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Vance Unwittingly Reminds Us of the Jose Padilla Case

By Jacob G. Hornberger – FFF – June 27, 2025

In mocking California Senator Alex Padilla by referring to him as “Jose,” Vice President Vance has unwittingly reminded us of the Jose Padilla case. The Padilla case showed us how government officials use “crises” to destroy the civil liberties of the people.

The 9/11 attacks motivated U.S. officials to declare a “war on terrorism,” which turned out to be a bigger racket than their Cold War racket had been. Not only did the attacks fortify and reinforce the national-security state governmental structure that had come into existence to ostensibly protect us from the Reds, they also firmly established that the national-security establishment was not bound by the Bill of Rights.

Soon after the attacks, the Pentagon and the CIA set up a terrorist prison camp and torture center at their imperial base located in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Why Cuba? Because the Pentagon and the CIA were hoping that they would have full and complete control over the base — that is, that they would not be restrained by constitutional niceties and not be interfered with by the U.S Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, it was an interesting mindset given the oath that national-security state officials take to support and defend the Constitution.

Things didn’t work out as planned, however, because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it had judicial jurisdiction over Gitmo. That motivated the Pentagon and the CIA to establish a separate and independent judicial system at Gitmo for prosecuting accused terrorists, one that was totally different from the federal judicial system that had been established under the Constitution.

For example, while the federal judicial system guaranteed the right of trial by jury, the Pentagon-CIA judicial system employed kangaroo military tribunals. Moreover, under the federal judicial system, officials were prohibited from torturing people into confessing to crimes. At Gitmo, torture became a regular feature of life at Gitmo.

How would it be decided which system would be used with respect to each accused terrorist? U.S. officials had the discretionary power to decide which system would be used. The difference would be night and day. For example, in the constitutional system, an accused had the right to a speedy trial. In the Gitmo system, there are accused terrorists who are still waiting for a trial after some 20 years.

Given the widespread fear among the populace of “the terrorists,” many Americans were fine with this new dual judicial system, notwithstanding the fact that it was not authorized by the Constitution. What mattered to them was that the Pentagon and the CIA were supposedly keeping them safe from “the terrorists,” just as they had supposedly kept them safe from the Reds.

Equally important, people were convinced that the Gitmo system was going to be limited to foreigners. Therefore, the violation of the civil liberties that our American ancestors had enshrined in the Bill of Rights was considered no big deal. Never mind that our ancestors intended that the Bill of Rights apply to everyone, including foreigners.

But the notion that the destruction of civil liberties would be limited to foreigners was always misguided. After all, a terrorist is a terrorist. Why would an American terrorist be any different from a foreign terrorist? And don’t forget: This was not only a foreign war on terrorism but rather a global war on terrorism.

Then along came Jose Padilla and things became clear. Padilla was initially charged with terrorism in U.S. District Court. That was the standard procedure. After all, terrorism is a federal criminal offense. That’s why there are criminal prosecutions for terrorism in federal district court.

But don’t forget: The Pentagon and the CIA now had their own judicial system for trying terrorism cases — the system they established in Cuba. U.S officials could now choose which judicial system to employ against terrorist suspects — the federal system or the Gitmo system.

Before too long, the Pentagon and the CIA yanked Padilla out of the federal system and placed him into military custody, where they proceeded to brutally torture him. They never actually sent him to Guantanamo but they could have.

Padilla was an American citizen. Deferring to the Pentagon and the CIA, the federal courts upheld his transfer out of the federal-court system and into the clutches of the Pentagon and the CIA.

Given the right “national emergency” in the future, there is no doubt that U.S. officials will employ that judicial ruling against every American who they label a “terrorist.”

Kudos to Vice President Vance for unwittingly reminding us of how federal officials used the “national emergency” of the  9/11 attacks to destroy the civil liberties of the American people.

