This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

• Trump’s “big beautiful” domestic agenda bill heard in committees as Dems, Repubs and protesters weigh in
• Netanyahu plans full occupation of Gaza and forcible relocation of Palestinians, as some Israelis protest
• Californians rally at hospitals across state to protest Medicaid cuts, Mayor-Elect Barbara Lee joins rally at Oakland’s Highland Hospital
• Episcopal Church is halting a refugee partnership with the federal government, citing commitment to racial justice and reconciliation
• Governor Newsom urges cities to clear homeless encampments, with model ordinance and promise of funding
• Budget airline begins deportation flights from Phoenix AZ

The post Trump’s “big beautiful” domestic agenda bill sparks debate, protest in House committees; Netanyahu planning full occupation of Gaza and relocation of Palestinians – May 13, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Daniel Boguslaw.

The World Mission Society of Church of God, also known as Church of God the Mother, whose doctrine departs significantly from that of mainstream Christian theology, has been expanding rapidly in Vietnam.

Its adherents believe that its deceased leader Ahn Sahng-hong was the second coming of Jesus Christ and deifies evangelist Jang Gil-ja by calling her God the Mother. Traditional Christian churches regard it as a cult.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Home Affairs issued an official dispatch to the People’s Committees in all cities and provinces nationwide, telling them to take resolute measures to eliminate the organization, Vietnamese state media said on Sept. 17. 

People's Committees are administrative agencies that operate under the management of provincial People's Councils and carry out government policies and directives at the local level.

The committees now must dissolve and revoke the permits of groups practicing the religion and prevent them from creating new groups, Vietnamese media said. They are not allowed to approve church requests to register nonprofit organizations, companies, representative offices, shops, clubs or extracurricular programs. 

RFA called the church’s headquarters in Seoul for comment but got no response.

The World Mission Society Church of God originated in South Korea’s Kyunggi province and was founded by Ahn Sahng-hong in 1964. It has more than 3.3 million registered members in 175 countries, according to its website.

Vietnam’s constitution technically enshrines freedom of religion, but it also allows authorities to override rights, including religious freedom, for purposes of national security, social order, social morality and community well-being.

The church has made a comeback with 16 service locations, mostly in Thanh Hoa city, and around 500 followers, Radio Free Asia reported in May, citing information from the Thanh Hoa provincial police website. 

In late May, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security said that church adherents had resumed their recruitment activities, targeting college students in the capital city of Hanoi. Also that month, authorities said the church had returned to several other localities, including the city of Hue and Vinh Phuc province.

The Ministry of Public Security believes the church penetrated Vietnam with the entry of Korean people and later via blood donation events held by the WeLoveU Foundation, an international NGO started in South Korea in the 1990s.  

RFA reported in March that police in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Nam ordered church members to stop following the group.

The group’s members typically range in age from 18 to 50 years old, and most are students and housewives, authorities said. They often promote their religion by approaching people at coffee shops, parks and business workshops, especially events about multilevel marketing models.

In April 2018, the Vietnamese government’s Committee for Religious Affairs requested responsible agencies from central to local levels to pay attention to the church’s activities in the country.

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese and Taejun Kang for RFA.

Irish attorney and law professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the U.N. special rapporteur (SR) on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, focused on three key topics: "the rights of victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the rights of detainees at the Guantánamo detention facility, and the rights of former detainees."

"The Biden administration needs to get out of its own way on Guantánamo closure."

Allowing U.N. access to the prison "is an important signal from the United States government to the international community that the Guantánamo detention facility is on a path to de-exceptionalism," her report states. "It opens the possibility to address the profound human rights violations that have occurred there and the irreparable harms to the lives and health of the 780 Muslim men who have been detained there, including 30 men who remain."

"For many of the detainees she spoke with, the dividing line between the past and the present is exceptionally thin—for some nonexistent—and their past experiences of torture live with them in the present, without any obvious end in sight including because they have received no torture rehabilitation to date," the publication continues, adding that despite improvements since 2002, current conditions amount to "ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, and may also meet the legal threshold for torture."

According to the report, which was released on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture:

In every meeting she held with a detainee or former detainee, the SR was told with great regret that she had arrived "too late." She agrees. At the time of her visit only 34 detainees remained at the site. It is evident that the horror and harms of extraordinary rendition, arbitrary detention, and systematic torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment inflicted over time occurred in part because of an exceptional and international law deficient legal and policy regime; the permeation of arbitrariness across subsequent detention practices; and the lack of international law compliant domestic oversight and accountability...

The SR reaffirms the right to remedy and reparations for victims of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, underscoring that such rights encompass preventive and investigative elements, as well as the right to access justice, remedy, and reparation. The U.S. government is under a continued obligation to ensure accountability, make full reparation for the injuries caused, and offer appropriate guarantees of nonrepetition for violations committed post-9/11. The world has and will not forget. Without accountability, there is no moving forward on Guantánamo.

The document also praises the U.S. government, saying that "it is a sign of a commitment to international law that the visit occurred, was highly cooperative, constructive, and engaged at all levels of government, and is reported upon."

In its formal response, the U.S. government said it provided Ní Aoláin with "unprecedented access" and her team with "detailed information both prior to her visit and in response to her questions." The statement notes the "significant progress" the Biden administration has made in reducing the Guantánamo population, highlights ongoing military commissions and transfer efforts, and reaffirms the president's intention to close the facility.

