Ben Mauk

Just to reiterate: What this administration is doing right now is orders of magnitude more dangerous for academic freedom and free speech than anything the right has spent the last 30 years complaining about.

Lawyers question legality of Alligator Alcatraz, ask federal judge to intervene “This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” pl...

“‘This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,’ they argued.”

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Vermont school superintendent detained after trip to Nicaragua Wilmer Chavarria, the superintendent of the Winooski School District, was held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection while returning to the country after visiting family.

“You feel like you’ve been abducted by a gang of aggressive, violent people who are trying to manipulate you and who are lying to you. And while you are being abducted, you know that these people are capable of doing anything to you because they don’t care.”

Flieger gestartet: Merz-Regierung schiebt trotz Taliban-Herrschaft nach Afghanistan ab Trotz der verheerenden Menschenrechtssituation in Afghanistan schiebt die Bundesregierung Dutzende Personen dorthin ab. Asyl-Organisationen schlagen Alarm.

Flieger gestartet: Merz-Regierung schiebt trotz Taliban-Herrschaft nach Afghanistan ab
Trotz der verheerenden Menschenrechtssituation in Afghanistan schiebt die Bundesregierung Dutzende Personen dorthin ab. Asyl-Organisationen schlagen Alarm.
www.fr.de/politik/merz...

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ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court ICE attorneys fighting to deport immigrants are able to obscure their identities — no masks required.

In @theintercept.com, Debbie Nathan reports on ICE lawyers refusing to give their names in court - and immigration judges going along with it.

theintercept.com/2025/07/15/i...

Law is fake, power is real.

Israeli airstrike kills at least 10, including six children, at Gaza water station, say health officials Nine killed in separate bombing of a home on Sunday and 31 others shot dead near aid distribution site on Saturday

An Israeli airstrike just killed 10 people—six of them kids—as they stood in line for water. Yesterday 31 more Palestinians were shot dead while trying to reach an aid distribution site.

This is what our tax dollars continue to fund. And most of the country couldn't care less.

Another ICE "assault" case unravels. Border Patrol and ICE are arresting US citizens and then after they find out that they are US citizens, they are charging them with "assault" to justify their actions. This is clearly DHS policy at this point. We've seen it repeatedly now.

Trucks Entering Alligator Alcatraz Are Hiding Their Logos, DOT Numbers The contractors are illegally covering up the USDOT numbers on their trucks.

NEW: The contractors working at Alligator Alcatraz are illegally covering up the USDOT numbers on their trucks.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha says he’s been suspended from Substack, a platform where white supremacists publish without issue. I can’t recall this happening to any prominent writers in the past.

Boston Consulting Group is consulting on how to ethnically cleanse hundreds of millions of Palestinians.

Genocide is done through consulting firms now.

Raubkunsteklat um Tänzerinnen-Brunnen im Berliner Kolbe Museum Die Uneinsichtigkeit des Museums: Georg Kolbes berühmter Tänzerinnen-Brunnen, für den in Theresienstadt getöteten Heinrich Stahl geschaffen, bleibt um seine dunkle Geschichte betrogen. Der Begriff „NS...

Das unlängst vom Antisemitismus-Fonds des Berliner Senats geförderte Georg-Kolbe-Museum zeigt eine Skulptur, die die Nazis einst dem jüdischen Ehepaar Heinrich und Jenny Stahl geraubt haben – nur eben ohne Hinweis auf NS-Raubkunst. Keine Pointe.
www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

Updates: Hamas sends ‘positive’ response on ceasefire, Israel kills 50 These were the updates from Israel’s war on Gaza for Friday, July 4, 2025.

“Whomever got a bag of flour, got shot in the head. The bags of flour were all over the ground. Covered in blood,” said a #MSF worker, who survived latest Israeli massacre at aid site in Khan Younis aje.io/xoi4su?updat...

Every time I go to a U.S.-run ‘aid’ center in Gaza, I know I might not come back I have risked my life to get food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation centers in Gaza, where Israel opens fire on aid seekers from every direction. I have an impossible choice: slow death from…

"I still hear the gunshots in my head. I still see Ahmad's face before he fell."

"But hunger doesn't care — it comes back every morning."

