Police officers investigate the scene where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in Midtown Manhattan near a hotel on 54th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues on December 04, 2024 in New York, United States.
(Photo by Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“You don’t have to sanction murder to see why so many Americans detest health insurance corporations who prioritize profit goals by routinely creating arbitrary reasons to deny patient needs,” said one labor movement voice.
The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside of a Manhattan hotel Wednesday has sparked a wave of dark humor and fresh fury at the for-profit U.S. healthcare system.
The barbs at UnitedHealthcare—the country’s largest private insurer—included a mock denial of coverage letter posted to the subreddit r/nursing in a thread on Thompson’s murder.
“We regret to inform you that your request for coverage has been denied,” the letter reads. “Our records indicate that you failed to obtain prior authorization before seeking care for the gunshot wound to your chest.” The Daily Beastreported a spoof rejection letter was also posted to a since closed thread on r/medicine.
Police are in their third day searching for Thompson’s killer, who shot the healthcare executive multiple times in front of a Hilton hotel in Midtown before fleeing the scene. The New York Police Department has released an image that shows a man authorities deem “a person of interest wanted for questioning” in connection to the Wednesday killing, perCNN. The image was captured at a hostel in Manhattan, according to CNN, citing law enforcement.
The words “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” were found written on the ammunition used by the gunman, three words that partially echo the title of the book Delay, Deny, Defend, which details how the insurance industry avoids paying claims.
In the comment section of Common Dreams’ coverage of the murder, one commenter wrote: “I guess if you steal people’s labor and deny them healthcare in order to line your own pockets, you might occasionally expect retaliation.” Another wrote: “For-profit healthcare is unethical and immoral.”
“Thoughts and deductibles to the family,” read one comment below a video of the shooting posted by CNN, according to The New York Times. “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”
One woman whose mother with Stage 4 breast cancer was forced to battle insurance to get new treatments approved toldNew York magazine that she experienced “a little surge of Schadenfreude,” when she heard of Thompson’s death.
“UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson was just 50 years old at the time of his murder, which is a lot more tragic when you know that his life expectancy as a member of the Top 1% was 88, or 15 years longer than the life expectancy of the average American male,” wrote journalist and editor Moe Tkacik on X. Later, in a piece for The American Prospect, Tkacik framed the situation like this: “Only about 50 million customers of America’s reigning medical monopoly might have a motive to exact revenge upon the UnitedHealthcare CEO.”
Others said that the reaction to the murder was an indication that the Democratic Party ought to embrace economic populism and end its close association with corporate power.
“The mass reaction to the healthcare CEO’s murder is a reminder that there is a constant deadly class war being waged against working-class Americans. If Dems ditched their billionaires and fully joined the side of the working class in that struggle they would easily win FDR-style majorities,” said the political commentator Krystal Ball.
Charles Idelson, former communications strategist for National Nurses United, said that “you don’t have to sanction murder to see why so many Americans detest health insurance corporations who prioritize profit goals by routinely creating arbitrary reasons to deny patient needs.”
“It’s not unique to UnitedHealth,” he added.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks alongside Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) during a news conference to announce the re-introduction of the Medicare For All Act of 2023 on May 17, 2023 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“The most efficiently run healthcare systems in the world,” said National Nurses United, “have been proven time and time again to be single-payer systems.”
Two of the United States’ most outspoken critics of the for-profit health system welcomed billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s criticism of the country’s sky-high healthcare spending—and suggested that Musk, a potential Cabinet member in the incoming Trump administration, join the call for Medicare for All.
A social media post by Musk drew the attention of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who reintroduced legislation to expand Medicare coverage to every American last year and have long called for the for-profit healthcare system to be replaced by a government-run program, or single-payer system, like those in every other wealthy country in the world.
“Shouldn’t the American people be getting getting their money’s worth?” asked Musk, posting a graph from the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation that showed how per capita administrative healthcare costs in the U.S. reached $1,055 in 2020—hundreds of dollars more than countries including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
“Yes,” said Sanders, repeating statistics he has frequently shared while condemning the country’s $4.5 trillion health system in which private, for-profit health insurance companies increasingly refuse to pay for healthcare services and Americans pay an average of $1,142 in out-of-pocket expenses each year.
“We waste hundreds of billions a year on healthcare administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured,” the senator added. “Healthcare is a human right. We need Medicare for All.”
Jayapal added that she has “a solution” to exorbitant healthcare costs in the U.S.: “It’s called Medicare for All.”
Musk has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a new federal agency that he wants to create called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Sanders has expressed support for some of the agency’s mission, saying its plan to “cut wasteful expenditures” could be put to use at the Department of Defense, which has repeatedly failed audits of its annual spending.
But Sanders has sharply criticized the economic system and business practices that have helped make Musk the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $343.8 billion.
Another progressive, David Sirota of The Lever, suggested last month that DOGE could be used to eliminate the nation’s vast health insurance bureaucracy and replace it with Medicare for All, pointing to a 2020 report from the Republican-controlled Congressional Budget Office that showed that a government-run healthcare program would save the country an estimated $650 billion each year.
“Such a system could achieve this in part because Medicare’s 2% administrative costs are so much lower than the 17% administrative costs of the bureaucratic, profit-extracting private health insurance industry,” wrote Sirota.
Musk drew the attention of Medicare for All advocates amid online discussion about the greed of for-profit insurance giants.
The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday prompted discussion about widespread anger over the U.S. healthcare system, and following public outcry, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield on Thursday backtracked on a decision to stop paying for surgical anesthesia if a procedure goes beyond a certain time limit. The American Society of Anesthesiologists said that if Anthem stopped fully paying doctors who provide pain management for complicated surgeries, patients would be left paying hundreds or thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.
National Nurses United, which advocates for a government-run healthcare system, urged Musk and others who support the broadly popular proposal to “join the movement to win Medicare for All.”
“The most efficiently run healthcare systems in the world,” said the group, “have been proven time and time again to be single-payer systems.”
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Emphasizing that the Equal Rights Amendment is the only proposed constitutional amendment that has yet to be certified, 46 U.S. senators have joined the growing national call for President Joe Biden to ensure the proposed statute is part of the Constitution when he leaves office in January.
Reporting on the letter on Tuesday, the Virginia-based publication Style Weekly noted that the state’s two Democratic senators—Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine—joined almost the entire Democratic caucus in sending the letter to Biden on November 22. Independent Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont signed the letter, but Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), who also caucuses with the Democrats, did not.
The ERA was passed by Congress in 1972, and was immediately ratified by 35 states. It took nearly five decades for the amendment to be ratified by three-fourths of U.S. state legislatures, with Virginia becoming the 38th state to ratify it in 2020.
Despite the amendment meeting the ratification requirements, Biden has yet to direct the national archivist, Colleen Shogan, to certify the ERA and publish it in the Federal Register, which would formally cement it as part of the U.S. Constitution.
Once published, the amendment would guarantee legal equality between men and women, and reproductive rights advocates have said it could be invoked by judges to overturn anti-abortion rights laws that have been passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country—an urgent issue as President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in office with a GOP-controlled Congress draws near.
“As you are keenly aware,” wrote the senators, “after nearly 50 years under the protections of Roe, more than half of all Americans have seen their rights come under attack, with access to abortion care and lifesaving healthcare varying from state to state. A federal solution is needed, and the ERA is the strongest tool to ensure equality and protect these rights for everyone. It would establish the premise that sex-based distinctions in access to reproductive care are unconstitutional, and therefore that abortion bans—which single out women for unfair denial of medical treatment based on sex—violate a constitutional right to sex equality.”
The senators noted that state-level equal rights amendments have already been used in Connecticut, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Nevada to protect against “legislative infringements on women’s reproductive freedom.”
The letter was reported ahead of a virtual town hall scheduled for Tuesday at 7:00 pm ET, when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is scheduled to speak about the ERA.