The statement also stresses that while the administration is reviewing the U.N. expert's recommendations, the government "disagrees in significant respects with many factual and legal assertions" in her report, and claims that the U.S. is committed to "safe and humane treatment" for Gitmo prisoners, who "receive specialized medical and psychiatric care."

Pointing to Ní Aoláin's report, Center for Victims of Torture policy analyst Yumna Rizvi said Monday that "the government is obligated to provide rehabilitation, and the detainees are entitled to it, but the government is continuing to choose not to meet its obligation."

"It has an opportunity to do so, and to lead as an example, especially as the largest contributor to the U.N. Voluntary Fund for the Victims of Torture," Rizvi added. "However, the U.S. continues to turn its back on what is right. The government's response to the report is a denial of the existing reality as it relates to medical care of detainees. The government must address these issues immediately before the worst possible outcome occurs, the responsibility of which will fall squarely on its shoulders."

Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard—a former U.N. special rapporteur—said the "scathing" U.N. report highlights "the urgent need for President Biden to finally close the detention facility at the Guantánamo Bay military base, and to end the unlawful practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial."

"It is well past time to demand the closure of the prison, accountability from U.S. officials, and reparations for the torture and other ill-treatment that the detainees have suffered at the hands of the U.S. government," she argued. "There remains a shocking lack of access to justice for those currently or previously detained—and many have complex and untreated healthcare needs as a result of their ill-treatment."

"The military commissions created for Guantánamo Bay detainees, including those alleged to have planned or assisted the September 11 attacks, have been a complete failure through which the United States government has intentionally skirted U.S. and international law and abused the rights of those still imprisoned at the facility—jeopardizing the rights of survivors and families of victims of the attacks to receive justice," she added.

Wells Dixon, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and council to several Gitmo detainees, similarly declared that "the Biden administration needs to get out of its own way on Guantánamo closure."

"It makes no legal or policy sense for the government to continue to fight in court, to detain men it no longer wants to detain, in a prison it has said should be closed, in a war that has ended," said Dixon. "It also makes no sense to continue contested military trials that have failed to achieve justice or accountability for anyone."

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows welcomed that "in issuing her report on Guantánamo, the special rapporteur stated unequivocally that, 'Torture was a betrayal of the rights of the victims of the 9/11 attacks.'"

"For families and survivors to ever receive a measure of judicial resolution, the fact that the 9/11 accused were tortured must be legally acknowledged," the organization asserted. "The U.S. government must now, more than two decades after the attacks, end the 9/11 military commission at Guantánamo, accept guilty pleas from the 9/11 defendants, and provide victims and survivors with the information and accountability they have so long sought."

Former Guantánamo prisoner Majid Khan, who was freed in February, said Monday that "I survived and have forgiven my torturers, and I am moving on with my life in Belize. But I still wait for an apology, medical care, and other compensation."

"I appreciate all the support that Belize has provided me, but responsibility lies with the U.S.," he said. "It would mean a lot to me. I also ask other countries to follow the example of Belize and offer safe refuge to other Guantánamo detainees approved for transfer, including men such as Guled Duran who was never charged with any wrongdoing. It is time to close Guantánamo."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

If elected representatives have their work cut out for them to create the slightest social or political change through Parliament, spare a thought for activists.

For the committed activist, in it for the long term, their work brings them inevitably to engage with the parliament system.

Protesting at Parliament, demonstrating, submitting to select committees, sending in petitions, or just being there to watch, activists are an important, if sometimes misunderstood, part of the system.

And we’re not talking about the agitators who talk about “hanging MPs”.

The House offers a look at four activists who have long participated in the Parliament space — from single or multiple issue campaigners to the lifelong activist who became an MP and got out the other side alive:

Valerie Morse is a well established activist who has organised many campaigns in anti-war and climate justice spaces among others. Over the past 20 years, she’s been part of hundreds of protests to Parliament, and has made “dozens and dozens of submissions on everything from the environment to defence to the SIS to local body matters, everything under the sun”.

In order to get MPs to listen, Morse has sometimes used theatre in her activism. Some of the highlights include a naked protest on the forecourt in support of the genetic engineering moratorium, and entering a select committee hearing on  Security Intelligence Service legislation with a group who blew loud whistles to highlight the importance of whistle-blowing — to the dismay of the MPs.

There have been setbacks. In 2008, during an event to commemorate Vietnam War veterans, Morse attempted to enter Parliament with an A3-sized sign about then-prime minister Helen Clark and former foreign affairs minister Phil Goff’s anti-war activism during the Vietnam War being at odds with their subsequent support for the war in Afghanistan:

“Parliamentary security stopped me from coming to the grounds, and trespassed me from Parliament for two years,” Morse explained.

“Subsequently I challenged that by coming on to Parliament grounds at a protest around slashed funding for adult and community education in the John Key era. I came on to Parliament grounds with thousands of other people and was arrested by parliamentary security. I had to go all the way through the court system, and eventually, the speaker of the house at the time, Lockwood Smith, actually withdrew the trespass.”

There have been some wins too, such as when large protests against the Iraq war 20 years ago helped convince New Zealand’s government to not join it, as well as the work of Morse and others at the committee level to leverage some transparency from the intelligence services amidst heightened public interest in mass surveillance.

“Those processes are often very difficult to see very meaningful change in during the short term. Over the longer term, there’s been changes in the way those agencies operate, so there has been some greater openness.

“But particularly around submissions, unless you’re speaking to some very, very specific item that they (MPs) think is perhaps a mistake or a drafting error, they’re often hardened down party lines, so it can be really hard to make changes in that process.”

The Messenger

To convey a message of activism means to demonstrate it, according to Mike Smith, a leading figure in numerous environmental campaigns. Smith’s activism has encompassed “all manner of things” and he has proven effective at getting his message noticed. Almost three decades ago he took a chainsaw to the great pine on One Tree Hill, or Maungakiekie, to raise attention to Māori rights and shortcomings in the Treaty Settlement process.

In recent times, Smith (Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Kuri) has been absorbed in legal action against major fossil fuel users and suppliers over their polluting activities. But as we sat by the statue of Richard Seddon on Parliament’s forecourt, Smith took stock of his various forays to Parliament, from protests to petitions. He recalled the Foreshore and Seabed hikoi, mobilisations over asset sales as well as protests related to the Treaty — occasions on which he has delivered a message to Parliament.

“I think it was here that we presented the petition to stop deep sea oil drilling after a ten-year campaign. The prime minister came out and greeted us. We handed her a petition to halt deep sea oil drilling. She went back to her office, and within about two weeks the announcement came through that the government had indeed decided to put a moratorium on issuing new exploration permits,” he recalled.

“I think politics and indeed the law should reflect the morality or mood of the society at any particular time. However there will be powerful voices and vested interests that pull against popular opinion. It’s important that there are opportunities for the public to express themselves.

“The word ’demonstration’ sort of sums it up. We’ve got to demonstrate what that feeling is amongst the public.”

The activist from the far north said Parliament should be receptive to the expression of widespread public sentiment, and that it is up to the public to hold politicians’ feet to the fire if they are not responding constructively, or conversely if they are being accountable, to reward them at the polls.

“Anybody can arrange a meeting with ministers and they may or may not be listened to or heard, but there’s something far more powerful about an expression of a substantive section of society. I’ve been on marches where 50, 60,000 people have mobilised in Auckland or Wellington particularly on climate issues or (issues) about mining on conservation land. I know that the politicians, when they see that amount of people, they really do take notice of that.”

The Outsider Insider

Catherine Delahunty isn’t the only activist to have been a member of Parliament, but perhaps what marks her out is the seamlessness with which she has resumed her activism and maintained a critical voice to power forged during her three-term stint, which ended in 2017. If there was any motivation to enter Parliament, she said it was to advance various kaupapa of her many years of activism.

“There were some issues I’d been involved in over many years that I wanted to see if I could advance. For example, the sawmill workers who were poisoned in the Bay of Plenty to whom I’m still deeply connected to and (on their behalf) lobbying ACC for change. I thought well, if I can get into Parliament, maybe I can make some change. And I did actually manage to get the National government to set up a national register of toxic sites and things like that,” the former Green Party MP explained.

In a sense, Delahunty never ceased being an activist when she came to Parliament. She used her wide range of connections with interlocutors from grassroots communities to media to civil society and political leaders in order to advance causes such as sustainable forestry, opposition to mining on conservation land, highlighting human rights abuses and the West Papuan struggle for independence.

“I started by protest. Been on many, many protests here in my life. In fact when I was an MP I probably went to more protests, because you’d see them out the window so you’d just go out to join them,” she explained.

“What you find out of course when you get here is: yes, you can make a difference, and no, you can’t. So if there was any conclusion I came to as an activist after leaving Parliament it’s that we need constitutional transformation of this country based on Te Tiriti (o Waitangi) and He Whakaputanga. But having said that, I still engage with select committees and I still engage with the system to get small things done. But I’m not under any illusion that we’re changing the world.”

“I always felt the system was rotten, but actually when you’ve been inside it you do have more knowledge and more contact. So it’s easier for me to walk in the door here now and have a chat with somebody that I wouldn’t have known before. Whether I can have an impact is another matter, but the first thing is to get through the door.”

When asked about the difference between activists and lobbyists, Delahunty said “we don’t have a PR firm who work for us to massage our messages, we are activists who will take our truth to power. And I don’t think lobbying is necessarily about taking truth to power. It’s about vested interests that pay for their interests to be privileged inside the power system. That’s very different from activists challenging the power system to actually do something in the name of justice.”

The ‘Gallery Stalker’

Gary Chiles was only 13 years old when the Misuse of Drugs Act was passed in 1975, and it remains a bugbear for him that it’s still law 50 years later and that people are being criminalised for cannabis use or association with it. Drug law reform is Chile’s singular focus when it comes to his long running activism at Parliament.

Another regular protester outside Parliament during the Key years, Chiles decided to start going to the House to soak up the action inside the chamber. He made it his mission to attend each Question Time — around 90 days in a typical sitting year.

“It was all a bit of an eye opener. But I decided that I needed to know how things worked inside Parliament if I wanted to make change happen,” he explained.

“You’re not allowed to wave signs or wear sloganed t-shirts and things in parliament. But I found out the dress code allowed me to get in there if I have a suit on, so I bought a cannabis suit.”

Chiles stands out clearly in his dark suit emblazoned with bright green cannabis leaves, worn each time he attends Question Time. There he sits up in the public gallery, on one side or another, moving around to stay visible to MPs across the divide. A silent, persistent reminder of the need for drug reform.

“I think of myself as being the gallery stalker. They all know I’m there whether they’re engaging with me or not, and they all know what I’m about because of what I’m wearing. And it’s about reminding them (about the need for drug reform). What are you going to do about it? Do we have to wait another 50 years, what’s going on?”

Attending Parliament has given Chiles a greater appreciation for the work of the various parts of the system. He said that it has also humanised MPs for him, and that what goes on in parliament is often quite different to what is portrayed in the news media. Getting angry at the news isn’t political engagement, he pointed out, adding that the access the public has to this country’s Parliament is something unique and to be treasured.

“My whole attitude to Parliament changed the day that there was a person who set themselves on fire on the forecourt, and the first people on the scene to try and deal with that were Parliament security. That made me reappraise my attitude to them, because they walk the fine line every day between allowing public access and maintaining security, and I think they do a really good job of it.”

Short-term thinking
The four activists all point to short-term thinking — the focus on retaining power in a quick electoral cycle — as something holding Parliament back from enabling systemic change. On the other hand, their own work to transform these views and inject a public voice into the deliberations of the lawmakers is very much long-term.

RNZ’s The House — parliamentary legislation, issues and insights — is made with funding from Parliament. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The harmony is so deafening that lawmakers spent nearly 10 hours across two committees in the House on Tuesday agreeing something must be done about Beijing – and done together, preferably.

“We must practice bipartisanship,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois during his opening remarks as the ranking Democrat on a new Republican-led panel focused specifically on China. 

“For the last three decades, both Democrats and Republicans underestimated the CCP,” Krishnamoorthi said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party, which he said wanted American leaders and lawmakers to be “fractious, partisan and prejudiced.”

It’s a drastic change for a Capitol Hill more used to bickering, “roadblock” and point-scoring between Democrats and Republicans. 

Fortunately, then, two committees were in on the act.

Parallel committees

Earlier Tuesday, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas who has headed the Foreign Affairs Committee since his party took back House control in January, opened the day by leading his panel’s own lengthy discussions on the U.S. rivalry with Beijing.

Sitting from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with only about a half-hour break for lunch, McCaul’s panel quizzed Biden administration officials including Daniel Krittenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, and Alan Estevez, the under secretary of commerce responsible for much of U.S. chip policy, before debating a new bill that may ban TikTok.

“As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, it is my priority to make sure Congress and this administration are working together in a bipartisan fashion to confront this generational threat,” McCaul said of the CCP during his own opening remarks. “I stand ready to work with the administration and those on the other side of the aisle.”

The Democrats on the panel as well as the Biden appointees appearing before it were in lockstep with McCaul’s Republicans that Beijing represented an unheralded threat to U.S. security.

“I would also say TikTok represents a threat,” Estevez said, noting the app was currently being investigated by the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The committee later unanimously passed a number of China-related bills, including on organ trafficking of Uyghurs at the hands of Chinese authorities, to the full House of Representatives to be voted on.

Main event of the evening

As primetime arrived, the 61-year-old McCaul had to cede the limelight to the House’s newest special panel for its own three-hour session: the new Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

Led by Gallagher, a 38-year old former Marine from Wisconsin, the special China panel seemed keen to take a leaf out of the book of the last “select” House panel – the Democrats’ January 6 inquiry – by getting proceedings underway at a TV-friendly time of 7 p.m.

Bearing the hearing title “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America” – as opposed to McCaul’s “Combatting the Generational Challenge of CCP Aggression” – the panel in some ways paralleled the day’s earlier hearings by quizzing administration officials.

But where McCaul focussed efforts on Biden officials, Gallagher, who was first elected in 2016, preferred a more friendly spate of faces.

He brought in two former Trump administration officials: H.R. McMaster, Trump’s onetime national security adviser, and Matt Pottinger, his National Security Council director for Asia.

In a made-for-television twist, the hearing was interrupted by two young protesters who bore signs that said “China is not our enemy” and “Stop Asian Hate,” with both being escorted out unwillingly by congressional security. The pair of protesters, McMaster promptly told the panel, were themselves evidence of Chinese subversion.

“I think these eruptions are indicative of really the effect the United Front work department has had,” McMaster said. “They have reinforced, to some degree, what you might call a bit of a curriculum of self-loathing that has taken hold in academia for many years.”

By the time all was done, the two House committees together had sat and discussed China nearly unbroken from 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., with absences only from about 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. and from 5 to 7 p.m.

Old habits

The only tension in the day was when McCaul introduced a bill that would allow the Biden administration to ban TikTok. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York who chaired the committee until last year, moved to amend McCaul’s bill to make it less broad.

Exasperated, McCaul, who called TikTok a “spy balloon in your phone,” said he was surprised Meeks did not agree to the bill. Another Democrat intervened to ask McCaul to define the word “algorithm,” leading the Republican to appear annoyed.

“Why are we even talking about this?” he said in a rare outburst.

The Democrats reiterated they had no issue with the proposed bill’s broader designs on TikTok, and only wanted alterations. Reaching 5 p.m., the committee hearing was adjourned until Wednesday. 

But the general bipartisanship did not go unnoticed in Beijing. 

Speaking at the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s regular press conference on Wednesday, spokesperson Mao Ning accused U.S. lawmakers of playing politics and said they should “stop framing China as a threat.”

