Fealty To Israel Or To The 1st Amendment?

One branch of the corporate duopoly taunts while bullying. The other wing puts a polite face on bullying tactics.

Which kind of political speech is more dangerous: consistent speech which might lead to illegal activity or inconsistent speech characterized by taking extreme positions that are walked back shortly thereafter? For example, as is being reported widely: "U.S. president says 'nobody is expelling Palestinians from Gaza,' reversing earlier comments on emptying the war-torn territory of its population," per Al Jazeera.

Put another way, do elected officials have an obligation to uphold the 1st Amendment's constitutional guarantee of free speech even if they don't agree with the speaker? For example, does NO OTHER LAND come under 1st amendment protection even if it angers Zionists? From the Miami Herald:

The mayor of Miami Beach is proposing to terminate a lease agreement and discontinue thousands of dollars in financial support for an independent film theater after it screened an Oscar-winning documentary about the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank.

Most readers of this blog are aware by now that Columbia University student leader Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE, handcuffed, and spirited away in an unmarked car. (See Mint Press News for info on Columbia administration ties to Israel.) His wife, a U.S. citizen, was for days unable to locate her husband, a permanent resident green card holder. After being told her spouse was not being held in New Jersey where she tried to visit him, she learned that he was actually sent to an ICE prison in Louisiana. Cruelty for cruelty's sake?

47's administration admits that Khalil is not accused of any crime.

We're fortunate to have investigative journalists working independent of corporate media risking their own safety by digging into the truth. Matt Taibbi in particular has been on the free speech beat for years, regularly angering partisans on both sides who want to censor and suppress views they don't agree with. That Taibbi believed the freedom of speech talk but now notes that 47 isn't walking the walk isn't too surprising; previously he expressed the belief that the elongated muskrat would defend free speech, too. Naivete aside, Taibbi is consistent in pointing out that if you censor speech you don't like when your side is in power, you should expect to be censored when your side is out of power.

That isn't the way the 1st Amendment has been interpreted by the courts, and that is relevant to Khalil's case because the Supremes ruled back in 1945 that non-citizens residing in the U.S. have the same free speech rights as birthright citizens. Even -- gasp -- communists!

But in 2025 the executive branch of the federal government claims this does not apply if the non-citizen is "aligned with Hamas" whatever the fuck that means.

How about NO OTHER LAND -- is it "aligned" with Hamas? It depicts brutal Israeli occupation that might remind us of Gaza, but it takes place in Masafer Yatta which is in the West Bank. 

It's easy to see what a slippery slope the prosecution of thought crimes and potential thought crimes can be.

From Justin Paladino's Drop Site post on the legal details of Khalil's abduction:

Below is a timeline of Khalil’s contact with his legal team. We will update the story when more information becomes available on the legal team’s phone call with Khalil.

March 7, 6:46 AM: Mahmoud Khalil writes an email to Columbia University’s president describing the doxing campaign and fear he would be targeted by ICE.

March 8, 8:26 PM: Khalil calls his lawyer Amy Greer to inform her he is surrounded by DHS agents. Greer asks the agent, Elvin Hernandez, if he has a warrant, and he eventually hangs up.

March 8, 8:34 PM: Khalil’s wife, Noor, calls a lawyer, says DHS has him in handcuffs. She asks if agents have a warrant, no response. Asks where they are taking him, eventually saying to 26 Federal Plaza, the USCIS District Office.

March 9, 3:20 AM: ICE moves Khalil from New York to Elizabeth Detention Facility in New Jersey

March 9, 4:40 AM: Khalil’s lawyer files habeas petition in New York court, unaware that her client was relocated from New York to New Jersey.

March 9, 8:30 AM: ICE database still shows Khalil’s location as New York, despite him having been transferred hours earlier. Sometime after 9 AM, the locator changes to Elizabeth, New Jersey.

March 9, 11:20 AM: Khalil’s wife, Noor, visits the Elizabeth facility, only to be told he isn’t showing up in the system.

March 9, 11:30 AM: Khalil departs Elizabeth facility en route to airport.

March 9, 1:47 PM: ICE emails Khalil’s lawyer stating he is being transferred to New Orleans

March 9, 5:18 PM: The Assistant United States Attorney emails Khalil’s lawyer saying based on information and belief Khalil is deportable.

March 9-10, overnight: Khalil arrives in Louisiana “late in the evening Sunday night, early Monday morning,” according to AUSA in transcript, and is booked into the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center.

March 10, 12:33 AM: Khalil is booked into Central Louisiana ICE Processing Facility.

March 10, 9:36 AM: Khalil calls his wife and tells her he is Louisiana, the first time they've let him call since arrest.

March 10, 10:17 AM: Khalil calls his lawyer, confirms he is in Jena, LA. The call gets cut off prematurely.

March 12, 8:30 PM: Khalil has a lengthy call with his legal team. Another is scheduled for Thursday.

I think we all understand that Khalil is the canary in the coal mine. 

Cornell Coalition for Mutual Liberation released this photo as the spring semester commenced. "Occupation = death" and "Divest from Death" are of course alleged to be antisemitic.

47's Department of Education is still operating doing the important work of investigating 60 U.S. universities for their failure to suppress pro-Palestinian speech also known as the new definition of "antisemitism."

This is clearly intended to instill fear and anticipatory compliance, providing the underpinning for the cowardly behavior of my alma mater this week. An ad hoc committee there responded to the Bowdoin Solidarity Referendum -- which passed by super majority last May -- with a shameful declaration that they will not divest from Israel or in weapons used to enact genocide. From the Bowdoin Orient quoting the committee's findings:

“There is understandable curiosity around specific investments and strategies within the endowment, but given the confidentiality restrictions and the endowment’s outsourced manager model [emphasis mine], transparency along these lines is ill-advised and is, in many cases, simply not possible.”