The town hall was organized by the Biden Publish the ERA Alliance, which consists of 20 non-partisan advocacy groups including Doctors for America, Free Speech for People, and the League of Women Voters.
Organizers are also planning rallies in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and next week.
Kati Hornung, co-founder of Vote Equality U.S. and a leader in the grassroots effort that pushed Virginia to ratify the ERA, told Style Weekly that Biden “campaigned on fixing our constitutional gender equality gap and his campaign even requested to speak at a VAratifyERA event in 2019.”
“He is running out of time to tell the national archivist, Colleen Shogan, to do her job,” she said. “One hundred seventy million women and girls have been waiting 101 years for this amendment to be added and with the increased threats to our LGBTQIA+ family and friends, there is no excuse for leaving us all unprotected.”
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Some critics accuse the BDS movement of antisemitism,[15][16][17] a charge the movement denies, calling it an attempt to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism. The Israel lobby in the United States has made opposing BDS one of its top priorities.[18] Since 2015, the Israeli government has spent millions of dollars to promote the view that BDS is antisemitic and have it legally banned in foreign countries.[19] Multiple countries and the majority of U.S. states have passed anti-BDS laws.
Area C (blue), the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control, in 2011
Many authors trace BDS’s origins to the NGO Forum at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in South Africa (Durban I).[20] At the forum, Palestinian activists met with anti-apartheid veterans who identified parallels between Israel and apartheid South Africa and recommended campaigns like those they had used to defeat apartheid.[21] The forum adopted a document that contained many ideas that would later reappear in the 2005 BDS Call; Israel was proclaimed an apartheid state that engaged in human rights violations through the denial of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, the occupation of the Palestinian territories, and discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel. The declaration recommended comprehensive sanctions and embargoes against Israel as the remedy.[22]
In March 2002, while the Israeli army reoccupied all major Palestinian cities and towns and imposed curfews, a group of prominent Palestinian scholars published a letter calling for help from the “global civil society”. The letter asked activists to demand that their governments suspend economic relations with Israel in order to stop its campaign of apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing.[23] In April 2002, Steven and Hilary Rose, professors at the Open University and the University of Bradford, initiated a call for a moratorium on academic collaboration with Israeli institutions.[24] It quickly racked up over 700 signatories,[25][26] among them Colin Blakemore and Richard Dawkins, who said they could no longer “in good conscience continue to cooperate with official Israeli institutions, including universities.”[27] Similar initiatives followed in the summer.[28]
In August, Palestinian organizations in the occupied territories issued a call for a comprehensive boycott of Israel.[28] The majority of the statements recalled the declarations made at the NGO Forum the year before.[29] In October 2003, a group of Palestinian intellectuals called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.[28] Attempts to coordinate the boycotts in a more structured way led to the formation of the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in April 2004.[30][29]
Colin Shindler argues that the Oslo peace process‘s failure created a political void that allowed what had been a marginal rejectionist attitude to Israel to enter the European far-left mainstream in the form of proposals for a boycott.[31]Rafeef Ziadah also attributes BDS to the peace process’s failure. She argues that BDS represents a rejection of the peace process paradigm of equalizing both sides in favor of seeing the situation as a colonial conflict between a native population and a settler-colonial state supported by Western powers.[32]
These demands, enshrined in a declaration named the BDS Call, are non-negotiable to BDS.[40] Co-founder of the movement Omar Barghouti, citing South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, has written: “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”[41] Barghouti has also written:[42]
Ending the largely discernible aspects of Israeli occupation while maintaining effective control over most of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967 “in return” for Palestinians’ accepting Israel’s annexation of the largest colonial blocks … has become the basic formula for the so-called peaceful settlement endorsed by the world’s hegemonic powers and acquiesced to by an unelected, unrepresentative, unprincipled, and visionless Palestinian ‘leadership.’ The entire spectrum of Zionist parties in Israel and their supporters in the West, with few exceptions, ostensibly accept this unjust and illegal formula as the “only offer” on the table for the Palestinians—or else the menacing Israeli bludgeon.
BDS sees itself as a movement for all Palestinians, whether they live in the diaspora or in historical Palestine.[43] BDS believes that negotiations with Israel should focus on “how Palestinian rights can be restored” and that they can only take place after Israel has recognized these rights. It frames the Israel-Palestinian conflict as between colonizer and colonized, between oppressor and oppressed, and rejects the notion that both parties are equally responsible for the conflict.[44] For those reasons, BDS opposes some forms of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, which it argues are counterproductive.[45]
According to BDS, “all forms of international intervention and peace-making until now have failed” and so the international community should impose punitive measures, such as broad boycotts and divestment initiatives, against Israel, like those against South Africa during apartheid.[46]
BDS uses the framework of “freedom, justice, and equality”, arguing that Palestinians are entitled to those rights like everyone else. It is therefore an antiracist movement and rejects all forms of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.[47][48] More generally, BDS frames itself as part of a global social movement that challenges neoliberal Western hegemony and struggles against racism, sexism, poverty and similar causes. Its struggle for Palestinian rights should be seen as a small but critical part of that struggle, BDS argues.[49]
One of the main differences between South African and Israeli apartheid, BDS argues, is that in the former a white minority dominated a black minority, but in Israel, a Jewish majority discriminates against a Palestinian minority in Israel and also keeps Palestinians under military occupation. It further contends that South African apartheid depended on black labor while Israeli apartheid is grounded in efforts to expel Palestinians from “Greater Israel“.[51]
BDS sees the Israeli legal definition of itself as a “Jewish and democratic state” as contradictory.[52] According to BDS, Israel upholds a facade of democracy but is not and cannot be a democracy because it is, in Omar Barghouti’s words, “a settler-colonial state”.[53]
Opponents have argued that comparing Israel to South Africa’s apartheid regime “demonizes” Israel and is antisemitic.[54] Supporters argue that there is nothing antisemitic in calling Israel an apartheid state.[50] To support that view, they cite prominent anti-apartheid activists such as Desmond Tutu and South African politician Ronnie Kasrils, who both have said that the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is “worse” than apartheid.[55] Eric Goldstein, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, which neither supports nor condemns a boycott, argues that the Biden administration will probably not counter the Trump administration’s attempt to label BDS antisemitic. He considers the movement maligned. In his view, “To campaign or boycott solely on behalf of Palestinians under Israeli rule no more constitutes anti-Semitism than doing so on behalf of Tibetans in China is in itself anti-Chinese racism.”[15]
Right of return
BDS demands that Israel allow the Palestinian refugees displaced in the 1948 war to return to what is now Israel.[56] According to BDS’s critics, calling for their right to return is an attempt to destroy Israel. If the refugees returned, Israel would become a Palestinian-majority state and Jewish dominance of Israel would be in jeopardy. They argue that this would undermine the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and thus calling for it is a form of antisemitism.[57] Former Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman has called it “the destruction of the Jewish state through demography.”[58]
Nadia Abu el-Haj has written that, indeed, BDS supporters believe that “the Israeli state has no right to continue exist as a racial state that builds the distinction between Jew and non-Jew into its citizenship laws, its legal regimes, its education system, its economy, and its military and policing tactics.”[59] BDS supporters further note that the Palestinian liberation movement has always rejected the idea that Israel has a right to exist as a racial state.[59] While BDS deliberately refrains from advocating any particular political outcome, such as a one-state or two-state solution,[60] Barghouti argues that a Jewish state in historical Palestine contravenes the Palestinians’ rights:
A Jewish state in Palestine in any shape or form cannot but contravene the basic rights of the indigenous Palestinian population and perpetuate a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically.
Just as we would oppose a “Muslim state” or a “Christian state” or any kind of exclusionary state, definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.
