Jewish Voice for Peace blocked traffic and planted a tree in the middle of a busy street near the Hilton on Nov. 14. Dallas police arrested 10 people, charging them with obstructing a highway. Protesters were also issued criminal trespass warnings from a private business in the 2200 block of Stemmons Freeway.

A “Colonizers Out of Texas Chalk the Block” action was held on the sidewalks around the hotel hosting the conference on Nov. 15. A statewide mobilization protest took place on Nov. 16 followed by a “Shut Down the Streets Car Rally” on Nov. 17.

This reporter went to Dallas on one of the two buses from Houston that left from different mosques on Nov. 16. Both buses were filled with many generations of Palestinians and their supporters. Buses also came from Austin and San Antonio, Texas. With a very loud sound truck and hundreds of massive Palestinian flags, close to 3,000 people marched and rallied for five hours that day.

According to JVP: “The Jewish National Fund (JNF) is one of the oldest and largest organizations behind the theft of Palestinian land and the support of segregated, Jewish-only settlements on this stolen land. Now, the JNF seems to be fueling and providing cover for genocide of Palestinians — all by claiming to do so in the name of Jewish safety.

“As Jews, we will continue to stand up to the JNF and other right-wing organizations which enable the displacement of Palestinian families and Jewish supremacy.”

One of the young protesters proclaimed on the bus ride back to Houston: “I think the JNF got the message. Zionist genociders and hate are not welcome in Texas.”

Trump posted the following message on Nov. 9 on his own social media platform, Truth Social, “I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump administration, which is currently in formation.”

Not all cabinet appointments require Senate confirmation. For example, Trump and his staff have created a few new positions that don’t need it. He is also trying to use a mechanism known as “recess appointments” to get nominees through without review.

Trump justified this tactic, stating: “Any Republican senator seeking the coveted leadership position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner. We need positions filled immediately.” (The Guardian, Nov. 15)

One of the first cabinet selections was Republican Party consultant Susie Wiles as Trump’s chief of staff. Wiles worked as Ronald Reagan’s campaign scheduler in 1980, and she has been involved in far-right politics since then.

Wiles has commented, “The clown car can’t come into the White House at will,” and claims Trump “agrees” with her regarding that statement. (The Independent, Nov. 9) Despite Wiles’ message, most Trump appointments so far have been Christian nationalists, “anarcho-capitalists,” warmongers, one accused sex trafficker and several accused sexual harassers. This article will examine some of his earliest picks.

Two of Trump’s recent staff picks are the architects of the worst of his first administration's border policies, including family separations and concentration camps. Tom Homan has been appointed Trump's “border czar,” a newly invented position that reports directly to the president. In Homan's current job, as the Border Chronicle recently reported, he actually gets paid to lie about immigration. Now, he will receive taxpayer dollars to act on those lies.

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller has been appointed deputy chief of staff. Miller has been Trump's top immigration advisor. One colleague quoted by Rolling Stone said Miller has no problem with talking about detention “camps” for immigrants.

The Rolling Stone article tells the story of other Trump allies objecting to the use of the word “camps” in the description of their mass deportation plans. One Trump ally said, “Apparently some people think it makes us look like Nazis.” We wonder why…eyeroll

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

Four days after the presidential election, thousands rallied at Columbus Circle in New York City to show their support for immigrants. The “Protect Our Futures” rally was co-organized by many local advocacy groups, including Working Families Party, Communications Workers of America, Indivisible, Make the Road, and our shared working group at Jews for Racial & Economic Justice. Chants included “Trump, escucha, estamos en la lucha!” (“Trump, listen, we are in the fight!”) and “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!”

Documented NY’s story, linked above, has many pictures of the march, each one worth at least a thousand words.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

If you want to find someone saying the Democrats should go even further right on immigration rhetoric and policy, you don't have to look very far. In the pages of the Atlantic, the airwaves of NPR, in the Seattle Times, a certain (usually wrong about everything else) type of talking head saw the electoral shellacking of this recent presidential election, the collapse in the youth vote, and saw an opportunity not for self reflection but to double down.

