascist dogma advancing ‘superior’ race(s). Monstrous liar and eventually struck-off anti-vaccine fraudster, Andrew Wakefield, was recently rehabilitated to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) by quack Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has lauded Wakefield’s work, while influential Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson posted, “Time to apologize to Dr. Andrew Wakefield and all the others who were maligned and vilified for simply asking the right questions.” This as fake claim after fake claim is published on the CDC site replacing helpful and verifiable medical facts. Medical professionals at all levels are retiring or otherwise exiting Kennedy’s mess rather than promote junk science and collude in spreading preventable diseases and deaths. They are being replaced by ill-equipped MAGA cult members who act out of uninformed dogma, like Dr. Ralph Abraham, surgeon general in Louisiana who will be the second in command at the CDC; Abraham ordered health officials to stop promoting vaccinations. Paradoxically, this degradation of federal health agencies could sponsor a positive turn of events. Local, putatively independent, alternative bodies are quickly springing up to take matters into their own hands for the real benefit of residents who need proper public healthcare. Regional coalitions are beginning to share communications, briefs, and insights. Data is being tabulated across traditional demographics and communities by non-federal groups like the Vaccine Integrity Project. Professional groups like the AAP and The Evidence Collective are promoting the publication and spread of reliable information while initiatives like PopHIVE are fully aware of the disastrous effects of disinformation put out in the interests of fascist dogma. Nor is there evidence of ‘partisan rivalry’ amongst these enterprises. But to replace a nationwide structure ostensibly designed to advance public health won’t be easy, of course. Neither is an attempt to impeach Kennedy. Then if Trump/MAGA is serious about discriminatory ideas like his announcement that he will oblige visitors to the USA to disclose recent social media before being allowed into the country to ensure that they are loyal to fascism, and given that he considers criticising him a crime punishable by death, there could be a concerted attempt to shut down anyone providing accurate health information. This would be endorsed and supported by a legal system hell-bent on advancing the MAGA ‘agenda’ regardless of the law – as one of the US Supreme Court justices herself recently outlined. FASCISM Indeed, according to one source it may well not be long before criticising Trump and his policies becomes literally illegal; those belonging to groups which point out the illegality of the MAGA cult in power could soon be targeted as ‘terrorists’ whose “non-traditional” views are disallowed. This is in sharp contrast, of course, to Trump’s own blatant illegality in myriad spheres, in which he has complete immunity. The Trump administration has already designated Maduro as the head of a foreign terrorist organisation, fuelling fear of a potential U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest known reserves of oil. While the Trump administration claims its escalating attacks on boats in the Caribbean are in response to drug trafficking, critics say this is just another attempt by the U.S. government – effectively supported by the Democrat opposition – to destabilise Venezuela to force a regime change and exploit resources, including oil. As Trump lied in referring to the illegal murder of sailors in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean; but before his marine terrorists illegally seized a Venezuelan oil tanker (imagine if the Venezuelan navy had boarded a US vessel!), Florida Congressmember María Salazar, Republican assistant whip, remarked: “Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day, because it will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity.” And to complete your holiday cheer, you may need to read this twice: in 2023 the US State Department adopted the Calibri font for its memos and publications because of its greater readability than the previous standard, Times New Roman, particularly on screens and when employees were engaged in text-to-speech and optical character recognition. Last week Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, ordered a return to Times New Roman because helping the visually impaired is seen by MAGA cultists as a weakness and too ‘woke’. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Molly Riley, official White House photo on Flickr The post Notes from the US: Supremacist dictatorship appeared first on Freedom News.