Accepting modern-day Jewish-Israelis as equal citizens and full partners in building and developing a new shared society, free from all colonial subjugation and discrimination, as called for in the democratic state model, is the most magnanimous, rational offer any oppressed indigenous population can present to its oppressors. So don’t ask for more.[61]
Norman Finkelstein has criticized BDS’s position on the Palestinian refugees.
Norman Finkelstein, a vocal supporter of the two-state solution, has criticized BDS on this issue. Like Foxman, Finkelstein believes that BDS seeks to end Israel through demography,[62] something he believes Israel will never acquiesce to.[63] He therefore considers BDS a “silly, childish, and dishonest cult”[64] because it does not explicitly state that its goal is to end Israel and because, according to him, that goal is unrealistic and broad public support cannot be found for the return of the refugees.[65] Still, he believes that BDS’s tactics, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, are correct.[66]
Critique of liberal Zionism
BDS criticizes liberal Zionists who oppose the occupation but also the right of return for the Palestinian refugees. According to liberal Zionists, both right-wing Zionists and BDS risk “destroying Israel”, defined as turning Israel into a Palestinian-majority state,[67] BDS by demanding equal citizenship for Arab-Palestinians and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees,[68] and right-wing Zionists by insisting on building more settlements, eventually making a two-state solution impossible. With the two-state solution off the table, Israel would either have to grant citizenship to the Palestinians living under occupation, thus destroying Israel, or become an apartheid state.[67] Liberal Zionists find apartheid repugnant and oppose apartheid in Israel, so they propose a boycott limited to Israeli West Bank settlements to pressure the Israeli government to stop building settlements.[67]Peter Beinart in 2012 proposed a “Zionist BDS” that would advocate divestment from Israeli West Bank settlements but oppose divestment from Israeli companies.[69][70] This, Beinart argued, would legitimize Israel and delegitimize the occupation, thus challenging both the vision of BDS and that of the Israeli government.[70]
BDS supporters contend that liberal Zionists are more concerned with preserving Israel as a “Jewish state” than with human rights.[71][72] Barghouti states that by denying the Palestinian refugees right of return simply because they are not Jewish, liberal Zionists adhere to the same Zionist racist principles that treat the Palestinians as a “demographic threat” to be dealt with in order to maintain Israel’s character as a colonial, ethnocentric, apartheid state.[73] Sriram Ananth writes that the BDS Call asks people to uncompromisingly stand against oppression. In his view, liberal Zionists have failed to do so by not endorsing the BDS Call.[74]
Normalization
BDS describes “normalization” as a process by which Palestinians are compelled to stop resisting and to accept their subjugation. BDS analogizes it to a “colonization of the mind”, whereby the oppressed comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only reality and that the oppression is a fact of life.[45] BDS opposes normalization as a means to resist oppression.[45]
Normalization, BDS says, can arise when Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories meet without the Israeli side acknowledging the fundamental injustices Israel inflicts on the Palestinians, corresponding to the BDS’s three demands. BDS calls it “co-existence” and argues that it feeds complacency and privileges the oppressor at the expense of the oppressed. Instead, BDS encourages “co-resistance”, where “anti-colonial Jewish Israelis” and Palestinians come together to fight against the injustices afflicting the Palestinians.[45] BDS denounces dialogue projects bringing Palestinians and Israelis together without addressing the struggle for Palestinian rights. Such projects, it asserts, “serve to privilege oppressive co-existence at the cost of co-resistance” regardless of their intentions.[45] It also denounces projects that portray the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians as symmetrical.[75]
One example of a project BDS denounces is OneVoice, a joint Palestinian-Israeli youth-oriented organization that brings Israelis and Palestinians together under the slogan of ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state. Since OneVoice concerns itself with neither Israeli apartheid nor Palestinian refugees’ rights, BDS concludes that it serves to normalize oppression and injustice.[45]
Critics of “anti-normalization” rhetorically ask how BDS is supposed to win over the hearts and minds of unconvinced Jewish Israelis if a precondition for dialogue is that they first commit to BDS’s principles. They believe that dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians can convince Jewish Israelis that BDS’s demands are just.[76] Barghouti contends that the “peace industry”, the many dialogue initiatives launched in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, has not helped the Palestinians at all because they are based on the idea that the conflict is between two equals, rather than about one group oppressing another. He believes that dialogue needs to be based on freedom, equality, democracy, and ending injustice, or else it is at best a form of negotiation between a stronger and weaker party.[77]
Founding and organization
BDS was founded one year after the International Court of Justice had ruled the West Bank barrier illegal.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) was established at the first Palestinian BDS conference in Ramallah in November 2007[82] and in 2008 it became BDS’s coordinating body.[5] All BNC members are Palestinian organizations. As of 2020, it has 29 members.[43] The BNC includes a general assembly with representatives from every BNC member,[83] and an 11-seat secretariat elected every two years that governs the BNC.[43] The general assembly meets about every third month while the secretariat handles day-to-day decision making.[84] Mahmoud Nawajaa serves as the BNC’s General Coordinator[4] and Alys Samson Estapé as the Europe Coordinator.[85]
A precursor to BDS is the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which was founded in April 2004 in Ramallah with Barghouti as a founding committee member.[86][87][88] PACBI led the campaign for the academic and cultural boycotts of Israel. It has since been integrated into the larger BDS movement. The U.S. arm of PACBI, the United States Association for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), was founded in 2009.[89]
The global BDS movement is by design highly decentralized and independent.[90] This has allowed thousands of organizations and groups to become part of it, some of which are the BNC’s main partners.[91]
In Israel, some more established radical groups, such as Women in Black, ICAHD, AIC, and New Profile, initially issued statements supporting the boycott.[92][93]Boycott from Within often uses creative performances to display its support for the boycott and the research group Who Profits supplies BDS with information about companies complicit in the Israeli occupation.[94] On campuses in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand, the student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) supports BDS. According to the American coordinating body National Students for Justice in Palestine, it had about 200 chapters in the U.S. as of 2018.[95] The left-wing activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) advocates for BDS among American Jewry.[96]
In addition to these, political parties, trade unions and other NGOs have endorsed the BDS Call.