June 28, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

UK arrests 4 in crackdown on Palestine Action over RAF incursion

Al Mayadeen | June 28, 2025

UK counterterrorism authorities have arrested four individuals in connection with a break-in at RAF Brize Norton, reportedly carried out by members of Palestine Action. The incident, which took place last Friday, involved activists entering the Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire and spray painting on two military aircraft in protest against Britain’s support for “Israel” and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.

South East Counter Terrorism Police confirmed the arrests, stating that a 29-year-old woman without a fixed address, along with two men aged 36 and 24, were detained on “terrorism-related grounds”. A fourth suspect, a 41-year-old woman, was arrested on suspicion of “assisting an offender.”

Authorities said the three were being held under suspicion of committing, preparing, or instigating acts of terrorism, as defined under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Government crackdown on pro-Palestine activism

Following the arrests, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced her intention to designate Palestine Action as a proscribed organization under the UK’s Terrorism Act. If implemented, the designation would make it illegal to support, join, or promote the group, an escalation that has drawn concern from human rights advocates and civil liberties organizations.

On the same day, hundreds gathered in Trafalgar Square to express solidarity with the group, warning against the criminalization of activism aimed at opposing the UK’s complicity in supplying weapons to “Israel”.

In response, Palestine Action issued a statement via X, condemning the government’s treatment of the protest. “Despite us not being proscribed, the state is treating red paint on warplanes as an act of terrorism,” the group stated. It further revealed that the arrested activists were being held in solitary confinement without charge for several days.

Authorities moved quickly to suppress related demonstrations, dispersing planned rallies outside Parliament and pushing protesters into Trafalgar Square. Several arrests were made, with the Metropolitan Police citing public order risks. Meanwhile, counter-terrorism police have launched a broader security review across UK military installations.

Wider context

Palestine Action, founded in 2020 by British-Palestinian activist Huda Ammori and co-founder Richard Barnard, is known for its confrontational yet non-lethal tactics aimed at arms companies tied to “Israel’s” military-industrial complex. Previous campaigns have led to the temporary shutdown of Elbit Systems-linked factories in Oldham and Tamworth, as well as disrupted contracts with Israeli weapons suppliers.

Legal experts have raised doubts about whether Palestine Action meets the statutory requirements for proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000, which include posing a real threat to national security or British citizens. Critics argue that the group’s actions, while disruptive, remain rooted in civil disobedience rather than terrorism.

The proposed ban has renewed scrutiny of UK-“Israel” cooperation, with campaigners pointing to past evidence of coordination between British counterterrorism units and the Israeli embassy. Concerns are growing that this measure could set a precedent for further repression of pro-Palestine activism.

Families of detained activists face deepening uncertainty, as support efforts, ranging from legal aid to court appearances, could be criminalized. Foreign nationals involved in the group may also face deportation or visa revocation if the ban is enacted.

June 28, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

GEOENGINEERING WHISTELBLOWER SPEAKS OUT

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | June 26, 2025

Former Air Force Staff Sergeant and Bioenvironmental Engineering Craftsman Kristen Meghan shares her explosive story as a geoengineering whistleblower. Over a decade ago, while tracking chemical inventories on a military base, she discovered toxic substances she now believes were tied to covert weather modification programs. Her testimony raises urgent questions about what’s really happening in our skies.

June 27, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Washington’s unprecedented political war on Europe

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – June 27, 2025

A dramatic U.S. political broadside against Europe signals not just strained transatlantic ties, but a deeper ideological rupture — one that could push the EU toward redefining itself as a fully autonomous global actor.

Notwithstanding tensions surrounding US tariffs on the EU, the future and role of NATO, and the conflict in Ukraine, US-EU tensions are escalating to an outright political and ideological rivalry. Washington’s political attacks on European states and their policies mark a significant shift towards the end of transatlantic unity and an opportunity for the EU to rediscover itself.

Washington’s political attacks on Europe

On May 27th, 2025, the US State Department published an essay that could go down in history as Washington’s charge sheet on Europe, expressing the depth of contention and resentment colouring the Trump administration’s ties with the continent currently. However, once set along this path of confrontation, there may not be a return to normal, transatlantic ties in the foreseeable future. The essay begins with narrating the history and depth of US-Europe ties. Immediately afterward, however, it shockingly mentions what was unthinkable until a few years ago. The US State Department sees Europe as a ‘different world’, different from what the US itself (supposedly) represents. To quote the letter: “What endures [in Europe] instead is an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself. Across Europe, governments have weaponized political institutions against their own citizens and against our shared heritage. Far from strengthening democratic principles, Europe has devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance”.

Liberalism is Bad

It is not just European politics facing Washington’s assault; it is also the underlying liberal political order of Europe itself. The letter accuses Europe of restricting political space and criminalising dissenting political voices. The reason is the failure of liberalism, according to the letter. “Our concerns are not partisan but principled. The suppression of speech, facilitation of mass migration, targeting of religious expression, and undermining of electoral choice threatens the very foundation of the transatlantic partnership. A Europe that replaces its spiritual and cultural roots, that treats traditional values as dangerous relics, and that centralizes power in unaccountable institutions is a Europe less capable of standing firm against external threats and internal decay. To this end, achieving peace in Europe and around the world requires not a rejection of our shared cultural heritage, but a renewal of it”, adds the letter.

This, according to the letter, is not a good sign for the future of US-European ties. It mentions Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is said to have made clear that “Europe’s democratic backsliding not only impacts European citizens but increasingly affects American security and economic ties, along with the free speech rights of American citizens and companies”.

Beyond Mistrust

This letter reveals many things. Most importantly, it reveals the level of mistrust and gap that now divides the transatlantic world. It is no longer mere tactical disagreements over petty issues. This mistrust has at its roots in the political thinking of the Trump administration. Donald Trump understands the EU as a political arrangement created to “screw” the US. He and his political advisers are now trying to unscrew this arrangement to ‘free’ the US from the decades-old political bonds.

For Europeans, this is a major challenge. A report in the UK-based Financial Times said that Europe “is quickly becoming the latest front in a culture war Trump has unleashed against the bastions of liberalism. Most of his targets — elite universities, government agencies such as USAID, public broadcasters — have been domestic. But the Samson essay shows Maga’s ambitions go much further, and the movement is now prepared to deploy far beyond America’s borders”. According to this report, it is not the EU, which is the real threat to the US, but the US is the biggest threat to Europe itself.

How will Europe respond to this attack, which now has both political and cultural underpinnings? There is little denying that Europe needs to grapple with prospects of a potential ‘de-coupling’ from the US.  This de-coupling will create, at least in the immediate future, an urgent need for policy correction on several fronts. From negotiating the trade war with the US—which Europeans will understandably find hard to win—to shared security, the continent needs to change its direction fundamentally from seeking US compliance with the written and unwritten obligations of the transatlantic alliance to totally redefining—and changing—them.

This policy correction requires the EU to do a thorough reassessment of its ties not just with Washington but with Russia and China as well. It needs to reject notions—many of which were fanned out by the Biden administration most recently —of Russia being a security threat and/or Russian expansionism. Instead, it needs to realise that the Trump administration might be its best chance in the last seven decades or so since the end of the Second World War to come out of Washington’s shadow and become a truly autonomous player capable of both defining and defending its interests. In other words, instead of seeking to mend ties with the US to make them ‘normal’, it should further the ‘de-coupling’ and reinforce its continental interests as its own responsibility. There is arguably no alternative for Europe to survive this situation without losing its strength and standing internationally.

June 27, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel used depleted uranium bombs in Iran strikes: Report

The Cradle | June 26, 2025

A well-informed source revealed to Fars News Agency on 26 June that Israel may have used depleted uranium (DU) munitions in its recent airstrikes targeting sensitive sites across Iran.

