18Dec2024
Protesters want the Biden administration to take steps to dismantle the US deportation system before Trump takes office.
About a hundred immigration activists and supporters met in the shadow of the Liberty Bell on Wednesday to demand that President Joe Biden use his remaining time in office to take apart the nation’s deportation mechanisms.
The demonstration was attended by numerous city officials, but the Mayor was not present.
Frow Workers World:
Among the speakers were representatives of Vietlead, CAIR Philadelphia, AFRICOM (Coalition of African Communities, Philadelphia ), Make the Road Pennsylvania, CASA, Juntos, Philly Muslim Freedom Fund and other activist organizations. Excerpts of letters of imprisoned immigrants were read. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, City Council members Kendra Brooks and Jamie Gauthier and State Representative Chris Rabb made statements.
According to WHYY:
Over the last few weeks, Mayor Cherelle Parker has said Philadelphia is and will be a sanctuary city. Trump has vowed to pull federal funds from sanctuary cities when he takes office.
Good news! Appears that Biden is doing most of what people are asking! He’s strengthening protections for groups of migrants!
The Israeli siege of Gaza is getting increasongly, openly barbaric. A hospital in Northern Gaza is surrounded by Israel soldiers firing live ammunition.
The director of the Indonesian Hospital already stated that the facility had run out of all medical supplies, calling for urgent international action to save the lives of wounded civilians.
The week before this, the Kamal Adwan Hospital had been forcibly evacuated, compelling patients to get themselves to the Indonesian Hospital. There are no other hospitals in Northern Gaza.
“On December 31, eight Israeli government coalition lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee sent a letter to Defense Minister Israel Katz, urging him to intensify the siege of Gaza – not just in the north, but across the territory.”
The piece makes it clear that no life is to remain. The IDF is to destroy energy sources and and any source of food, stored or imported.
“The letter bemoans that Hamas still seems to have a presence in areas that IDF has already “conquered”, and that this is costing Israeli soldiers’ blood.”
This is not surprising as Israel has not tried to bring a pregmatic occupation force to conquered land in Gaza. The way to do that is to provide residents with a government that works to meet their basic needs and to provide security. Without such a pragmatic occupation, as the US learned in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, rebels can always make the case that they can provide what the occupation can’t. Without such pragmatism, no amount of weapons are enough.
A resident of Gaza describes life there under siege and with the winter cold.
Are the problems in Gasza all Biden’s fault? Nah, the Senate is pretty much all-in on brutality towards Palestinians. Senator Sanders tried to get three resolutions passed that would hamper Israel’s war on Gaza. A few Democrats supported the resolutions, but “Most Democrats, however, stood with Republicans in support of the Gaza genocide and providing the weapons Israel needs to carry it out.”
Trump promised to “end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours” and make other moves toward peace. How’s that going?
“…but in the last 24 hours conceded that was not going to happen, & he wants to invade Greenland & Panama, and wants to take over Canada through economic warfare.” So, ehh, not so much.
The US held a measure of leverage over Ukraine, the US could use long-range missiles. Ukraine could keep the misiles on their territory, but until recently couldn’t fire them into Russia at will. The US has recently loosened its rules on that. The real breakthrough though, has been rocket-drone hybrids. They’re halfway between missiles and drones, making Ukraine much less dependent on whether the US President is in the mood to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia. The rocket-drones only carry 100 kilograms of explosive compared to regular cruise missiles carrying 450 kilograms, but a 155mm artillery shell only carries 45 kilograms, meaning a rocket-drone carries over twice that. Also, a rocket-drone only costs about $300k to produce, compared to a Storm Shadow missile, that costs over $1 million apiece.
Also, thanks to the “shell hunger” imposed by the Republican House in early 2024, Ukrainians have developed ways to use everything, defective shells that would normally be disposed of, artillery shells that have long reached their “sell by” date, etc.
How does Trump’s good buddy Putin feel about making compromises for peace? First off, how do we know Putin is Trump’s “good buddy”?
Trump told journalists: “A big part of the problem was Russia, for many many years, long before Putin said, ‘You could never have Nato involved in Ukraine,’ no, like that’s been written in stone.
“Somewhere along the line, Biden said, ‘No they should be allowed to join Nato’.
“Well, then Russia has someone right on their doorstep. I could understand their feelings about that.
Problem with that theory of course, is that Putin made it clear in 2007 that he wanted to reconstitute the Soviet Union. “Russian President Vladimir Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.’”So no, the “deal” that allegedly existed between Russia and Ukraine had no meaning to Putin’s long-range goals.
How do the independent nations surrounding Russia feel about Putin’s “great project”?
Belarus has been run by Alexander Lukashenko since 1994. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has been publishing many photos of opposition rallies and marches. How popular is the opposition under Tsikhanouskaya? Hard to say. “In a country where all media outlets have been destroyed, all parties dissolved and political leaders are either in prison or exiled, fair elections are impossible.” There are elections coming up, but she feels they will be staged. Belarus has been carrying out military exercises, but has not contributed any troops to Russia’s fight against Ukraine, but Lukashenko did agree to host nuclear weapons for Russia.
The Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, became members of NATO in 2004 and have contributed 1.5% to 1.8% of their GDP to Ukraine. Latvia: “Latvia will transfer over 1,000 ‘combat drones of various types’ to Ukraine through the international drone coalition”
Moldova was heavily dependent on Russia for natural gas transmitted through Ukraine until the New Year in 2025. Moldova was late on payments to Russia for gas anyway and has apparently failed to prepare for the cut-off of Russian gas. Ukraine has offered to supply Moldova with coal to keep its power plant running.
The US public last heard of troubles in Georgia back during 2008, when in a brief fight, Russia clashed with Georgian forces over the two rebellious provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia quickly prevailed and the younger George Bush found that no one would cooperate in letting him start up a war over the issue.In November of last year, the Georgia Dream Party apparently won a decisive electoral victory. Opposition figures quickly noticed many problems and began raising questions.The real problem that set off mass demonstrations was the Dream Party putting off Georgia’s membership in the European Union indefinitely.
The Bluesky contributor Marika Mikiashvili has done a good deal to document the rebellion in Georgia, noting recently that the Dream Party “can’t even get hotels and restaurants to serve their occasions,” the former President Zourabichvili can get service anytime she likes. She quotes Republican Reprsentative Joe Wilson, who represents the International Friends of Georgia and, like the Georgian demonstrators, calls for free and fair elections and for sanctions against the current ruling party.The blogger Adam L Silverman regularly features the latest news on Georgia’s battle against a pro-Russian government that has lost all credibility with the people.
Countries of Central Asia that used to belong in the Soviet Union have shown an interest in profiting off of smuggling advanced military components from the West into Russia, but have otherwise shown little interest in Putin’s idea of reassembling back into the country that existed for much of the 20th Century.
To sum up, the further away a European country is from Russia, the less they’re committed to helping Ukraine. Spain, Portugal and Ireland are like “Ehh, we’ll help just because we’re members of NATO.” The Baltic States, Poland and Finland are like “Yes! Yes! Whatever Ukraine needs! Let’s get it to them NOW!”
So was Russia provoked into attacking Ukraine because Ukraine threatened to join NATO? Or was Putin trying to carry out his 2007 resolution to restore the territories lost to the Soviet Union’s demise back to the embrace of Mother Russia? Seems to me that, as an independent state, Ukraine can make alliances with whomever they please without having to ask the nearest great military power what it thinks. No, Trump is wrong. He gives his good buddy Putin too much credence.
Trump will make history this January 20th by being the first one to take the presidential oath office as a convicted felon. He was sentenced in his New York state charge of “falsifying business records related to a $130,000 hush money payment his then-personal lawyer paid porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts has often been considered a faithless “conservative” who often sides with liberals. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett was an unpleasant surprise to right-wingers as she was the decisive fifth vote to refused to prevent Judge Marchan from sentencing Trump. NJConservative says she needs to resign. The Xitter guy who calls himself “Catturd” was VERY upset! He calls her “Amy Commie Barrett,” whatta wit, huh? The fellow he quotes calls her a “closet liberal.”
The Greater Los Angeles fire! State Farm and several other insurance companies had opted out of the city’s region a few months earlier. Thanks to a law in California, homeowners were not left without recourse, but the trend of private insurance companies dropping Greater Los Angeles policies was obvious well before the blaze began. This piece takes a look at the science behind human-caused climate change.
California had a twenty-year drought that ended two years ago. The plentiful rainfall since then caused a lot of shrubs and greenery to spring up. Then, this spring, summer and fall turned extremely dry. The December rains did not come. Usually there would have been 4 inches by early January. It was under an inch. That water would have tamped down the fire risk. Then, the Santa Ana winds blowing west through the mountains were unusually strong and hot, and hit places they usually missed.
Interesting comment from the incoming Border Czar:
“They know exactly who they’re going to arrest. They know exactly where they’re probably likely to find them…”
Erm…uh…”exactly where they’re probably”? Huh? It’s also never been clear why any special programs or permissions were needed to go after people that we already knew were breaking the law. If there are criminals among unauthorized migrants, we don’t need large camps for them. The justice system as it is should be plenty. If the Trump Administration needs to construct camps. Has they dropped the idea of camps or have they simply gone quiet on the issue? “a Trump ally told [Rolling Stone]. ‘Apparently some people think it makes us look like Nazis.’” Why yes. Yes, it does. Senior members of Trump’s team were concerned that “their candidate — the once and future leader of the free world — appear extreme and borderline fascistic” Uh, yes. Yes, he certainly did.
When you have an old computer program or any sort of technology that you’re planning to replace, you call the old stuff your “legacy” model. I’ve seen several blogs dropping the name “mainstream media” and instead referring to it as “legacy media.” Angered by the WaPo’s failure to endorse anyone for President, the quitting of a longtime political cartoonist and facing more business failures, the WaPo is losing scores of employees.
CNN host Jake Tapper displayed why the legacy media is so useless. He interviewed Senator Katie Britt, who told him that Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi no longer believes that the 2020 election was stolen. Instead of asking when exactly, Bondi decided this, y’know, was this a “confirmation conversion”? Britt just danced around the issue and Tapper obligingly went on to the next subject.
Archived Photoessays 
Leave a comment