BDS organizes campaigns for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Boycotts are facilitated by urging the public to avoid purchasing goods made by Israeli companies, divestment by urging banks, pension funds, international companies, etc. to stop doing business in Israel, and sanctions by pressuring governments to end military trade and free-trade agreements with Israel and to suspend Israel’s membership in international forums.[97]
Global targets for boycott are selected by the BNC, but supporters are free to choose targets that suit them.[98] The BNC encourages supporters to select targets based on their complicity in Israel’s human rights violations, potential for cross-movement solidarity, media appeal, and likelihood of success.[99] It also emphasizes the importance of creating campaigns and events that connect with issues of concern in their own communities.[90]
Activities
Campaigns
In addition to the campaigns listed in this section, a number of local campaigns have been created by BDS-affiliated groups and endorsed by the movement, including Code Pink‘s Stolen Beauty campaign launched in 2009 against Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava,[100] an Australian campaign against Max Brenner, whose parent company, the Strauss Group, sent care packages to Israeli soldiers,[101] and a campaign by the group Vermonters for Justice in Palestine (VTJP, previously known as Vermonters for a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine) against[102] ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry over its sales of ice cream in Israeli settlements.[103] In June 2021, VTJP called on Ben & Jerry’s to “end complicity in Israel’s occupation and abuses of Palestinian human rights.”[104] VTJP describes itself as “a strong supporter of the…[BDS] campaign”.[105] On 19 July 2021, Ben & Jerry’s CEO announced the end of sales of ice cream in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank: “Although Ben & Jerry’s will no longer be sold in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian territories], we will stay in Israel through a different arrangement”.[106] Ben & Jerry’s Independent Board of Directors complained that the decision had been made by the CEO and Unilever without their approval.[102] Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, “Over 30 states in the United States have passed anti-BDS legislation in recent years. I plan on asking each of them to enforce these laws against Ben & Jerry’s”,[107] and called the decision “a shameful capitulation to antisemitism, BDS and everything bad in the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse”.[108]Derail Veolia and Alstom (2008–present)
Since November 2008, BDS has campaigned against the multinational French conglomerates Veolia and Alstom for their involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail because it runs through the Israeli-occupied parts of East Jerusalem.[109] According to BDS, the boycott had cost Veolia an estimated $20 billion as of 2015.[110] In 2015 Veolia sold off its final investment in Israel, a 5% stake in CityPass owned by its subsidiary Transdev. BDS attributed the sell-off to its campaign, but Richard Dujardin, a member of Transdev’s executive committee, said: “I will not say that it is pleasant to be chased by people saying we are not good guys all the time but really it was a business decision.”[111]Stop G4S – Securing Israeli Apartheid (2012–present)
Since 2012, BDS has campaigned against G4S, the world’s biggest security company, to get it to divest from Israel.[112] As a result, G4S has been targeted by many BDS supporting groups, including Who Profits?, Addameer, Jews for Justice in Palestine, and Tadamon!.[113] The campaign’s first victory came in October 2011, when the student council of the Edinburgh University Students’ Association adopted a motion to ban G4S from campus.[citation needed] In April 2012 the European Parliament declined to renew its contract with G4S, citing G4S’s involvement in violations of international law.[113] In 2014 the Gates Foundation sold its $170 million stake in G4S, a move BDS activists attributed to their campaign.[114] The same year activists thanked officials in Durham County, North Carolina, for terminating its contract with G4S, though it was not clear that BDS’s campaign was the cause.[115] In February 2016, the international restaurant chain Crepes & Waffles terminated its security transport contracts with G4S.[116]
G4S sold off its Israeli subsidiary G4S Israel in 2016, but BDS continues to campaign against G4S because it maintains a 50% stake in Policity, an Israeli police training center with presence inside Israeli prisons where thousands of Palestinians are detained.[117][118]Woolworths (2014–2016)
BDS South Africa undertook a boycott campaign against the South African retail chain Woolworths in 2014 over its trade relations with Israel.[119] It was the first comprehensive consumer boycott of a South African retailer since 1994.[119] The campaign used the Twitter hashtag #BoycottWoolworths which rapidly became one of the top trending hashtags on South African Twitter.[119] The campaign attracted international media attention and was covered by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Al-Jazeera.[119] The activists organized flash mobs, die-ins, and placed “Boycott Israeli Apartheid”-stickers on Woolworths’ Israeli merchandise, all of which they published on social media.[119] Consumers were encouraged to write to the company’s store managers questioning the stocking of Israeli goods.[120]
The campaign ended in mid-2016 when Woolworth informed its annual general meeting that it would no longer purchase Israeli products from the occupied territories.[121]Boycott HP (2016–present)
BDS runs a boycott campaign against the multinational information technology company Hewlett-Packard‘s two successors, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which it says are complicit in “Israel’s occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid regime”.[122] According to the campaign, HP supplies Israel with a biometric ID card system used to restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement and provides servers for the Israel Prison Service.[123]
In April 2019, Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, the Netherlands‘ largest trade union, dropped HP in its offer to its members. According to a spokesperson for the boycott HP campaign, the union used to offer a 15% discount on HP products and this would no longer be the case.[124] In June 2019, Unite, the UK’s second-largest trade union, joined the boycott against HP.[125]Orange (2016–present)
In January 2016, French telecom operator Orange dropped its licensing deal with its Israeli mobile operator, Partner Communications.[126] According to BDS, the deal was the result of its six-year campaign by unions and activists in France, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.[127]AXA Divest (2016–present)
The French multinational insurance agent AXA has since 2016 been the target of a campaign urging it to divest from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems and five major Israeli banks. AXA has, according to BDS, a responsible investment policy that forbids it from investing in, among other things, manufacturers of cluster bombs, and Elbit Systems makes cluster bombs.[128] According to a report by corporate responsibility watchdog SumOfUs, AXA’s involvement in Israel’s occupation could expose it to criminal prosecution.[129]Red Card Israel (2016–present)
Red Card Israel is BDS’s campaign to get Israel expelled from FIFA due to alleged violations against Palestinian football and because several Israeli teams from the Israeli-occupied West Bank are allowed to play in its national league, the Israel Football Association.[130][131] In 2018, it scored a victory as Argentina’s national football team canceled an upcoming friendly game in Jerusalem.[132]Puma (2018–present)
In July 2018, sportswear manufacturer Puma signed a four-year sponsorship deal with the Israel Football Association (IFA).[133] The IFA includes six football clubs based in Israeli settlements. BDS wrote an open letter signed by over 200 Palestinian sports clubs urging the brand to end its sponsorship of teams in the settlements.[134] The sportswear manufacturer did not, and BDS therefore launched a boycott campaign under the slogan “Give Puma the Boot”.[135][136][137]
In October 2019, activists placed unauthorized posters in the London underground urging people to boycott Puma. Transport for London said that it was flyposting and that it would immediately take action against the posters.[138] In February 2020, Malaysia’s largest university, Universiti Teknologi MARA, announced that it would end its sponsorship deal with Puma due to its involvement in Israel.[139][140]Boycott Eurovision 2019 (2018–2019)
BDS attempted to get artists to boycott Eurovision Song Contest 2019 because it was held in Israel. BDS accused Israel of using Eurovision to whitewash and distract attention from alleged war crimes against Palestinians. It also accused Israel of pinkwashing, due to Eurovision’s popularity among LGBTQ fans.[141][142] Although none of the acts scheduled to appear pulled out, activists considered the efforts successful due to the media coverage generated.[143][144]
American pop star Madonna was one of the artists BDS urged to cancel her appearance at Eurovision. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd also tried to get her to cancel, saying that it “normalizes the occupation, the apartheid, the ethnic cleansing, the incarceration of children, the slaughter of unarmed protesters.”[145] Madonna refused, saying that she would neither “stop playing music to suit someone’s political agenda” nor “stop speaking out against violations of human rights wherever in the world they may be.”[146]
In September 2018, 140 artists (including six Israelis) signed an open letter in support of a boycott of Eurovision.[147][148] In response to the calls for boycott, over 100 celebrities, including English actor Stephen Fry, signed a statement against boycotting Eurovision in Israel: “We believe the cultural boycott movement is an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis who are working to advance peace through compromise, exchange, and mutual recognition”.[149]
Hatari, the band representing Iceland in the contest, held up Palestinian banners in front of the cameras at the event’s finals, defying the EBU’s rules against political gestures. BDS was not mollified: “Artists who insist on crossing the Palestinian boycott picket line, playing in Tel Aviv in defiance of our calls, cannot offset the harm they do to our human rights struggle by ‘balancing’ their complicit act with some project with Palestinians. Palestinian civil society overwhelmingly rejects this fig-leafing,” it said.[150]
Divestment resolutions at U.S. universities
In North America, many public and private universities have large financial holdings. Campus BDS activists have therefore organized campaigns asking universities to divest from companies complicit in the occupation. These campaigns often revolve around attempts to pass divestment resolutions in the school’s student government. While few universities have heeded the call to divest, activists believe the resolutions are symbolically important.[151] The discussions of divestment spur campuswide interest in BDS, which movement organizers use to their advantage by advocating for an unfamiliar cause.[152]
In 2009, Hampshire College became the first U.S. college to divest from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation as its board of trustees voted to sell its shares in Caterpillar Inc., Terex, Motorola, ITT, General Electric, and United Technologies. Hampshire’s president said that SJP’s campaigning brought about the decision, but members of the board of trustees denied that.[153]
In 2010, the UC Berkeley Student Senate passed a resolution calling for the university to divest from companies that conduct business with Israel. The resolution was vetoed by the Student Body president, who said it was “a symbolic attack on a specific community.”[154] In 2013, another divestment bill passed but the university stated that it would not divest.[155]
Many divestment campaigns began in the early 2000s, years before BDS was founded. In some cases, it has taken them over a decade to get resolutions passed. For example, at the University of Michigan, a student group called Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) began campaigning for a divestment resolution in 2002. It was brought up for the eleventh time in 2017 and passed 23–17 with five abstentions. Reportedly, the hearing on the resolution was the longest in student government history.[156] In December, the Board of Regents at the university rejected the resolution, stating that “we strongly oppose any action involving the boycott, divestment or sanction of Israel.”[157]
In 2002, students at Columbia University began promoting a divestment resolution;[158] a non-binding [failed verification] student resolution passed in 2020. The resolution called for the university “to boycott and divest from companies that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s acts towards Palestinians”.[159] Columbia rejected the resolution [failed verification]; explaining this decision [clarification needed], President Lee Bollinger wrote that Columbia “should not change its investment policies on the basis of particular views about a complex policy issue, especially when there is no consensus across the University community about that issue” and that divestment questions would be resolved by the university’s Advisory Committee.[159]
In 2019, Brown University became the first Ivy league university whose student government passed a non-binding [failed verification] divestment resolution, with 69% of the students (representing 27.5% of the student body) voting in favor and 31% against.[160][161] Brown rejected the resolution; explaining this decision, President Christina Paxson wrote: “Brown’s mission is to advance knowledge and understanding through research, analysis and debate. Its role is not to take sides on contested geopolitical issues.”[161] Nevertheless, on 9 March 2020, the university Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Policies confirmed an official recommendation to Paxson and the corporation, the university’s highest governing body, to divest from “any company that profits from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land” and referred to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s list of possible criteria for divestment contained in a report on the List of companies operating in West Bank settlements.[162]
BDS opponents often focus on the supposed divisiveness debates about divestment resolutions cause.[163] According to Nelson, the primary effect divestment resolutions have is the promotion of anti-Israel (and sometimes antisemitic) sentiment within student bodies, faculty, and academic departments.[56]
Some opponents argue that activists promoting divestment resolutions often cheat or operate clandestinely. They claim that resolutions are often sprung with minimal notice, giving the opposition no time to react, that activists bring outsiders to influence opinion or to vote on university resolutions even when this is unauthorized, and that activists change the text of resolutions once passed.[164]
Judea Pearl believes that to BDS supporters it is irrelevant whether a particular resolution passes or not because the real goal is to keep the debate alive and influence future policymakers to find fault with Israel.[165]
Groups affiliated with BDS hold events known as Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) in February or March each year.[166] IAW began at the University of Toronto in 2006,[167][fn 3] but has since spread and in 2014 was held on 250 campuses worldwide.[166] IAW aims to increase public awareness of the Palestinians’ history and the racial discrimination they experience and to build support for BDS.[169] IAW allows activists to frame the issue as one of racial oppression and discrimination rather than a “conflict” between two equal sides.[170] According to BDS’s opponents, IAW intends to link Israel to evils such as apartheid and racism.[33]
Universities have been primary targets of the BDS movement, according to English professor Cary Nelson, “because faculty and students can become passionate about justice, sometimes without adequate knowledge about the facts and consequences. … [U]niversities also offer the potential for small numbers of BDS activists to leverage institutional status and reputation for a more significant cultural and political impact.”[171]
BDS argues that there is a close connection between Israeli academic institutions and the Israeli state, including its military, and that an academic boycott is warranted. Modern weapon systems and military doctrines used by the Israeli military are developed at Israeli universities that also use a system of economic merit and scholarship to students who serve in the army.[172][173] Like the BDS-led cultural boycott, the academic boycott targets Israeli institutions and not individual academics.[174]
The events and activities BDS encourages academics to avoid include academic events convened or co-sponsored by Israel, research and development activities that involve institutional cooperation agreements with Israeli universities, projects that receive funding from Israel or its lobby groups, addresses and talks by officials from Israeli academic institutions at international venues, study-abroad programmes in Israel for international students, and publishing in Israeli academic journals or serving on such journals’ review boards.[175]
In 2007, the American Jewish Committee ran an ad in The Times titled “Boycott Israeli universities? Boycott ours, too!” It was initially signed by 300 university presidents and denounced the academic boycott against Israel. It argued that an academic boycott would be “utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment.”[180] Phil Gasper, writing for the International Socialist Review, argued that the ad grossly misrepresented the argument proponents of the boycott make and that its characterization of it as “political disagreements of the moment” was trivializing.[181]
On 23 March 2022, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) voted 768 to 167 to endorse an academic boycott of Israeli institutions for their “complicity in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law through their provision of direct assistance to the military and intelligence establishments.” MESA has 2,700 members and over 60 institutional members. In 2014, it voted 265 to 79 to allow its members to support BDS.[184][185] After the vote, Brandeis University severed ties with MESA, citing “academic freedom”.[186]
ALAMEDA COUNTY: ALL OUT FOR ETHICAL INVESTMENT AND TO DIVEST FROM APARTHEID‼️
Alameda County Supervisors have an ethical investment policy resolution on this week’s 12/10 agenda. Let’s mobilize to demand they vote and pass this resolution that will keep our tax dollars from being invested in companies that cause harm, enable or profit from environmental derogation, occupation, war, systemic poverty, mass surveillance, immigration detention centers, genocide or apartheid!
We’ll be packing the house at 9:30am and again at 4pm, as we anticipate that this motion is going to get delayed again by Supervisor Miley‼️
At this meeting, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will vote on the letter directing Alameda County’s Treasurer to divest the county from companies involved in Israeli apartheid and genocide. This letter was introduced on November 12, but Sup. Haubert moved to delay the vote until the December 10th Board meeting. At the beginning of a board meeting each supervisor can delay an item once by up to 2 meetings, and we anticipate Miley will move to delay again.
It’s important that we pack the room at the start of the meeting to show strong community support from all across Alameda County in favor of divestment and come back later at 4 to give public comment! But if you can only join one of those times, please prioritize the 4pm mobilization. We must signal to our representatives that our communities take this seriously, and that any further delay is a miscarriage of Justice‼️
On Tuesday, December 10, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal to develop a new “ethical investment policy” that could be used to promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This thinly disguised effort at BDS was advanced by Supervisor Keith Carson. The full agenda can be accessed here.
Join JCRC in telling the Board that divestment efforts are flawed, will jeopardize local finances, and harm the Jewish community while doing nothing to bring peace.
It is critical that the Board rejects this proposal for the following reasons:Unity and Community Needs Must Be Prioritized: In the face of rising antisemitism and significant budget challenges, divisive initiatives like BDS distract from supporting the well-being of the entire community and addressing critical issues.Insufficient Time for Public Input: Rushing this proposal undermines transparency and prevents thoughtful deliberation.Lack of Clarity: The proposal’s broad and undefined mandate leaves no room for open debate in a public forum and hinders meaningful accountability. Provide Public Comment on Tuesday
In Person: The proposal will be considered at the Board Chambers (1221 Oak Street, 5th Floor, Oakland) at 4:00 p.m. and the public will be permitted to provide comments about this item. We encourage you to show up early, bring small signs, and prepare one-minute remarks.
Remember to fill out a digital speaker card at the front of the chambers as soon as you get there. For talking points, please refer to our guide. Given that this is a fast-moving situation, please click here to get real-time updates from JCRC Bay Area before the meeting.
On Zoom: Zoom link here. Instructions for remote participation here.
By Email: Click here to submit a personal email to the Supervisors and have your comment included in the public record. The proposal is item 51. For talking points, please refer to our guide.