"I was caught between two impossible choices: slow death from hunger, or gambling my life for the chance of survival."
#Gaza #Palestine #Israel #USA #Genocide

This Is the Worst Phase of the Gaza Genocide With aid deliveries being limited severely since March, Palestinians are facing extreme levels of starvation, isolation and murder by Israel.

"This is the worst stage of the genocide in Gaza."

"We have run out of energy, food, and basic necessities."

"The massacres are relentless and nonstop. Emotionally and materially, we are unable to go on."
#Gaza #Palestine #Israel #Genocide

BS: How was that? How long were you in jail? MM: One night. They let you make one phone call, and I called the Ugandan Ambassador in Washington, DC, talked to him, and he said, “What are you doing interfering in the affairs of a foreign country?” I said, “What? We just got our independence! This is the same struggle. Have you forgotten?” Anyway, he got me out. Two or three weeks later, I was in my room. There was a knock at the door. Two gentlemen in trench coats and hats said, “FBI.” I thought, “Wow, just like on television.” They sat down. They were there to find out why I had gone – because this turned out to be big – it is after Montgomery that King organized his march on Selma. They wanted to know who had influenced me. After one hour of probing, the guy said, “Do you like Marx?” I said, “I haven’t met him.” Guy said, “No, no, he’s dead.” “Wow, what happened?” “No, no, he died long ago.” I thought the guy Marx had just died. So then, “Why are you asking me if he died long ago?” “No, he wrote a lot. He wrote that poor people should not be poor.” I said, “Sounds amazing.” I’m giving you a sense of how naïve I was. After they left, I went to the library to look for Marx. So that was my introduction to Karl Marx.

rare W for COINTELPRO from a legendary conversation between Bhakti Shringarpure and Mahmood Mamdani (h/t Silke-Marie Weineck)

He's as bad as Biden!

time.com/3394403/shyl...

The latter terms fall within the normal language of reporting and analysis. I don't have any of my style guides on hand, but come on, "enemy"?

Trump refers to bankers as "shylocks"

Does the NYT routinely describe China and the US as enemies (as opposed to "adversaries," "rivals," etc.)? China is the USA's third-largest trading partner and the countries are not at war.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/w...

chart shows that under the bill, people making under $30,000 pay more in taxes, and millionaires pay substantially less.

The Joint Committee on Taxation is up late and busts out this striking distributional analysis of the Senate bill on taxes:

74 killed in Gaza as Israeli forces strike cafe and fire on people seeking food Air strikes left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire killed 23 others as Palestinians tried to get desperately-needed food, witnesses and health officials said

"Air strikes left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire killed 23 others as Palestinians tried to get desperately-needed food, witnesses and health officials said."

www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-4...

Zohran Mamdani's all but certain upset in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City reverberated from the five boroughs across the nation on Wednesday, as the political system acquainted itself with a startling new reality. The primary results were not expected to be finalized until next Tuesday. But attention almost immediately turned to November's general election and to the impact a far-left Democratic mayoral nominee could have on midterm races across the country.

It's so bizarre to see the Times describe Zohran as "far left" when they would never use "far right" to describe Trump and his MAGA goons, even as the latter are currently destroying the political structures and assumptions that have anchored America for nearly a century

first we take Manhattan and then we take Berlin

Remember, this new normal -- in which gangs of masked armed gunmen are causing chaos in the streets, pulling weapons and assaulting innocent people, and no one can say if they're crooks or cops -- was all sold to Americans as a way to make us feel safer.

When my friends abroad ask how the US funds the arts, I like to give a fun set of numbers for comparison: Last year the NYPD paid $305m in legal settlements. The budget for the entire National Endowment for the Arts was $205m. One police department in a single major city paid 50% more in legal fees.

Kristi L. Noem Harvard flouted the rules. Now, it’s getting a hard lesson.

Jeff Bezos: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

Today's Washington Post opinion page:

A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Show the Limits of China’s Power

Super weird article. It (rightly) questions the cohesion of the so-called Axis of Upheaval and notes that China could “gain if the United States gets roped into a prolonged war” but leaves that thought unexamined www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/w...

Israel’s Crimes of the Century How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law.

"In its annihilative force and ambition, the Israeli campaign is unique among modern conflicts. In fact, the term 'war crime' is not even adequate for what's happening in Gaza."

A searing, essential piece by Suzy Hansen: