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Iran declares ‘historic victory’ over the U.S., says enemy forced to accept its proposal
(www.workers.org)
The following statement issued by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council in response to the MAGA president’s two-week “ceasefire” was published by Press TV on April 7. “Good news to the dear nation of Iran! Nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved. * “The noble people of Iran . . .
From Workers World via This RSS Feed.
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In the first hours of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, up to 175 young children and school staff were blown to pieces at an elementary school. Others were maimed and burned, and will be suffering from their injuries for the rest of their lives. Even any comparatively fortunate ones with minimal injuries will surely experience permanent trauma from having witnessed something so horrific. Witnesses describe scenes of unfathomable horror, with limbs and blood strewn across classrooms. "People were pulling out children's arms and legs. People were pulling out severed heads," said a woman whose child was killed. The Guardian cites verified videos that show "children's bodies lying partly buried under the debris":
In one video, a very small child's severed arm is pulled from the rubble. Colourful backpacks covered with blood and concrete dust sit among the ruins. One girl wears a green dress with gingham patches on her pockets and the collar, her form partly obscured by a black body bag. Screams can be heard in the background.
Drop Site News spoke to the father of a six-year-old girl, Sara Shariatmadar, who was killed in the attack. "I cannot understand how a place where innocent children learn can be bombed like this," he said. "We are talking about small children who knew nothing of politics or wars. And yet they are the ones paying the highest price."
The United States and Israel have not denied responsibility for the attack, although it is still unclear which country fired the missile. The U.S. said that it does not "target" schools, which does not mean that it does not bomb them. ("We take these reports seriously," a spokesman said.) Israel's spokesperson said the government was not "aware" of such an attack, which does not mean its military did not carry one out. Photos supposedly showing that a misfired Iranian missile caused it were debunked, although they spread widely online among Americans and Israelis desperate to believe that only the Bad Guys do things like this.
Domestic coverage of this horrible crime against humanity has been muted. U.S. media has a policy of not showing gruesome images of violence---the Guardian explicitly stated that it was concealing the photos and videos it had "due to their graphic nature." As a result, war is always sanitized, so that Americans can read that 150+ schoolgirls were killed without having to confront the full horror of what it means for their country to drive a missile into a crowded school in the middle of the day. (Saturday is a school day in Iran, a fact that the U.S. government would easily have been able to know when deciding how to time its attacks, but Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been open about the fact that he regards such niceties as rules of engagement and international law as meddlesome hindrances that can be ignored, lambasting those who "wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.")
I suspect that this attack is also difficult for U.S. media to cover because the basic facts of the situation are so twisted, so depraved, so evil, that they shatter the comforting narrative that the U.S. has the moral high ground over the Ayatollah. In fact, the U.S. government is on the moral level of the Sandy Hook school shooter, a fact that even president Trump's critics may have a hard time fully accepting.
And this was not the only massacre carried out by the U.S. and Israel in a war that has been going on just a few days. The Human Rights Activists News Agency reports that there have already been over 1,000 civilian deaths in Iran, including 181 children under the age of ten, with thousands more civilians injured. Drop Site reports on the nauseating scene in a middle-class Tehran neighborhood following a "double tap" strike (dropping one bomb first, and then dropping another on the survivors and emergency responders, a favorite war crime of the U.S. and Israel). Warning, the following description is extremely graphic and may undermine any love you may have for your country:
Videos of the immediate aftermath of the attack showed several individuals dead and wounded as well as massive destruction on the street outside. In Cafe Ahla, next to the square, blood and debris soaked the floors. Several patrons who had been sitting there when the attack struck could be seen dead on the floor or with their mutilated bodies still sprawled across their seats. "We were sitting here around 8:00-8:30 p.m. and suddenly there was the noise and explosion. We got up and a few people ran away. We turned around to get our belongings and we saw that blood was spraying everywhere. Someone's hand had fallen on the floor, a head had fallen on the floor," said Shahin, a witness who had been at the cafe and asked to be identified by first name only. "There were scalps torn off, hands severed, a few people were laying here all cut up and two people were martyred."
I will get to the many ways in which the Iran war is illegal, making us less safe, founded on lies, strategically insane, unbelievably costly, etc. But let us dwell for a moment on what we are doing to these people. The right-wing Telegraph newspaper reports that in Tehran, "millions of civilians are trapped under relentless bombardment as food and medical supplies dwindle and the death toll mounts," and the city is an "'apocalypse' of hospitals in flames and children buried beneath rubble." The paper records a total humanitarian disaster, with sick people lacking medicine, children going hungry, diabetics running out of insulin, and the repeated bombing of residential areas. While Americans pat themselves on the back for assassinating Iran's repressive head of state, everyday Iranians (even those with little love for their theocratic government) are facing the prospect of being killed at any moment, or watching their children be ripped to pieces. I realize that in the U.S., the devaluation of Middle Eastern lives means that little Iranian girls will receive a fraction of the compassion and concern that has arisen around, say, Nancy Guthrie. But if we apply our morality consistently, I cannot see how we can be anything other than completely revolted by the carnage our president is choosing to inflict (and will apparently soon be further escalating, according to Marco Rubio, who is promising an increased use of force to come, and Pete Hegseth, who is salivating about delivering "death and destruction all day long").
We are all complicit. If you are an American, you paid your government to murder those little girls and those Tehran cafe-goers. Money was withdrawn from your paycheck in the form of federal income taxes. If the attack was conducted with a Tomahawk missile (of which 400 were fired in 72 hours), that money would have been paid to the RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon). Each missile fired costs somewhere between $1.3 million and $2.2 million, of which approximately $200,000 would be pure profit. Thus the killing of the Iranian schoolgirls, which left their bloody backpacks and tiny severed limbs scattered across classroom floors, transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars from us (the American taxpayers) into RTX's bank accounts. It also boosted the GDP. And the stock market.
Stock price of RTX (formerly Raytheon)
It is hard for me to write about this war, because I am so sickened every time I contemplate the full dark reality of the country I live in. I realize that not only are there people who will drop a bomb on a school without losing a wink of sleep, but there are people who get rich when we bomb schools, who have a direct financial stake in ensuring we keep dropping as many bombs as possible. (And that's just the weapons companies. Others are getting rich from betting on the atrocities on prediction markets.) The fact that many Congressional Democrats implicitly or explicitly supported this war (whether by outright goading Trump into it, as Chuck Schumer did, dragging their feet on opposing it, or raising meek procedural objections) further adds to my disgust. Many Democrats apparently declined to try to stop the war, reasoning that if it achieved U.S. foreign policy goals it would be embarrassing to have opposed it, but if it went south Trump would own it anyway. When I open the New York Times op-ed page, and I find resident foreign policy guru Thomas Friedman cautioning against adopting any "black and white narrative" about what goes on in "a complicated, kaleidoscopic region," I want to vomit. The moment calls for moral clarity: our country is engaged in a mass murder campaign. It must be stopped. It is depressing to see so many debates around strategic end-goals, congressional authorization, or the consistency of the justifications. They take us away from the basic fact that our president, with the blessing of his party and many members of the so-called opposition, is gruesomely murdering children by the dozen. Every day this continues, we are paying our government to commit some of the worst crimes humans are capable of.
Of course, the war is also based on a pack of lies. The Trump administration can't even get its story straight on why the war is being waged and has produced no justification beyond vague invocations of National Security. (Trump says Iran was a "bad seed.") Some Republicans won't even admit that this is a war. (Perhaps they might want to borrow a phrase from Vladimir Putin: "special military operation.") House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to have it both ways, saying that while the Iranians "have declared war on us," we're "not at war right now." Others are tying themselves in pretzels trying to explain how this differs from the "regime change" wars that Trump has so vocally opposed. (Pete Hegseth: "This is not a so-called 'regime change war.' But the regime sure did change.") Sometimes there are direct self-contradictions within a single sentence, as with Tom Cotton declaring that "Iran has been an imminent threat to the United States for 47 years." This was too much for right-wing commentator Matt Walsh, who accused Republicans of "gaslighting" for suddenly discovering that Iran has been waging a half-century of war against the U.S. Even leading Iraq war hawk Bill Kristol is confused about the reasoning behind the war, saying there is "no coherent rationale." (Of course, Kristol's own favorite Middle East war was equally illegitimate, but that's an argument for another day.)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. attacked because it knew Israel was going to attack, and needed to defend itself against the inevitable Iranian retaliation for Israel's attack---perhaps the most tortured and unpersuasive case for self-defense ever made. Perhaps because this seemed like an admission that Israeli choices dictate U.S. policy, Trump subsequently denied that Israeli decision-making had anything to do with the attack, although it's clear that Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied heavily for this, as he has been salivating at the prospect of a major war with Iran for decades, and has been scheming for a way to get the U.S. involved.