Thanks for your ongoing advocacy. We are stronger together!
SAN JUAN, PR – In the wake of Donald Trump unveiling plans to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, Puerto Ricans who have been trying to attain proper electoral representation expressed their frustration with Canada jumping the line and receiving statehood before them.
“Look, Canada is a lovely place, but you can’t just become a state willy nilly,” said Pedro Pierluisi, governor of Puerto Rico. “If we’ve had to deal with being a territory for 126 years and Canada becomes a member of the union like that, it will ruin the special thing we’ve had.”
While the journey to statehood differs from state to state, Puerto Ricans believe that Canada should go through a similar rite of passage in their journey to maybe becoming a U.S. state.
“If Canada was to follow the same trajectory of Puerto Rico, they would first need to be designated as a territory, where they have little to no political power or access to federal funding,” said Rex Jamison, U. S. constitutional expert. “Then after having to deal with one economic, political, and environmental crisis after another for over a century, if Canada still wants to become a state, Congress can be like ‘maybe.’”
This development has left Puerto Rico more confused than ever on what they need to do to be officially recognized as a state. “If you’re just into Canada because of their oil, water and lumber, I need to remind you that Canada has natural disasters of its own. And if you thought ignoring ours was easy, boy Canada will put you through the wringer.”
At press time Republicans had abandoned plans to annex Canada after they realized it would give 45 electoral college votes to the Democrats.
Less than two months from now, President-elect Donald Trump will become the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president of the United States.
This historic and shameful first is chiefly the fault of President Joe Biden’s administration and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice. Biden cared more about the appearance of having an independent DOJ untainted by politics than he did about holding an unrepentant criminal ex-president accountable. Garland cared more about not being labeled a partisan attorney general pursuing a politically motivated investigation (something Republicans were always bound to do regardless of Garland) than he did about doing the most basic and fundamental job of enforcing federal laws.
Trump could have — and should have — been prevented from ever getting anywhere near the levers of power again. 57 of 100 US senators agreed he should be convicted in his second impeachment trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 election after inciting a violent mob to lay siege to the US Capitol. Federal investigators found classified documents stored in a shower at Mar-a-Lago. A Manhattan jury approved by both prosecutors and defense attorneys found him guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records after less than two days of deliberations. But Judge Juan Merchan has indefinitely postponed Trump’s sentencing date, and special counsel Jack Smith has dropped the two federal cases against Trump. His Georgia case will likely not go to trial at least until he leaves the White House in January of 2029, when he will be 82 years old.
Ultimately, Biden’s campaign (and later Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign) undermined the best argument against Trump — that he was a criminal whose own felony convictions made him ineligible to vote in multiple states, own a firearm, or even hold a minimum wage retail job — due to their own administration’s lackadaisical attitude to his crimes. And Democrats continue to undermine their own rhetoric about Trump being a dangerous threat to democracy by continuing to choose appeasement over resistance.
IF TRUMP WAS TRULY SO DANGEROUS, WHY DIDN’T DEMOCRATS JAIL HIM?
Other democracies around the world don’t have the same hesitance toward prosecuting former presidents as the United States does. Axios reported earlier this year that 78 countries, including stable democracies like France, Israel, and South Korea, have all charged former heads of state with crimes.
Latin America in particular has a penchant for holding criminal heads of state accountable in court. According to Axios, all but one president of Peru who served between 1985 and 2018 has been arrested or charged with crimes. Jeanine Áñez, who was the interim president of Bolivia between 2019 and 2020, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her role in the coup that ousted beloved former Bolivian President Evo Morales. And former Argentinian vice president and president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was convicted of fraud after a 2022 trial, though she remained in office until just last year.
As the Guardian reported this week, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was recently charged with organizing a coup attempt after losing his 2022 reelection bid. Just as Trump supporters did after his loss in 2020, Bolsonaro supporters ransacked government buildings in the nation’s capital when he lost. And like his counterpart in the US, Bolsonaro referenced social media-driven conspiracy theories about nonexistent election fraud rather than admit defeat in his reelection bid.
Merrick Garland, however, exhibited none of the urgency of his international counterparts despite overwhelming evidence implicating Trump. Garland was sworn in as attorney general in March of 2021. But special counsel Jack Smith wasn’t appointed as special counsel to oversee the DOJ’s two ongoing investigations into both 2020 election interference and alleged mishandling of classified documents until November of 2022. According to a 2023 Washington Post report, Garland’s election interference investigation “consisted of just four prosecutors working with agents with the US Postal Inspection Service and the National Archives and Records Administration.”
The Post further reported that as the Garland DOJ prosecuted low-level participants in the January 6 riot, higher-ups within the agency routinely overlooked the role of major players like Trump, even as evidence emerged that he and his deputies helped organize a plot to overturn the election by submitting slates of so-called “fake electors” from battleground states Biden narrowly won. The FBI didn’t even start investigating the fake elector plot until roughly 15 months after the January 6 insurrection. One unnamed DOJ source complained: “You can’t even use the T word” in the office, referring to the former president.
According to the Post, US District Judge David O. Carter — who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton — was equally alarmed by both the overwhelming evidence against Trump and his lieutenants and at the lack of urgency exhibited by federal prosecutors. After reviewing emails from now-disbarred Trump attorney John Eastman laying out the plot to overturn the election in Congress, Carter called it “a coup in search of a legal theory” in a 2022 ruling. He added that “the illegality of the plan was obvious.”
“More than a year after the attack on our Capitol, the public is still searching for accountability,” Carter wrote. “If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself.”
As the Nation’s Chris Lehmann wrote in 2023, Garland’s fears about politics coloring his investigation are even more difficult to understand given his own personal experience as former President Barack Obama’s unsuccessful third Supreme Court appointment. Even though Garland had impeccable credentials as the chief justice of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (widely regarded as the most powerful judicial body in the US outside of the Supreme Court), his confirmation was nonetheless blocked by Senate Republicans for the better part of 2016 for purely political purposes.
Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) cynically argued that confirming a Supreme Court justice in an election year was inappropriate, and that voters should have a say in what party gets to fill the seat after the first Tuesday in November. Of course, McConnell blatantly disregarded this rule after the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September of 2020, and rushed Trump’s third appointment through the Senate in the final weeks before the 2020 election. McConnell later gloated about stealing Obama’s third Supreme Court appointment, calling it the “most consequential” decision of his entire political career.
Garland apparently learned zero lessons from his failed Supreme Court nomination, just as he has learned nothing about the irrelevance of outdated liberal norms in the face of direct threats to institutions like the rule of law. It’s plainly obvious that had Garland’s DOJ acted with more urgency with regard to Trump, the former president may already be behind bars, and that the presidential transition would look very different than it does today.
Merrick Garland’s failure to apply the rule of law to Trump may have been what sunk both Biden and Harris’ efforts to keep the White House in Democratic hands. The argument that Trump was a fascist threat to democracy — as Harris said in an interview and a televised town hall — is immediately rendered meaningless when a voter hears it and asks: “If Trump is so dangerous, why didn’t you put him in jail?” The only real way to answer that question is to admit cowardice, fecklessness, and incompetence. And why would a voter choose that?
If Trump is such a threat, why are so many Democrats refusing to fight?
Garland’s failure to prioritize the rule of law over upholding norms is just the tip of the iceberg of the liberal establishment’s failure to respond appropriately to the threat posed by Trumpism. Even before Trump takes office, many in the legal world, the media industry, and federal regulatory agencies are already obeying in advance — something that authoritarianism scholar Timothy Snyder expressly warned against.
In a November op-ed for the New York Times, SCOTUSblog publisher Thomas Goldstein, who was a former advisor to ex-vice president Al Gore, called for the dismissal of the criminal cases against Trump. The core of his argument was that prosecutors should heed the will of the electorate, which he called “democracy’s ultimate verdict.” Goldstein further wrote that “the Constitution trusts the judgment of the American people to decide whether the cases against Mr. Trump, as he has argued, were political and calculated to stop him from being elected,” even though the Constitution says no such thing.