Initial tests conducted at the impact zones reportedly detected traces suggestive of uranium, although further technical analysis is still underway to confirm the findings.

Depleted uranium, a dense metal used in bombs and tank shells to penetrate armored targets, is not classified as nuclear weaponry, but it poses serious long-term health risks due to its low-level radioactivity and toxic chemical composition.

International health organizations have warned that DU exposure may be linked to increased rates of leukemia, kidney damage, and anemia – especially in children living in contaminated areas.

The US military’s use of DU weapons has been linked to massive increases in cancer rates in Iraq following the US wars on that country in 1991 and 2003.

Military experts are currently examining debris and munitions remnants from bombs dropped by Israel in Iran during the recent 12-day war. More detailed findings will be released once final lab results are available, the source stated, cautioning against premature conclusions.

This would not be the first time Israel has been accused of using prohibited weapons. Human rights groups have previously condemned the Israeli military for its use of white phosphorus and suspected DU-based weapons in past operations in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, raising international concern over repeated violations of international humanitarian law.

On 6 October, the president of the Lebanese Association of Social Medicine stated that Israel had been bombing the southern suburbs of Beirut using banned bombs with uranium warheads.

President of the association, Raif Reda, called for “collecting samples from the bombing sites and sending reports to the United Nations so the world can witness the bloody, criminal history of the Zionist enemy,” according to statements reported by the National News Agency (NNA).

Following Israel’s massive bombing campaign against Lebanon, the Syndicate of Chemists in Lebanon (SCL) warned that “the use of such types of internationally banned weapons, especially in densely populated Beirut, leads to massive destruction, and their dust causes many diseases, especially when inhaled.”

June 26, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Globalist Blueprint: Pashinyan Seeks to Silence Church as Armenia Becomes NATO Proxy – Analyst

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 26.06.2025

Western globalists installed Nikol Pashinyan as prime minister to wrench Armenia away from its historical alliance with Russia, says international affairs expert Iskandar Kfoury.

The arrest of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church, is just the latest chapter in an effort to weaponize Armenia against its neighbors – especially Russia, Iskandar Kfoury told Sputnik.

The South Caucasus has always been a battleground for global powers, and now, under Pashinyan, American and NATO labs are conducting biological warfare research on Armenian soil, he said.

Furthermore, US military exercises have been welcomed on Armenia’s soil as part of a drastic geopolitical realignment.

The church – one of the last standing moral authorities in the country – is refusing to stay silent on this betrayal of Armenia’s national identity and sovereignty.

It was the church’s response that triggered the crackdown by Armenia’s authorities, Kfoury said.

June 26, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Danish shipping giant Maersk divests from firms linked to Israeli settlements

Press TV – June 25, 2025

Shipping giant Maersk has announced that it will sever business ties with companies linked to the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, citing concerns over complicity in Israel’s genocidal crimes against the Palestinians.

The Danish firm said in a statement on its official website Wednesday that it has tightened its vetting process “in relation to Israeli settlements.”

“Following a recent review of transports related to the West Bank, we further strengthened our screening procedures in relation to Israeli settlements,” read the statement.

It said the company’s decision “addresses only shipments to/from settlements” and is “not about cutting ties with the companies on the OHCHR (the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights) list in general but only related to transport to/from Israeli settlements.”

Maersk has not specified the exact businesses or contracts affected, but the OHCHR database includes businesses involved in various activities related to the settlements, such as providing services, equipment, or financial operations.

The firm’s decision follows a months-long campaign led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which accused it of playing a role in Israel’s military supply chain — including the shipment of weapons components.

Weeks earlier, Maersk shareholders voted at the company’s annual general meeting to review the firm’s involvement in arms shipments to the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Palestinian group welcomed the decision, which it said is a “step toward dismantling complicity in occupation and apartheid.”