I'm guess having Epstein-aligned finance fat cats on the board of trustees over the years has created this very shield to hide behind.

Thing is, you can't hide from moral obligations in the face of genocide. You can only try to muzzle those who point them out.

Do you still want to point them out in the face of threats to your freedom? Join me and Jewish Voice for Peace in sending messages to your members of Congress demanding Khalil's immediate release.

Created In 2003, ICE Is The New Gestapo -- How Will We Stop Their Crimes Against Humanity?

My sister posted this photo of the young woman murdered by border patrol with the comment, "Looks really threatening, huh?" Maybe it's because I've been reading I, Rigoberta Menchú recently, but I can totally understand why a traditionally dressed young woman from Guatemala with a sober expression on her face is perceived as a threat by the violent patriarchy that rules the U.S.

Image: GoodReads

Women in Central America, especially women from indigenous cultures, have mounted decades of serious resistance to right wing governments and the thieving corporations they enable.

So, the kleptocracy ascendant here in the USA rightly fears indigenous women.


Note that I am not in any way excusing the murder of Claudia Gómez by ICE. 

The death, which her boyfriend waiting for her in the U.S. called "an assassination," was reported by Molly Hennessy-Fiske in the Los Angeles Times. The story includes an interview with a witness on the scene, amateur videographer Marta Martinez, who sees people running and hiding from ICE in her Texas neighborhood all the time.

Something interesting I learned today from sister activist Jessica Stewart:

ICE was only created in 2003, as part of the US's post-9/11 hyper-militarized, xenophobic frenzy.

We didn't have this department 16 years ago, we do not need it, and we should abolish it immediately. 

I do not say this lightly: ICE is America's gestapo and we should treat them with that level of serious resistance.

Ms. Gómez’s family in Guatemala City

Her aunt had this to say about the death of her niece, as reported by Sofia Menchu for Reuters:

“To the government of the United States,

(I ask) that you do not treat us like this, like animals, just because you are a powerful and developed country,” 

Dominga Vicente, Gómez’s aunt, told reporters in Guatemala City. The young woman from the Guatemalan highlands had left her home in search of work and education opportunities, Vicente said.

From the YouTube post of Martinez's video:

Gómez Gonzáles was a Maya-Mam indigenous woman and had reportedly graduated from a program in forensic accounting in 2016. She had hoped to further her education, her father, Gilberto Gómez, told the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre. 

Lidia Gonzáles, the woman’s mother, told a local news channel that the family didn’t have enough money for her daughter to continue her studies. “She told me she wanted to keep studying at university but we don’t have the money,” Gonzáles said, according to a translation by The Guardian. “We’re poor and there are no jobs here. That’s why she traveled to the U.S. But they killed her. Immigration killed her.” 

Back to the Gestapo theme.

Did Nazi Germany as a "powerful and developed country" treat Jews, including young women and children, as animals? Unless you're a child yourself, you know full well that they did.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has achieved infamy by telling reporters for NPR that separating families is a effective deterrent to asylum seekers, and that it's not cruel because the minor children are “put into foster care or whatever.”


Did you think as you learned about the Holocaust: If I had been living in Europe at that time in history I would have resisted with all the resources I had available to me? Well, here we are now.

More from Jessica Stewart:

Who is following recent news about Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)? For those of us who are citizens, what if it were your kids or my kids? What would you or I want people to do? 

1. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced that for families seized by ICE, children will be separated from their parents in detention with no word on when they will be reuinted (more here: http://time.com/526…/jeff-sessions-illegal-border-separated/) 

2. Of the 7,000+ children that ICE has captured from their families, 1,475 are unaccounted for. Gone. And this is only the first report, numbers may be much higher. (More here: http://time.com/5256734/government-missing-migrant-children/) 

3. Documents obtained by the ACLU show massive horrific abuse of children in ICE custody, including kicking a child in the ribs, running over a 17 year old with a patrol car, sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl in a search, and detaining a 4 pound premature baby and her mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people. (More here: https://www.aclusandiego.org/civil-rights-civil-liberties/) 

4. ICE plans to destroy records of immigrant abuse, including sexual assault and deaths in custody (From an August 2017 report, more here: https://www.aclu.org/…/ice-plans-start-destroying-records-i…) 

Here's reporting from Curt Prendergast and Perla Trevizo for the Arizona Daily Star:

Alma Jacinto covered her eyes with her hands as tears streamed down her cheeks.

The 36-year-old from Guatemala was led out of the federal courtroom without an answer to the question that brought her to tears: When would she see her boys again?

Jacinto wore a yellow bracelet on her left wrist, which defense lawyers said identifies parents who are arrested with their children and prosecuted in Operation Streamline, a fast-track program for illegal border crossers.

Image: Facebook post by Jeanne Morales, an immigration attorney in Texas

Anne Frank and her family were deemed illegal border crossers, forced to wear badges on their clothing identifying them as Jews and criminals.

One thing you can do: teach Holocaust history, which many young people in the U.S. are completely ignorant about. 

Photo by Henryk Ross "Children being transported to Chelmno nad Nerem (renamed Kulmhof) death camp." 

You can also join or donate to the ACLU to support the legal fight against ICE detention and separation of families. Or find other organizations to support that are battling ICE forces of evil.

You could write to the kleptocrats in Congress and the White House for all the good it will do (note that Obama's record on immigrant detentions and deportations was also abysmal). 

You can also write letters to the editor, which are free and reach thousands of people daily. 

Spread the news!!!