Golstein also argued that while the United States was founded on the principle that no man is above the law, “Trump is no ordinary man,” and should thus be exempted from having the rule of law applied to him as the incoming 47th president of the United States. Author Dave Itzkoff observed that “this is like something a character in Animal Farm would say, and every 6th grader in the classroom would understand why it’s wrong.”
Despite his obvious incorrect interpretation of the Constitution and blatant disregard of the anti-monarchy sentiment that drove the founders to establish a new government, Goldstein’s attitude appears to be the prevailing sentiment among the Washington elite. Since Trump’s election victory, there have been numerous examples of Democrats rolling over and offering no resistance to his stated plans to take a wrecking ball to democratic institutions.
Gary Gensler, who leads the Securities and Exchange Commission, is stepping down in January of 2025 to allow Trump’s replacement to immediately take over. Gensler’s five-year term wasn’t due to expire until 2026, but rather than use his power to frustrate Trump’s attempts to deregulate Wall Street and cryptocurrency, Gensler is retreating.
MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinksi both made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to personally meet with Trump out of fear of retribution. Scarborough highlighted the fact that Trump said he appreciated that the “Morning Joe” hosts wanted to have “open communication” with him, though the show has seen a roughly 30% decline in ratings since the meeting.
After Trump announced that he was appointing attorney Brendan Carr to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), current chair Jessica Rosenworcel issued a statement warmly welcoming him to the commission, saying she is “confident” that he is “familiar with the staff, the responsibilities of this new role, and the importance of continued US leadership in communications.” This comes despite Trump’s repeated threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of news outlets that criticize him, and Carr authoring the section of the far-right authoritarian Project 2025 playbook outlining its approach to the FCC.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) announced a deal brokered with Republicans that he was giving up the fight to get four of Biden’s nominees for powerful federal appellate courts confirmed in exchange for Republicans allowing more district court nominees to be confirmed during the rest of Biden’s lame duck period. Schumer is caving even though Democrats have a majority in the Senate until the new Congress is sworn in on January 3, and conservative Sen. Joe Manchin (I-West Virginia) signaling that he is eager to help get as many of Biden’s nominees confirmed despite a previous promise that he wouldn’t back any judicial nominee that lacked Republican support.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) joined Fox News to praise the effort by billionaire businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to make catastrophic, draconian cuts to the federal workforce. Both Musk and Ramaswamy outlined their plans in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to focus on “regulatory rescissions” and “administrative reductions,” which will almost certainly mean an all-out assault on environmental, labor, consumer, and financial protections. Coons nonetheless called their endeavor “a constructive undertaking that ought to be embraced.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) said a week after the election that while he intends to still fight for Social Security, the Affordable Care Act, voting rights, and abortion rights, he will “work to find bipartisan common ground whenever and wherever possible” with the Republican majority. This came after he dismissed Trump’s most egregious Cabinet appointees like Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, as a “distraction” despite their ability to potentially and significantly destabilize the United States.
And of course, Biden’s friendly meeting with Trump at the White House is arguably the most jarring example of Democrats failing to understand the urgency of the moment. It’s understandable that Biden wants to distinguish himself from his predecessor and successor by ushering in a peaceful transfer of power. But his all-smiles photo-op alongside Trump at the White House is nonetheless confusing to voters who Biden told for months had to elect him over Trump, warning that he “wants to be a dictator” and “wipe out the civil servants.” This is in contrast to Trump, who — along with his wife, Melania – fired the White House’s chief usher hours before leaving office to make sure Biden would be temporarily locked out of the presidential residence after being sworn in.
In an early 2021 tweet, journalist Sarah Kendzior ominously predicted that Biden’s presidency would merely be a “brief interlude between aspiring autocracy and entrenched autocracy” if he failed to hold Trump and other administration officials for crimes and “tackle the structural issues that made the US vulnerable to mafia state rule.” Biden and his administration’s deference to meaningless norms over accountability may prove to have been not only the undoing of his political career, but of American institutions altogether.
Carl Gibson is a journalist whose work has been published in CNN, USA TODAY, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, the Louisville Courier-Journal, Barron’s, Business Insider, the Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Bluesky @crgibs.bsky.social.
By Aldo Toledo,City Hall ReporterDec 5, 2024 (SFChronicle.com)
Nancy Tung, chair of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, said the new policies on sexual assault and harassment accusations fulfill a promise made to the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee whose members raised the issue of assault and harassment. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle
San Francisco’s Democratic Party adopted new guidelines Wednesday governing sexual assault and harassment accusations in the wake of recent high-profile allegations against two local politicos.
San Francisco’s Democratic County Central Committee — the party’s governing body in the city — said it will soon retain an ombudsperson to investigate complaints about sexual harassment and assault and will mandate that chartered clubs complete relevant training within 90 days or face disciplinary action.
The changes also include a policy that encourages Democratic clubs to host events at venues where alcohol is not permitted and to offer nonalcoholic beverages. The new rules also clarify that the use of drugs, alcohol, or other substances at party events or other places does not excuse assault and harassment.
Lily Ho, chair of the party’s special committee tasked with making the new rules, said the committee’s job was to create a framework to boost accountability and to begin to change the culture around sexual assault and harassment.
“We want diversity and inclusion, we want young people, we want women and all kinds of people to be participants in our political environment,” Ho said. “In order for that to happen, these spaces need to be safe.”
The policy changes come after the DCCC launched an investigation in July in response to a Chronicle story detailing sexual assault allegations made against the co-president of the San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club, Kevin Ortiz, who denied the allegations. Another prominent progressive activist in the city, Jon Jacobo, has also been accused of sexual assault.
Jacobo, who was once an ascendent political figure in the city, pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and other felonies in August after prosecutors accused him of assaulting a woman at his home in 2021. Ortiz has faced no charges and remains active in the San Francisco political world.
The committee said the new policies were written in partnership with chartered clubs, sexual assault experts and survivors. Ho said that ensuring privacy was a key part of the policy to make sure that allegations against Democratic leaders or club members aren’t “weaponized” politically.
Under the new process, an independent ombudsperson will be the first person of contact about allegations of sexual assault or harassment between a complainant and respondent and will determine whether there has been a violation of DCCC rules. To protect people’s privacy, the DCCC will not be made aware of the specifics of the allegations and the identities of both parties until the conclusion of the incident. The ombudsperson then will send the case to a third-party independent investigator, the law firm of Gibson Dunn.
The law firm does an investigation and presents the facts to a six-person judicial commission made up of sexual assault experts. Then a three-member panel will review the case and determine whether the allegations are substantiated or not. If the allegations are substantiated, the chair of the three-person panel will then ask the complainant if they want to pursue restorative justice or would prefer the judicial commission choose the consequences for the person accused.
Both parties would need to agree to engage in the process. The committee will receive yearly reports on the number of complaints and the investigation results.
Nancy Tung, who is chair of the DCCC, said the new policies fulfill a promise made to the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee whose members raised the issue of assault and harassment.
“This is something that has been on my mind for three years,” Tung said. “I’m very excited about what this means as we take a bold step as leaders in the Democratic Party to make our spaces safe for everyone.”
Adalberto “Aldo” Toledo is a city hall reporter with The San Francisco Chronicle covering the mayor and Board of Supervisors. He is a Venezuelan American from a family of longtime journalists.Before joining the Chronicle in 2023, he reported on Peninsula governments and breaking news for the San Jose Mercury News. He also has bylines in the Dallas Morning News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Champaign, Illinois News-Gazette.Raised in Texas, he studied journalism with a print news focus at the University of North Texas Mayborn School of Journalism, where he worked as News Editor for the North Texas Daily student newspaper.