She added that Americans should “abandon their ideological bias and zero-sum Cold War mentality, develop an objective and rational perception of China and U.S.-China relations,” and “stop trying to score political points at the expense of US-China relations.”

In such a rare area of unity in Washington, that seems unlikely.

“This is not a polite tennis match,” Gallagher said during his new committee’s primetime hearing on Tuesday. “This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.

Since the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, Fortune 500 companies and industry trade groups have given over $36 million to Republican members of Congress—the so-called "Sedition Caucus"—who attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, an analysis published Friday by the watchdog group Accountable.US revealed.

"The deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was the result of months of election fraud lies spread far and wide by twice-impeached former President Trump and his allies. Even after all the violence that day, 147 members of Congress and eight U.S. senators kept the 'Big Lie' alive by voting against certifying the presidential election results in some states," Accountable.US noted in its report, which analyzed year-end Federal Election Commission filings for the 2022 election cycle.

"Many corporations publicly condemned the insurrection and those lawmakers who voted against certification, and some pledged to no longer donate to their campaigns. But as time has passed, the condemnation from corporate America over January 6 and the Big Lie appears to be abating," the group added. "Some of the corporations that pledged to stop funding the members who objected to certifying the election are quietly finding ways to give again."

According to the analysis, the top five donors to election objectors were the National Beer Wholesalers Association Political Action Committee ($894,500); National Automobile Dealers Association Political Action Committee ($829,500); American Bankers Association PAC ($779,000); Build Political Action Committee of The National Association of Home Builders ($663,500); and AT&T Inc. ($629,900).

Among corporations, after AT&T the biggest donors were Home Depot ($478,000); Lockheed Martin ($440,000); Boeing ($392,000); and Comcast ($382,000).

The top five election-objecting recipients were House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.); House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.); House Transportation Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.); House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.); and National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.).

The analysis also found that over two-thirds of the final lot of donations, amounting to $113,500, went to Sens. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who both objected to certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory while they served in the House.

Corporate America's largesse toward Big Lie supporters stands in stark contrast with public proclamations from numerous company leaders in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. AT&T and Comcast even went so far as suspending donations to elected officials who voted against certifying the Electoral College votes, while announcing reviews of their campaign contribution policies and practices.

"Many corporations risked their reputations to reward millions to MAGA extremists in Congress that obstructed the democratic process even after a violent insurrection."

"Workers, customers, and shareholders want to work for, buy from, and invest in companies that share their values and democratic ideals," Accountable.US spokesperson Jeremy Funk said in a statement. "So many corporations risked their reputations to reward millions to MAGA extremists in Congress that obstructed the democratic process even after a violent insurrection. With many of the same MAGA election deniers now holding powerful positions that could threaten democracy and fundamental voting rights, it's critical that corporations finally stand up to their extremism—not encourage more."

Last month, a report by the government transparency watchdog showed that corporate PACs and industry trade groups have given more than $66 million to election objectors since the January 6 attack. The OpenSecrets analysis, which included more companies and PACs than the Accountable.US report, named most of the same industry groups and corporations in the top five donors—the National Association of Realtors ($909,000) topped its list—and congressional recipients as Accountable.US' list.

Also last month, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington issued its own analysis which found that just 65 of the more than 230 corporations and industry groups that "pledged to stop, pause, or re-evaluate their political giving to the 147 members of the so-called Sedition Caucus... have kept their promises not to give, while the rest have resumed giving."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• President Biden and Germany’s Chancellor announce they’ll send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine
• Half Moon Bay mass shooting suspect charged with seven murders
• House Democrats slam Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to block three lawmakers from House committees
•  Facebook parent company Meta reinstates Donald Trump’s personal account

Image: mark6mauno, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The post Ukraine to receive U.S. and German battle tanks; House Speaker McCarthy moves to block Democrats Schiff, Swalwell and Omar from committees; Donald Trump Facebook account reinstated: The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – January 25, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday formally blocked Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from serving on the House Intelligence Committee and is expected to hold a floor vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the chamber's foreign affairs panel, moves that the Democratic lawmakers slammed as "political vengeance."

"It's disappointing but not surprising that Kevin McCarthy has capitulated to the right wing of his caucus, undermining the integrity of the Congress, and harming our national security in the process," the Democrats said in a joint statement, calling the push to keep them off committees the product of a "corrupt bargain" that the Republican leader struck "in his desperate, and nearly failed, attempt to win the speakership."

"Despite these efforts, McCarthy won't be successful," the lawmakers added. "We will continue to speak out against extremism and doggedly defend our democracy."

The House speaker has final authority over who sits on the Intelligence Committee, allowing McCarthy (R-Calif.) to unilaterally block Schiff (D-Calif.) and Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the panel even after Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) requested that they be reappointed.

But a floor vote will be required to remove Omar from her spot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which she has used to grill officials on the sordid history of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, speak out against military intervention, and advocate for global human rights.

Omar has argued that the GOP push to strip her committee assignments is rooted in bigotry.

"I do not actually think that he has a reason outside of me being Muslim and thinking I should not be," Omar said of McCarthy earlier this month.

Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy counsel at Muslim Advocates, a national civil rights group, said in a recent interview with HuffPost that "by stripping Rep. Omar of her committees, McCarthy kills two birds with one stone: He attempts to silence an effective, principled voice on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and he stokes the ugly culture of anti-Muslim hate for cheap political points."