We know that fear-mongering rhetoric about immigration does only one thing: softens the ground for the advance of [neo]fascism. And, Data For Progress shows, when it comes down to it, hard right policies on immigration aren't particularly popular, either.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)

“Gangs” — bodies of armed individuals — have been a feature of Haitian politics since the U.S.-backed dictatorial reign of President François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Some gangs were set up by politicians and business owners for their own purposes, others set up by neighborhoods or progressive parties to protect their members and a few by individuals involved in illegal activity.

Almost all of the weapons these groups, also known as “paramilitaries,” use came from Florida — there is no arms industry in Haiti. The ones that politicians and businesses set up often have had better weapons than the cops, who are often hard to distinguish from illegal armed groups. (Haiti-Liberté, Nov. 14)

The National Movement for Liberty and Equality of Haitians for Fraternity (Mouvement National pour la Liberté et L’égalité des Haïtiens pour la Fraternité, MOLEGHAF) charges, “The Haitian elite uses paramilitaries to crush popular Haitian resistance” to keep Haiti under occupation. (blackagendareport.com, Oct. 23)

After MINUSTAH, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, ended in 2017, the United States cobbled together the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti, which has been a complete, utter failure in improving conditions in Haiti.

It received the blessing of the United Nations but not its endorsement, which made it difficult to come up with its budget, which the U.S. didn’t want to fund completely. The U.S. finally managed to get Kenya to provide soldiers and leadership, but Kenya has sent less than 400 soldiers of the 1,000 its government promised. Their presence has done nothing to alleviate hunger.

The United States wants to convert the MSS into MINUSTAH 2, but there is a real reluctance inside Haiti to go through another U.S. occupation under the guise of a U.N. mission. China and Russia are also likely to oppose this operation.

These automotive engineers have joined groups such as UAW Labor for Palestine and United All Workers for Democracy in calling on the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) to vote to divest all union funds from Israel Bonds. The union’s current investments in bonds that fund the Zionist war machine have an estimated value of $400,000.

Many of the engineers are part of Detroit’s sizable Arab and Muslim communities. They are not unionized and would be more likely to organize with the UAW if it divested from Israel. Their action was timed to coincide with the meeting of the IEB, which took place from Nov. 12-14. Engineers Against Apartheid held another demonstration on Nov. 14, the last day of the IEB meeting.

UAW Labor for Palestine, a rank-and-file group with hundreds of members, has been pushing the IEB to act in solidarity with Palestine for over a year. It has taken the lead from the over 30 Palestinian trade unions and professional associations that issued a united call in October 2023 to end all complicity with and stop arming Israel.

One of the organizers told the crowd: “They are all working while they see the deaths of their patients, working under constant bombardment, working as they find out about their parents being bombed. They have had to continue working even after they have been raped, stripped and put themselves in survival mode.”

A New York Police Department helicopter hovered above the crowd and a drone later joined it in the sky. As dusk fell, people held up the flashlights on their phones chanting: “We will honor all martyrs. We will fight for justice, We will fight for Gaza.” And “Gaza, Gaza you will rise, the people are by your side.”

The protest was organized by New York City Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Doctors Against Genocide, Medical Students for Justice in Palestine, Nurses Against Genocide, and Within Our Lifetime.

Irony? Foster should never have been in prison in the first place. He was sent to death row in 1997 under a draconian Texas legal statute called the Law of Parties.

He and three friends were hanging out in San Antonio, driving around in Foster’s grandfather’s car, when one of his buddies, Mauricio Brown, asked him to pull over so he could talk with someone. The other three men stayed in Foster’s car listening to music when Brown jumped back in the car.

Brown had killed someone. Both Foster and Brown were tried together and both received the death penalty, even though Foster not only did not kill anyone but had no idea a murder was going to happen!

When Foster’s execution date was set in 2007, an international grassroots campaign was launched by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Foster’s family and activists from around the country. A large public outcry was in motion. In a rare move, just a few hours before the execution, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry commuted Foster’s sentence to life. It was a joyous victory!