AS THE RUBBLE THREW UP DUST, TRUMP REFUSED FOOD AID TO AS MANY AS 40 MILLION AMERICANS ~ Louis Further ~ With the usual caveat that anarchists attach scant value to voting and elections, it’s of concern that last month the US Supreme Court significantly undermined Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; this contains measures to ensure that electoral districts in any one state are arranged in rough proportion to its racial demographics. The Court has ruled that Louisiana cannot make such adjustments. Black votes now count for less. Elsewhere Republican-voting states are redrawing their electoral maps to favour white voters so actively and speedily that some legal commentators and ‘SCOTUS-watchers’ fear that this ruling could effectively result in permanent electoral majorities for the Republican (which now means far right/fascist) Party. The president is also widening his moves to overwrite the past—in this case by pardoning both more of those who tried to overturn the 2020 election in his favour and many of those found guilty of associated crimes. As the Court heard concluding oral arguments in this landmark voting rights case, the country’s president was publicly expressing major concerns about the way in which Time magazine had represented his haircut. He was also paying for the partial demolition of the White House with funds from supporters of genocide and abduction of non-whites by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), whose actions become ever more ferocious and sadistic. As the rubble threw up dust, Trump proved what a good Christian he is by refusing—illegally—to use the (non-charitable) resources mandated to feed perhaps as many as 40 million residents going hungry because of his government shutdown. This was quickly blamed on immigrants and trans people. Trump did, though, find the money to refurbish a bathroom in what he now seems to regard as his permanent home. Other signs of the extent to which Trump/MAGA cult is out of control (despite the fact that there is still little public contextual recognition of what is happening) are the sacking of those who refer to his attempted Putsch on January 6 2021 in a way of which he disapproves. Similarly, those who publicly criticise US support for Israel’s genocide often lose their jobs. Fascist senators like Ted Cruz (Texas) have legislation further to criminalise dissent. The media, of course, is feebly—if at all—trying to fend off blows from Trump, as he widens his reach to silence critics abroad. Correspondingly few are any murmurs that—although Trump is immune from legal consequences as president—those who ‘carry out his orders’ are not. MAGA cult members know that they need to stay in office indefinitely to retain that immunity. Judges’ demands for ‘accountability’ from ICE as it abducts and traffics non-whites across the country are being ignored. The ‘No Kings’ demonstrations on 18 October were estimated to have attracted more protesters than their equivalent in June by nearly 50%… seven million—or over 2% of the total population of the United States. Some sources are beginning to talk about the ‘2.5% rule‘. It would also be nice if such varied demonstrations do more than induce feelings of solidarity amongst those attending. But criticism of MAGA/Trump remains too ‘soft’ and disparate to make much impact; and lacks awareness of either the historical or geopolitical import of this resurgence of fascism. Trump’s response was characteristically vulgar. RACISM Trump and the MAGA merchants (some of whom now openly display Nazi flags) have surprised few recently by delivering themselves of a swill of offensive opinions. That slavery is and was a good thing; that racism is OK too. Vance, US vice president, stood up for such racism as this in his party and said that nobody wants to live next door to someone whose first language isn’t English; and that foreign nationals who criticised Charlie Kirk should be deported. Other forms of official government sadism include diminishing the support offered by what remains of the Department of Education responsible for young people with special needs by sacking those workers. Prosecutions for those abusing animals are also falling. Hatred is ever-present among Trump’s loyalists and ‘partners’: holocaust denier and antisemite Nick Fuentes, for instance, was given supportive exposure by prominent far right commentator Tucker Carlson—an event quickly endorsed by The Heritage Foundation, which is responsible for Project 2025, the blueprint of this administration. HEALTH ‘Policy’ in those government agencies formerly responsible for public health is increasingly based on the assumption that only the fittest deserve to survive This time last month 1,300 employees at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) were sacked—by email, without warning, without reason. This is a trend demoralising and frightening career professionals for months. Everyone has gone from the team that uses data of outbreaks in reports and guidance for the public. So have ‘epidemic intelligence service officers’ who detected and tracked emerging threats so as to mitigate their effects. And so on and so on, despite the by now familiar uncertainties and chaos around Scotch mist re-instatements. An estimated third of all employees at the CDC have now lost their jobs—on top of an expected additional 50% cut in budgets next year. Some commentators see this as a cruel experiment in just how far the deliberate and frenzied withdrawal of vital public health services from a society can go before collapse ensues. This is almost certainly only the first ‘act’ though… several ‘directives’ in Project 2025, which at first sight appear to be advocating [pdf] greater ‘efficiency’ are actually destructive and sinister; they envisage the replacement of dismissed staff (who are almost all highly experienced experts) with toadies, whose key attribute is not medical but loyalty to the fascist dogma which holds MAGA together. The way that Trump and his cabinet, including RF Kennedy Junior (who appeared the ‘flee the scene’ of a recent medial emergency), are stuffing their team, and diluting science with right-leaning anti-health dogma is alarming in the extreme.   The post Notes from the US: The fascist bathroom appeared first on Freedom News.