McCarthy and other Republicans have also falsely accused Omar of antisemitism, an allegation that has drawn backlash from progressive Jewish organizations.

"We categorically reject the suggestion that any of her policy positions or statements merit disqualification from her role on the committee," Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Habonim Dror North America, J Street, New Israel Fund, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and T'ruah said in a statement last month.

"McCarthy's pledge seems especially exploitative in light of the rampant promotion of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories by him and his top deputies amid a surge in dangerous right-wing antisemitism," the groups added. "He posted (and later deleted) a tweet charging that George Soros and two other billionaires of Jewish descent were seeking to 'buy' an election. His newly elected Whip Tom Emmer said the same people 'essentially bought control of Congress.' Meanwhile, Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik has promoted the deadly antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory."

McCarthy has even faced some pushback from members of his caucus who oppose removing Omar and other Democrats from their committee seats.

"Two wrongs do not make a right," Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) said in a statement Tuesday, pointing to House Democrats' decision in 2021 to remove Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from committees for promoting odious conspiracy theories and violence.

Both far-right Republicans have been reinstated to committees under the new House GOP majority.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has also signaled she would vote against removing Omar from committees.

As for Schiff and Swalwell, McCarthy claimed in a letter to Jeffries on Tuesday that the two Democrats participated in the "misuse" of the House Intelligence Committee during the 116th and 117th sessions of Congress.

The Washington Post reported that "McCarthy has argued that both Schiff and Swalwell are unfit to serve on the committee, using Schiff's work conducting the first impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump and Swalwell's alleged ties to a Chinese intelligence operative. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing in relation to the allegation against Swalwell."

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Schiff accused McCarthy of "carrying the dirty water" for the twice-impeached former president.

"This is petty, political payback for investigating Donald Trump," Schiff added on Twitter.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

Progressive U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar said Wednesday that the only reason why Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is moving to ban her from her House committees is because she is Muslim.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) confirmed Tuesday that Omar (D-Minn.), as well as Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) would be blocked from serving on House committees. The speaker first threatened to strip the trio of their assignments last year, a move that supporters and critics alike viewed as retaliation for Democrats removing GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Arizona's Paul Gosar from their committee seats after Greene's numerous white supremacist remarks and conspiracy theories. Gosar was removed after he shared social media posts depicting the animated assassinations of President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

"As crude and as cynical as it is for the nativist factions in our government, targeting Muslims is reliably good politics."

Interviewed by HuffPost for an article published Wednesday, Omar—who was a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Labor and Education committees in the 117th Congress—accused McCarthy of being motivated by bigotry.

"I do not actually think that he has a reason outside of me being Muslim and thinking I should not be," she said. "If you look at the comments from Republicans, it's precisely for only that reason."

Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have repeatedly made racist and Islamophobic attacks against Omar, the first Somali-American woman elected to Congress, including calling her a terrorist who might try to blow up Congress.

Omar has consistently condemned Israeli crimes in the illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem and in the besieged Gaza Strip. These include the occupation, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and desert Bedouins, the internationally recognized crime of apartheid, the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza invasions, the unlawful colonization of the West Bank by Jewish settlers, and extrajudicial killings such as that of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Omar has also been a vocal critic of the $3 billion in mostly unconditional annual U.S. military aid to Israel.

For these criticisms, Omar has been branded by both Republicans and Democrats as an "antisemite," a tactic often used by Israeli officials and supporters of Israel in a bid to delegitimize condemnation of the country's human rights crimes.

Eight U.S. Jewish groups last month released a statement opposing McCarthy's pledge to keep Omar off any committees.

"As Jewish-American organizations, we oppose Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy's pledge to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar of her House Foreign Affairs Committee seat based on false accusations that she is antisemitic or anti-Israel. We may not agree with some of Congresswoman Omar's opinions, but we categorically reject the suggestion that any of her policy positions or statements merit disqualification from her role on the committee," the groups said.

The statement continued:

Leader McCarthy's pledge seems especially exploitative in light of the rampant promotion of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories by him and his top deputies amid a surge in dangerous right-wing antisemitism. He posted (and later deleted) a tweet charging that George Soros and two other billionaires of Jewish descent were seeking to "buy" an election. His newly elected [House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.)] said the same people "essentially bought control of Congress." Meanwhile, Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik [R-N.Y.] has promoted the deadly antisemitic "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory.

Responding to McCarthy's threat, Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy counsel at Washington, D.C.-based Muslim Advocates, toldHuffPost that "as crude and as cynical as it is for the nativist factions in our government, targeting Muslims is reliably good politics."

"By stripping Rep. Omar of her committees, McCarthy kills two birds with one stone: He attempts to silence an effective, principled voice on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and he stokes the ugly culture of anti-Muslim hate for cheap political points," she added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The most surprising thing about the final report of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol isn’t the mountain of evidence of Donald Trump’s criminality that it contains nor the criminal referrals it makes to the Justice Department, but its readability. According to The New York Times, at least a half dozen publishing houses are releasing their own editions of the 845-page tome. On a December 22 broadcast, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell nailed it when he remarked, “This is the way a great novelist would lay out this story.”

But it isn’t just any novel the report calls to mind. The closest approximation is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic psychological drama, Crime and Punishment.