Since then, Foster has been a model prisoner, reading, writing and completing dozens of classes to prepare for his possible parole in 2036. But trouble was awaiting him when he was moved to the Telford Unit a few years ago. Telford was inexcusably understaffed, guards brought in more drugs than one could find on the streets in the “free world,” and prisoners were unsupervised and unguarded the majority of the time.

Battles may open up should these appointments be approved, battles within their departments and battles with the new president. Consider two of Trump’s most notorious nominees: Pete Hegseth to head the Defense Department and Robert F. Kennedy Jr to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Hegseth is a former Army National Guard captain who has been a weekend host on “FOX and Friends.” He once urged Trump to pardon three U.S. soldiers who committed war crimes when they murdered Iraqi civilians. He attacks some of the topmost U.S. generals for being too “woke” and said Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. got his job as chair of the Joint Chiefs only because he is Black.

Generals may dislike taking orders from a CEO of industry; they hate taking orders from a captain. Pay close attention to any outbreak of conflict between this captain and his superior officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And prepare to mobilize against both sides.

Kennedy’s greatest fame, besides his family history, is as a vaccine denier, a science skeptic and a threat to the already feeble U.S. public health system. Kennedy also opposes the food industry practice of producing super-processed snacks.

If RFK Jr actually tries to carry out his ideas, it will put him in conflict with the pharmaceutical industry. During the Covid-19 crisis, the first Trump administration subsidized the pharmaceuticals’ research, and they flourished. Kennedy will also confront the foodstuff producers and their processed snacks. This too might lead to an opening for struggle — or Trump might just fire Kennedy.

Then there is Elon Musk, who bought his way inside Trump’s inner circle. Trump has created a position in the newly established “Department of Government Efficiency” for Musk, currently the richest person in the world.

Musk has reportedly been hanging out at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat with the president-elect. Along with pharmaceuticals capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy, himself a billionaire, Musk will recommend cutting government programs they deem unnecessary — it’s easy to imagine which ones.

One wonders, however, how long a mutual admiration society can last between individuals who each think they’re the greatest. We’ll see.

Unfortunately, we can’t plan on this collection of scoundrels to self-destruct. We have to be ready to mobilize wherever we can to expose their policies and that of the new administration.

But if the new administration unleashes a wave of infighting in the ruling class, we must also be ready to find a way to use their mutual attacks to build a mass struggle against both sides. And we must mobilize this struggle while maintaining political and organizational independence from the two ruling-class factions — MAGA or neocon establishment, Republican or Democrat. It won’t be easy, but it will be possible.

All of these charges against Iran and China and the charges of DPRK troops are totally unsubstantiated and hastily put together as justifications to widen the war against Russia and keep it fueled with additional U.S. and EU weapons. A statement by a senior EU official threatening China shows just how difficult it is to enforce their bullying threats.

“If we finally confirm there is a transfer of drones [from China to Russia], then that will have consequences,” said the official, without saying what those consequences might be. (politico.eu, Nov. 15)

This coordinated approach by Western powers signals a united front against any country that threatens their power.

But another united front is also developing. Iran has recently boosted its oil production to pre-sanction levels thanks to strategic alliances with allied nations, including Russia and China.

For weeks now, members of the No Arena in Chinatown Coalition have visited council members’ offices almost daily, urging them to consider various aspects of the proposal and expressing concerns that they were being rushed into making a decision without having examined all the information.

This tactic seems to have paid off in that most of the council members subsequently asked detailed and probing questions in the session. For over four hours, lawmakers questioned Parker administration officials about the agreement reached with the team, transportation to the arena and alleged community benefits.

High on their list was the arena’s potential impact on the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) which already claims to be cash-strapped. In current negotiations with Philadelphia union members seeking wage and benefit increases, SEPTA already says it would have to raise fares by over 20% and make severe service cuts.

The arena proposal includes plans for SEPTA to build a new facility above the Jefferson Station in Center City. Council member Cindy Bass voiced the growing concern that “SEPTA is saying they’re not paying for these costs. They’re not gonna do it. So the question is, ‘Who’s gonna do it?’”