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S POLITICAL PROGRAMME IS STILL ONE OF VENGEANCE ~ Louis Further ~ The shooting of supremacist bigot and hate-monger, Charlie Kirk, last month provoked adulation on the broad right out of all proportion to (the ‘value’ of) his ‘work’. Many people will not have heard of Kirk or Turning Point USA before the assassination. But he was praised and sanctified almost as if his vile antisemitic, misogynistic and Islamophobic beliefs constituted some sort of coherent political theory designed to make the world he fouled a better place. His supporters on the right hailed him as a hero—for comments like these: “America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that”; “The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different”; and “Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and non-profits…some of the largest financiers of left-wing anti-white causes have been Jewish Americans…Jews control Hollywood, Jews control American colleges, Jews secretly fund Marxist policies, Jews use their money to fund open borders to make America be less white, the white man is in danger, white people are going to go extinct, black people are scary criminals and nobody says anything but I have the guts to say it, no black woman could possibly have gotten a law degree she would have had to have stolen that job from a white man”. In support of such a platform schools in Oklahoma are now all to have a chapter of Kirk’s Turning Point USA fascist pressure group. Many of those who asked for a brake on the worship of such a figure—or who actually resisted the fawning—lost their jobs as a result of what appears like a co-ordinated campaign. Some of those in Kirk’s and his followers’ crosshairs experienced increased hate attacks following public calls for a more thoughtful appraisal of what he stood for. FASCISM Adulation for the even greater ‘great leader’, Trump himself, is growing. For instance huge banners carrying his face have appeared on some federal buildings in Washington DC. In similar ‘Big Brother’ fashion, Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, now has a lie-filled public ‘service’ propaganda video ‘announcement’ obliging passengers in some airports to listen to disinformation about the government shutdown. Trump/MAGA retribution continues to be aided by the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission, the rough equivalent of Oftel in the UK)… comedian Jimmy Kimmel was briefly suspended last month for some pretty anodyne remarks critical of Trump. Yet MAGA apologist and long time host of the notorious ‘Fox and Friends’ fascist propaganda slot, Brian Kilmeade, advanced with total impunity his way of ‘dealing’ with homeless people: instead of gaol, “[they should be given] …involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ‘em”. Also last month White House’s deputy chief of staff, the scary Joseph Goebbels clone Stephen Miller, built on Trump’s assertion that it ought to be illegal to criticise him by claiming that merely to describe actions of the president as “authoritarian” (which this claim evidently makes them) should be a crime. His post on X received over one hundred thousand likes. It’s to be noted that the MAGA/Trump crew is increasingly accusing opposition of doing exactly what they are: ‘weaponising the law’, ‘acting like fascists’, ‘being out of control’ and so on. Nevertheless, this whole movement is less than popular with the voting public—including the ‘swing’ voters and independents, who seem to be increasing in numbers—although a large minority of those asked in one poll think that lawlessness by the cult is justified. This may be irrelevant if this sale to a MAGA cult member of one of the systems which carries out election voting is allowed to go ahead; and/or if the MAGA gang extends Speaker Johnson’s refusal now to swear in an elected Democrat to seats which the party loses in next year’s midterm elections. Nor is it hard to see Trump’s invasion of cities whose residents did not vote for him in 2024 as an experiment in major military crackdown/takeover if they do so again in next year’s midterms. REVENGE The political programme (in as much as there is one) of the administration is still one of vengeance. Funding for clean energy projects is being cut—again in states which did not vote from Trump. This is illegal: Congress approved the allocation; only Congress can withdraw it. The FBI and its way-out-of-his-depths Director, MAGA Qanon conspiracist Kash Patel, has also been busy taking revenge on Trump’s enemies and trying to silence and/or otherwise do down groups antithetical to fascism, like those which track US extremism. The FBI also fired employees who dared to show support for George Floyd and gay pride—several years ago. Its former director, James Comey, has also been indicted—although legal experts think it likely that the charges will be thrown out on technicalities, as well as lack of substance. The same is widely thought to be true in the case of Letitia James, the Attorney General for the state of New York who successfully prosecuted Trump for financial corruption—as her job required. Also truly corrupt is the far right ogre in charge of kidnapping and trafficking non-whites (the majority of whom have no hint of a criminal record) Tom Homan, was caught taking bribes last year; the Department of ‘Justice’ was told to drop the investigation into the case. That was not the only evidence contradicting Trump/MAGA’s probity to be buried: the DOJ took down from its site a study indicating that right-wingers commit far more violent crimes than other groups. Information offered by the National Parks on (the history of) slavery is also being removed. Meanwhile to supposedly ‘neutral’ Supreme Court is prioritising cases on which it can rule in MAGA/Trump’s favour. Trump’s overt racism – not to mention his illusions and mental instability –  appear to be growing in number and severity. He recently posted a propaganda video touting the existence of ‘medbeds‘, beloved of the QAnon conspiracists. Then Trump sacked a long-serving museum official who advised against his stealing a sword to give as a present to the UK monarch on his recent visit to the UK. Violence is also increasing, as ICE asserts its powers more forcefully – shooting photographers, assaulting TV journalists and members of the public. And, as was inevitable when Trump/MAGA encourages fascist militias to join in, fake ICE raids are on the rise. ENVIRONMENT But to end on the positive, the group of young people in Montana which have already won once in court on environmental issues was back in court last month to file suit against Trump’s earth-wrecking executive orders promoting fossil fuels. The post Notes from the US: Fawning on fascists appeared first on Freedom News.