Both the great novel and the report are constructed around a tortured central character who thinks he is above the law. Dostoevsky’s dark protagonist Roidon Raskolnikov kills an elderly pawnbroker and her half-sister and then struggles to convince himself that murder can be justified if committed to demonstrate and secure the power of an extraordinary man. Similarly, the report’s protagonist is the forty-fifth President of the United States, who plots to overthrow his own government in a vain and desperate attempt to cling to power and glory.

I’m not the first commentator to compare Trump to Raskolnikov. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd beat me to the punch in a 2017 op-ed penned during the Mueller investigation, where she wrote:

“Both men [Trump and Raskolnikov] are naifs who arrive and think they have the right to transgress. Both are endlessly fascinating psychological studies: self-regarding, with Napoleon-style grandiosity, and self-incriminating. Both are consumed with chaotic, feverish thoughts as they are pursued by law enforcement.”

This isn’t to say, of course, that the parallels are exact. Unlike Raskolnikov, for example, Trump will never acknowledge his culpability for the insurrection, which led to the deaths of seven people. The report, after all, isn’t a work of fiction, even if at times it might read like one with chapter headings including “The Big Lie,” “I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes,” and “Just Call it Corrupt and Leave the Rest to Me.”

And then there is the all-important question of punishment. Raskolnikov ultimately confesses his guilt and is sentenced to prison. Trump, by contrast, remains a free man, and continues to rage on his social media platform—the ludicrously named Truth Social—against his accusers, protesting his innocence and claiming, as always, that he’s the victim of a political witch hunt.

Trump’s prosecution, at least at the federal level (he’s also under serious investigation in the states of Georgia and New York), now rests in the hands of the Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith. The DOJ has received criminal referrals from the committee for four overlapping federal felonies committed by the former President:

1. Obstruction of an official proceeding, referring to the joint session of Congress convened on January 6, 2021, to confirm the election of Joe Biden, and the effort to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify Biden’s victory;
2. Conspiracy to defraud the United States, referring to the former president’s multi-phase scheme to overturn the election;
3. Conspiracy to make a false statement, referring to the plan to submit false slates of electors to Congress and the National Archives; and
4. Inciting, assisting, or giving aid and comfort to an insurrection, referring to Trump’s incendiary speech immediately prior to the riot at the Capitol and his behavior during the riot.

The committee has also referred five of Trump’s former aides and associates to the Justice Department: John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Cheseboro, and Jeffrey Clark. Trump, however, is the only member of the crew who has been referred for insurrection. The report singles out the ex-commander-in-chief on the insurrection charge, stating “the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump.”

Although the referrals are non-binding, Smith is already in the thick of investigating the insurrection and the plot to overturn the 2020 election, presenting evidence to at least two grand juries. The special counsel is also leading the investigation into Trump’s removal of top-secret government documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Convicting Trump will not be easy, especially on charges related to January 6. Each of the felonies referred to the Department of Justice requires proof of criminal intent. The government will have to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump knew he had lost the election and was acting with a “corrupt purpose” to obstruct the work of the joint session of Congress or, on the conspiracy referral, that he had an intent to defraud the nation with the submission of fake slates of electors.

It will be particularly challenging to prove that Trump incited or assisted the insurrection as Trump would likely mount a First Amendment defense. In its landmark 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court articulated a two-part test for punishing incendiary speech, holding that the First Amendment protects advocating the use of force or lawbreaking “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” (emphasis added).

Still, it’s easy to understand why the committee chose to cite Trump for insurrection. Trump knew that members of the crowd who had gathered to hear him talk were armed when he urged them to march to the Capitol to “fight like hell.” And amid the ensuing melee, he accused Pence of cowardice for not using his authority as Vice President to change the outcome of the election, seething in a Tweet, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution…USA demands the truth!” Almost immediately after the Tweet was posted, the report notes, “the crowd around the Capitol surged, and more individuals joined the effort to confront police and break further into the building.”

Should Trump be tried and convicted of insurrection, he would face a prison sentence of up to ten years. He would also be barred from holding federal office for life.

So, what are the odds that Trump is finally held to account? Will Jack Smith prove to be Trump’s Porfiry Petrovich, the police investigator who brought Raskolnikov to justice, or will he turn out to be another Robert Mueller? We may have the answer in a matter of months.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Bill Blum.

Like several members of the Illinois Democratic Party Central Committee, Rep. Danny Davis pulls from two campaign coffers: a state committee and a federal one. But Davis’s state committee has far outspent those of his peers, including on itemized spending for “campaign work” as recently as last quarter.

Some of that work falls under Davis’s role as a member of the state central committee, where he works alongside Reps. Bobby Rush, Chuy Garcia, and Robin Kelly, who chairs the state party. Some is less clear cut: An ad buy from Davis’s state committee touted his federal work, and some of the same staff run Davis’s state and federal offices.

This year, Davis is up for reelection to both the state committee and his federal office, which he has held since 1997. At the federal level, the 13-term representative faces two challengers in a June 28 primary fueled by criticism over a perceived lack of urgency. While the Illinois Democrat has voted with his party on major issues and racked up progressive bona fides, his long tenure has eroded the pressure many other officials face to push for more aggressive action on the biggest issues facing Chicago, from gun violence to poverty. Some have criticized him for what they view as an out-of-touch perspective on social issues. At a forum last month hosted by a local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Davis waded into the debate over transgender people’s participation in sports, saying, “I think that women who say they’re women should play in women’s sports, women leagues; men who say they’re men should play in men’s leagues. I don’t think that women should be trying to play football with the Bears.”