A FLOATING train that is faster than a plane has begun construction, marking a huge step forward for the 621mph lighting locomotive.
China Railway will use magnetic levitation (maglev) technology to zip passengers through vacuum tubes faster than they have ever gone.
The speedy train will take passengers to their destination quicker than a plane canCredit: Youtube / CGTNThe model will use 5G technology to connect passengersCredit: Youtube / CGTNThe first track has been laid for the floating trainCredit: Youtube / CGTN
The magnets on the train are able to interact with the metal on the sides of the pipe to levitate the train and propel it forwards.
China’s high-speed trains operate currently at 217mph and support 5G connectivity, even in long tunnels.
This new design will allow passengers to travel over 400mph faster than they are currently able to.
The average cruising speed for a long-haul commercial passenger aircraft ranges from approximately 547 to 575mph.
According to China Railway, their aim is to quicken the development of trains that are faster, smarter, more environmentally friendly, and more energy-efficient.
Magnetic levitation, otherwise known as maglev, use superconducting magnets in a low-vacuum pipe to strengthen the magnetic field.
These latest trains eliminate friction, to zoom by, effectively floating on thin air.
It will branch from the existing 11.5mile Maglev Express Line S2 from Changsha Nan station just west of the airport.
There is already one maglev train in operation in China, which connects the Airport in Shanghai to the city center – making the 19 mile journey possible in around seven minutes.
CONNECTION ISSUES
Maintaining communication between phones and base stations at near-sonic speeds has often been a challenge for experts.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.677.1_en.html#goog_436194476Play Video
Watch incredible hyperloop train of the future smash speed record on mission to whisk passengers at more than 300mph
As the speed of the train changes, the signal frequency shifts, disrupting the signals needed to sustain the data transfer necessary.
Installing base stations in near-vacuum tubes is also tough.
If an antenna dislodges due to vibrations, it could endanger the high-speed train.
Researchers from Southeast University, led by Professor Song Tiecheng of the National Key Laboratory of Mobile Communications, have proposed a solution.
They have proposed laying two parallel cables along the inner wall of the tube.
These will emit electromagnetic signals to minimise disruptions.
The Sun has previously reported on China Railway’s tests to get the levitating train off the ground and onto the track, so it can get off the ground.
China are the leaders in the high-speed railway development, but other global powers have also been developing their own high-speed trains to provide an alternative to flying.
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Join us for our next Missing Peace Monday community hour on Monday, Dec 9 at 8pm ET. We will discuss the importance of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) during the Holiday season and how to talk about Palestine to family and friends. Now is the time to act on our feminist values... Continue reading →
ALAMEDA COUNTY: ALL OUT FOR ETHICAL INVESTMENT AND TO DIVEST FROM APARTHEID By admin | December 8, 2024 | Uncategorized Leave a comment December 7, 2024 (occupyoakland@lists.riseup.net) ALAMEDA COUNTY: ALL OUT FOR ETHICAL INVESTMENT AND TO DIVEST FROM APARTHEID Alameda County Supervisors have an ethical investment policy resolution on this week’s 12/10 agenda. Let’s mobilize to demand... Continue reading →
TODAY: Swing Left SF Bay Area Coalition Phone Bank: Wednesday, September 20 (and every Wednesday), 2:30–4:30 PM. Join Swing Left SF and the Bay Area Coalition to phone bank for all the key 2023 elections, as we organize swing states for key elections in 2023. RSVP here.
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue reading →
Public Banking Coalition monthly meetings Next call: Nov 11 Excitement is building for public banking and once a month, PBI hosts an hour-long Public Banking Coalition online meeting to share the excitement and successes. Find out the latest updates on the advances being made all across the country from local advocates themselves... Continue reading →
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue reading →
We hope you’ve had a chance to recover from the election. We’re proud of our local wins and curious about where San Francisco will go from here. We want to know what you think! December Monthly Meeting Join us on Sunday, December 15th from 4pm – 6pm for our monthly meeting where... Continue reading →
Join us for our next Missing Peace Monday community hour on Monday, Dec 9 at 8pm ET. We will discuss the importance of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) during the Holiday season and how to talk about Palestine to family and friends. Now is the time to act on our feminist values... Continue readingDec10Tue4:00 pm Alameda County BDS vote @ In person and on ZoomAlameda County BDS vote @ In person and on ZoomDec 10 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
ALAMEDA COUNTY: ALL OUT FOR ETHICAL INVESTMENT AND TO DIVEST FROM APARTHEID By admin | December 8, 2024 | Uncategorized Leave a comment December 7, 2024 (occupyoakland@lists.riseup.net) ALAMEDA COUNTY: ALL OUT FOR ETHICAL INVESTMENT AND TO DIVEST FROM APARTHEID Alameda County Supervisors have an ethical investment policy resolution on this week’s 12/10 agenda. Let’s mobilize to demand... Continue reading7:00 pm Milk Club December PAC Meeting @ 1155 Mission Street and ZoomMilk Club December PAC Meeting @ 1155 Mission Street and ZoomDec 10 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pmDecember PAC Meeting Tuesday, December 10th | 7:00 – 9:00pm This will be a hybrid meeting, at 1155 Mission Street and RSVP for Zoom here7:00 pm Milk Club December PAC Meeting @ RSVPMilk Club December PAC Meeting @ RSVPDec 10 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pmDecember PAC Meeting Tuesday, December 10th | 7:00 – 9:00pm This will be a hybrid meeting, at 1155 Mission Street and RSVP for Zoom hereDec11Wed2:30 pm Swing Left SF Bay Area Coalition... @ RSVPSwing Left SF Bay Area Coalition... @ RSVPDec 11 @ 2:30 pm – 4:30 pmTODAY: Swing Left SF Bay Area Coalition Phone Bank: Wednesday, September 20 (and every Wednesday), 2:30–4:30 PM. Join Swing Left SF and the Bay Area Coalition to phone bank for all the key 2023 elections, as we organize swing states for key elections in 2023. RSVP here.Dec12Thu10:00 am Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circle @ Online via ZoomExtinction Rebellion Empathy Circle @ Online via ZoomDec 12 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2023 AT 2 AM – 4 AM PDT How to create trust in a group? Details Event by Extinction Rebellion Empathy Circles online EMPATHY CAFE Duration: 2 hr Public · Anyone on or off Facebook How to create trust in a group? This is the question that arose in our... Continue readingDec13Fri9:00 am Public Banking Coalition monthly... @ RegisterPublic Banking Coalition monthly... @ RegisterDec 13 @ 9:00 am – 10:00 amPublic Banking Coalition monthly meetings Next call: Nov 11 Excitement is building for public banking and once a month, PBI hosts an hour-long Public Banking Coalition online meeting to share the excitement and successes. Find out the latest updates on the advances being made all across the country from local advocates themselves... Continue readingDec14Sat10:00 am Intro Empathy CaféIntro Empathy CaféDec 14 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Intro Empathy Café: Find out how to listen to others and how it feels to speak without interruption or fear of interruption. Meet people from around the world. Mondays at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Zoom Room: https://zoom.us/j/9896109339 How-To: Basic Empathy Circle In a Circle of 3 to 5 Participants 1. The first... Continue readingDec15Sun4:00 pm Online GA (General Assembly) @ Online via ZoomOnline GA (General Assembly) @ Online via ZoomDec 15 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pmOnline GA (General Assembly) Link to come.4:00 pm SF League of Pissed Off Voters @ RSVPSF League of Pissed Off Voters @ RSVPDec 15 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pmWe hope you’ve had a chance to recover from the election. We’re proud of our local wins and curious about where San Francisco will go from here. We want to know what you think! December Monthly Meeting Join us on Sunday, December 15th from 4pm – 6pm for our monthly meeting where... Continue reading