“This sends a clear message to the global shipping industry: compliance with international law and basic human rights is not optional. Doing business with Israel’s illegal settlements is no longer viable, and the world is watching to see who follows next,” said PYM’s spokeswoman Aisha Nizar.

She called for further action though, arguing that Maersk still transports goods for the Israeli military, including components of its F-35 warplanes.

“Maersk continues to profit from the genocide of our people – regularly shipping F-35 components used to bomb and massacre Palestinians.”

Nizar said the campaign “will continue to build pressure and mobilize people power until Maersk cuts all ties to genocide and ends the transport of weapons and weapons components to Israel.”

In 2024, Spain banned Maersk ships transporting military goods to Israel from using its ports.

The PYM revealed earlier in June how the Danish firm was using the port of Rotterdam as an essential link in, as it said, a “supply chain of death.”

In response to those findings, Maersk has previously said it upholds a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to active conflict zones.

The PYM urged other logistics and shipping firms to follow suit and cut ties with companies complicit is Israel’s war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

June 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Gaza death toll reaches 84,000 far higher than official counts, new study finds

MEMO | June 25, 2025

A new study has found that at least 75,200 Palestinians were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and January 2025 as a direct result of Israel’s military campaign. This figure is almost 40 per cent higher than the death toll reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health (GMoH) for the same period, which stood at approximately 45,650.

The study, Violent and Nonviolent Death Tolls for the Gaza War: New Primary Evidence, present the results from a large-scale household survey the Gaza Mortality Survey (GMS). It is the most comprehensive and scientifically grounded estimate of war-related deaths in the enclave to date. It also estimates 8,540 excess nonviolent deaths, due to starvation, disease, and the collapse of healthcare systems, bringing the combined toll of the war to nearly 84,000 lives lost.

The research was conducted by an international team of scholars: Michael Spagat (Royal Holloway, University of London), Jon Pedersen (independent), Khalil Shikaki (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research), Michael Robbins (Princeton University), Eran Bendavid (Stanford University), Håvard Hegre (Peace Research Institute Oslo), and Debarati Guha-Sapir (Université Catholique de Louvain).

Based on face-to-face interviews, the study randomly selected 2,000 households across Gaza, representing a population sample of 9,729 individuals. Data were gathered between 30 December 2024 and 5 January 2025, under conditions of extreme violence, displacement, and siege. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research led the fieldwork.

The survey found that 56.2 per cent of violent deaths were among women, children and the elderly, figures that align closely with GMoH reports and counter claims that the ministry has inflated civilian casualties.

By contrast, the study found the GMoH likely undercounted total fatalities, with the official figure falling below even the lower bound of the study’s 95 per cent confidence interval. In absolute terms, the bottom estimate of 63,600 is still more than 17,000 above the GMoH total.

The researchers took additional steps to mitigate bias and account for the massive displacement of Gaza’s population, including statistical raking to match expected demographic distributions and using mobile tracking and live data uploads for verification. The survey also corrected for under-sampled areas like Northern Gaza and Rafah.

Nonviolent deaths, largely from disease, hunger, and denial of medical care, are often overlooked in conflict tolls, but the GMS sets a precedent by offering a grounded estimate. The study calculated that 8,540 of these were “excess” deaths—deaths that would not have occurred under peacetime conditions. Infants were particularly affected: among 357 children born after the war began, four died, indicating extreme neonatal vulnerability.

The authors say their results contradict narratives that cast doubt on Palestinian casualty reports. They found no evidence to support allegations that GMoH has exaggerated figures, and instead concluded that the ministry’s records are conservative. Furthermore, the demographic profile of the dead—mostly civilians—supports broader human rights findings that Israel’s war in Gaza has disproportionately targeted non-combatants.

This study comes as Israel faces a genocide investigation at the International Court of Justice and mounting scrutiny over its conduct in Gaza. The authors say their work lays the foundation for accurate historical reckoning and accountability.

June 25, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Killing scientists’ families is not a strategy but a moral collapse

Israel’s campaign of assassinations has moved beyond military targets — now it’s wiping out families of scientists in their homes, and calling it strategy.

Iranian nuclear scientist Seyyed Mostafa Sadati-Armaki and his family
By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | June 24, 2025

The recent revelation that Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Sadati-Armaki was killed along with his entire family – his wife, two daughters, and son – in an Israeli airstrike should stop even hardened strategists in their tracks. This wasn’t just a precision strike. It was an execution of a household.

Sadati-Armaki was not a senior official. He was a mid-level scientist—an engineer working within Iran’s nuclear framework. That role may have made him a target in the logic of modern conflict. But nothing, not even that logic, can justify killing his children in their own home.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. On June 13, at least five other nuclear scientists were killed in Israeli strikes across Tehran: Fereydoon Abbasi, Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, Abdolhamid Minouchehr, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari Daryani, and Seyed Amir Hossein Feghhi. Their credentials tied them to Iran’s nuclear program. All had played some role, technical or administrative, in Iran’s nuclear development. None were combatants. Most were academics. Some had already retired from state positions.

Crucially, they weren’t alone. In multiple reported cases, family members died alongside them. Wives. Daughters. The daughter of a senior official.

These were not errant missiles landing in crowded urban spaces. These were targeted strikes on homes, in residential areas, at night, when families were together. This isn’t the fog of war. It is its deliberate weaponization. The children didn’t make enrichment policy. The spouses didn’t oversee uranium labs. But they died because of proximity—because they were related to someone deemed dangerous.

To call this “collateral damage” is cowardice. When decision-makers approve a strike on a home, knowing who sleeps inside, the outcome is no longer an accident. It is a choice.

Some argue that in an asymmetrical war, deterrence must be personal. But this is not deterrence—it’s liquidation. It suggests that no civilian life adjacent to state infrastructure is worth preserving. It sends the message that not even scientists’ families will be spared, as if moral limits are luxuries we can no longer afford.

This is not a defense of Iran’s nuclear posture. It is a defense of the basic principle that families—children—cannot be combatants. If we abandon that line, we are not winning anything. We are declaring that fear is stronger than law, that vengeance is smarter than diplomacy.

Killing scientists’ families doesn’t dismantle programs. It doesn’t prevent future threats. It only makes peace more remote and retaliation more likely. What we normalize now, others will imitate later.

This is not strength. It is strategic and moral collapse. And if this is where warfare is headed, then everyone—regardless of nationality—should be deeply, urgently afraid.

June 24, 2025 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Wants Filters Not Freedom

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 21, 2025

Barack Obama’s recent appearance at The Connecticut Forum once again revealed a troubling truth: the political establishment is becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea of government-managed speech.

In an extended conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson, the former president signaled that his tolerance for open discourse ends where his ideological preferences begin.

Amid warnings about the spread of “propaganda” and falsehoods online, Obama floated the notion of imposing “government regulatory constraints” on digital platforms.

His rationale? To counter business models that, in his opinion, elevate “the most hateful voices or the most polarizing voices or the most dangerous, in the sense of inciting violence.”

But it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see what’s really being proposed: a top-down mechanism to filter speech based on government-approved standards of truth.

This wasn’t framed as a direct assault on the First Amendment, of course. Obama was careful to qualify that such regulations would remain “consistent with the First Amendment.”

But that’s little comfort when the very premise involves the government determining which voices deserve a platform. Once the state takes a role in deciding what is true or acceptable, the line between moderation and censorship evaporates.

Obama’s remarks included a reference to a saying he alleges is attributed to Russian intelligence and later adopted by Steve Bannon: “You just have to flood the zone with so much poop…that at some point people don’t believe anything.”

This, he argued, is the tactic used by bad actors to disorient the public. What he failed to acknowledge is that the antidote to this isn’t more control, but more speech. Free people, given access to a full spectrum of views, are capable of discerning fact from fiction without government supervision.

The real danger isn’t “too much speech.” It’s the increasing desire to place speech under bureaucratic management.

Obama’s suggestion that some speech is too “hateful” or “dangerous” to be left unchecked invites a future where those in power decide what the public is allowed to hear, a vision completely incompatible with a free society.

And we’ve already seen how that plays out.

The Biden administration made repeated efforts to coerce tech companies into censoring dissenting views during the COVID-19 pandemic, flagging opinions that contradicted official narratives even when they later turned out to be correct.

The justification was always the same: protecting people from harm. But in practice, it meant silencing lawful speech and punishing disagreement.

Obama’s proposal echoes that same authoritarian instinct.

The promise of safeguarding the public from falsehoods is used to justify speech controls that would ultimately chill dissent and punish deviation from dominant narratives. And who decides which views are “too hateful” or “too polarizing”? Politicians? Bureaucrats? Tech executives? The moment that power is granted, it will inevitably be abused.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

UK seeks to ban Palestine Action over RAF base protest

Al Mayadeen | June 21, 2025

British news outlets on Saturday revealed that the UK government is preparing to ban Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian direct action group, by classifying it as a terrorist organization. This move, spearheaded by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, is expected to be announced in a ministerial statement on Monday and will require parliamentary approval. If enacted, the ban would criminalize membership and support for the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The proposed proscription follows a high-profile protest at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where Palestine Action activists gained access to the military airbase and sprayed red paint on two aircraft. The group described the action as part of a campaign to disrupt the UK’s complicity in “Israel’s” assault on Gaza. “Activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East,” the group said.

Video footage released by the group showed two individuals entering the base at night on electric scooters, with one spraying red paint into the engine of a Voyager aircraft, used to transport British leaders and refuel allied jets. A spokesperson for the group declared: “Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets.”

Though the RAF claimed the damage is being assessed and does not expect major operational disruptions, the incident has sparked a wider security review across UK military bases. The government’s response has drawn criticism for targeting activism rather than addressing its own military entanglements.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the protest as “disgraceful” and labeled it “an act of vandalism,” while counter-terrorism police and the Ministry of Defence continue their investigations.

Disruptive Solidarity

Founded in 2020 by Huda Ammori, a British-Palestinian activist, and Richard Barnard, Palestine Action is known for its non-violent yet disruptive tactics aimed at corporations that profit from the Israeli military-industrial complex.

The group has previously shut down two Elbit Systems-linked arms factories in Oldham and Tamworth and forced companies like Dean Group International to cut contracts with Israeli weapons manufacturers. Their disruptive tactics—ranging from factory occupations and sabotage to sustained divestment pressure, have challenged British institutions to reckon with their role in supplying the machinery of occupation.

Friday’s action at Brize Norton marks one of the group’s most significant actions yet, directly confronting a military base central to the UK’s support operations.

Critics say the proscription is a politically motivated attempt to silence dissent against Britain’s role in arming and supporting “Israel”. “We represent every person who stands for Palestinian liberation. If they want to ban us, they ban us all,” Palestine Action posted on X. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign called the move “outrageous,” defending the group as a non-violent direct action network.

The planned ban raises serious concerns about the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine and the suppression of dissent.

June 21, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel security minister calls to arrest anyone who watches Al Jazeera channel

MEMO | June 20, 2025

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called Thursday for the arrest of anyone watching Al Jazeera TV channel which provides 24 hours coverage of the Israel-Iran conflict, claiming the network poses a “threat” to national security.

He also called to halt Al Jazeera’s broadcasts inside Israel.

Ben-Gvir said, “We will not allow Al Jazeera to broadcast from Israel. It endangers our national security”.

“I call on the public to report anyone who watches Al Jazeera”, said the far-right minister.

Israeli authorities have previously raided Al Jazeera’s offices several times and closed them down.

June 20, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

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