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

The First Intifada built on grassroots missions and practices aimed at disengaging from Israeli settler colonialism that had been part of Palestinian society for nearly two decades. Indeed, the national campaigns that emerged during the Intifada included the boycott of Israeli products and of the Israeli Civil Administration, refusal to pay Israeli taxes, and successful calls for the resignation of hundreds of Palestinian tax collectors and police officers—all tactics practiced throughout the 1970s and 1980s. 

In the early 1970s, Palestinian volunteer movements formed across the West Bank and Gaza to mitigate the suffering of communities most directly affected by Israel’s 1967 military occupation. Before long, these movements grew into regional networks of volunteers whose activities politicized a generation of youth by bringing different parts of Palestinian society together and developing awareness of the importance of anti-colonial struggle. 

The networks also led to the rise of popular committees which responded to Israel’s neglect and de-development in various sectors of Palestinian life. The most ubiquitous popular committees worked at the neighborhood level, and were usually composed of local youth. They mainly provided support to the most vulnerable and increased the resilience of communities in the face of Israeli attacks, including through coordinating mutual aid, carrying out nightly guard duty to alert of settler and military attacks, and organizing the storage and distribution of food for prolonged curfews.

Networks of cooperatives and home economy projects also promoted local produce and aimed to reduce the reliance on Israeli goods. Many neighborhoods also undertook backyard farming to increase food security. These committees contributed significantly to the mobilization witnessed among farmers during the First Intifada, ensuring an expanding network of anti-colonial, liberationist Palestinian farmers and agronomists.

Similarly, Palestinians formed health committees composed of volunteer healthcare professionals who provided medical services in rural areas. Many of these committees adopted a liberationist conceptualization of health, promoting holistic treatment that centered social, political, and economic determinants. The health committees were so fundamental to Palestinian civil society, political groups were compelled to form and promote them. Indeed, health committees were so successful at reaching Palestinians at the grassroots level, they permeated the Palestinian political spectrum, and between them were providing 60% of primary healthcare and all disability services in the West Bank and Gaza by 1993. 

But following the devastating First Intifada, the PLO's adoption of the Oslo framework in 1993, and the subsequent formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, a process of depoliticization replaced the liberationist framework of the committees and cemented a shift in discourse from liberation to state-building. Throughout the 1990s, several popular committees formalized into non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and many committee members, including leftist activists, joined the post-Oslo NGO world, while some popular committees registered as charities and adapted to the neoliberalization of Palestinian civil society.

In addition to the domination of a state-centered discourse, Israel’s ongoing destruction and fragmentation of Palestinian communities continues to hinder Palestinians’ ability to organize. The complicity of the PA in perpetuating this status quo also places significant obstacles on Palestinians’ ability to mobilize as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. And while examining the successes of the popular committees will not automatically lead to a clear vision for liberation today, they can inform initial goals to facilitate the growth of a reimagined liberation framework among Palestinians. 

While challenges and obstacles will remain, Palestinian civil society must: 

• Reorient municipal councils’ priorities to revive their political and social roles, including ensuring sustainable infrastructure in rapidly-growing towns and cities.
• Strengthen the role of cultural and educational institutions, public libraries, and other public forums to provide spaces through which communities can articulate political needs and demands. Universities should complement this by expanding their engagement with the public. 
• Redirect professional services towards addressing the holistic needs of the communities they serve rather than applying neoliberal frameworks in the public sector. 
• Promote existing popular movements that have already formed community-based structures, such as in Beita, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Umm al-Fahm, and the Naqab, and that are well-placed to expand their role from reactive organizing to articulating a vision for liberation from their communal bases. 

The post Reimagining Liberation through the Popular Committees appeared first on Al-Shabaka.

This content originally appeared on Al-Shabaka and was authored by Layth Hanbali.

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• Democrats begin debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 recovery plan.
• Canada declares right wing, misogynist group Proud Boys a terrorist group.
• President Biden’s nominee to lead Environmental Protection Agency pledges ‘urgent’ action on climate change.
• San Francisco sues school district and board to force reopening of public schools.
• New York Senator introduces legislation to finance reopening of schools.
• State assembly hearing looks at unemployment meltdown at Employment Development Department.
• Democrats to remove Marjorie Greene from committees after she endorsed violence against them.

Photo by Marjorie Greene’s campaign.

The post Democrats begin debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 recovery plan; State hearing looks at unemployment meltdown at EDD; Democrats to remove Marjorie Greene from committees after she endorsed violence against them appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• Democrats begin debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 recovery plan.
• Canada declares right wing, misogynist group Proud Boys a terrorist group.
• President Biden’s nominee to lead Environmental Protection Agency pledges ‘urgent’ action on climate change.
• San Francisco sues school district and board to force reopening of public schools.
• New York Senator introduces legislation to finance reopening of schools.
• State assembly hearing looks at unemployment meltdown at Employment Development Department.
• Democrats to remove Marjorie Greene from committees after she endorsed violence against them.

Photo by Marjorie Greene’s campaign.

The post Democrats begin debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 recovery plan; State hearing looks at unemployment meltdown at EDD; Democrats to remove Marjorie Greene from committees after she endorsed violence against them appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.