The idea that Iran was a threat to the United States was always laughable. U.S. intelligence has consistently assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. The Trump administration itself declared that it had destroyed Iran's nuclear program with last year's bombings. Iran has in fact consistently shown itself very reluctant to engage in military confrontation with the U.S., often carefully limiting its retaliation after U.S. provocations. To the extent that Iran did want to become a nuclear threshold state, with at least the capacity to pursue a weapons program if it wanted to, credible analysts believe that Iran mainly wanted an insurance policy against potential U.S. and Israeli attacks. North Korea has shown that the possession of nuclear weapons is enough to make the U.S. think twice about forcible regime change, and there is a good argument that it would have been rational for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons for the sake of its own self-protection. As Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld observed, the world "witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy." (Van Creveld is wrong that Iraq was attacked for "no reason," however. It was attacked for the same reason Iran is being attacked: the establishment of U.S.-Israeli dominance over the Middle East.) While U.S. commentators often talk as if Iran would pursue nuclear weapons mainly in order to destroy the U.S. or Israel (which would, of course, be suicidal given both countries' superior nuclear forces), there's no evidence that Iran would want nuclear weapons for any reason beyond deterring potential external attacks. (A fear that recent events have proven to be well-founded.)
In fact, the entire prevailing narrative about Iran is completely backwards. It's the U.S. that has been a threat to Iran, not the other way around. It was the United States and Britain that overthrew Iran's legitimately elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953. (The New York Times was elated by the coup, commenting that "underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism.") Since 1979, when the Iranians ousted the dictator (the Shah) that the U.S. had helped install and maintain in power, the U.S. has had a virtually unremittingly hostile attitude toward Iran. This is not because of the government's (very real) human rights abuses, since the U.S. is happy to support human rights abusing states that are pliant and servile (see, e.g., Saudi Arabia and Egypt). But Iran is viewed as a threat to U.S. dominance in the Middle East. Thus, in the 1980s, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein as he waged a ruthless war of aggression against Iran, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians including with chemical weapons. (The U.S. concealed evidence of Hussein's chemical weapon use from the UN, because it wanted him to go on killing Iranians.) More recently, the U.S. and Israel have tried to destabilize the country through devastating cyberattacks, economy-wrecking sanctions, and assassinations. The sanctions have been explicitly aimed at harming civilians, with Mike Pompeo boasting in 2019 that "things are much worse for the Iranian people" thanks to sanctions and hoping that their suffering would lead them to overthrow their government.
Importantly, while U.S. policymakers in both the Republican and Democratic parties constantly affirm that "Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons," they rarely state their implicit corollary to this proposition, which is that Israel must be allowed to have nuclear weapons. As it happens, Iran actually agrees that it shouldn't be allowed to have nukes, and has long supported turning the entire Middle East into an official nuclear weapons free zone, much as Africa and Latin America have done. The problem is that the U.S. and Israel demand a double standard, with Israel refusing to contemplate giving up its nuclear weapons. The entire nuclear disagreement, then, is not about whether Iran should have nuclear weapons, but about whether Iran should hold itself to a different standard to Israel. (Amusingly, Chuck Schumer recently accidentally declared that "no one wants a nuclear Israel," and had to correct himself, because he does want a nuclear Israel.)
Anyone who values human life should treat war as an absolute last resort, to be engaged in only once every diplomatic option has been exhausted. In this case, it was the Trump administration that sabotaged diplomacy. First, even though asking Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons means imposing an unfair double standard that imperils Iran's national security, Iran had agreed under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to severely constrain its development of nuclear technology, and agreed to a detailed monitoring and compliance regime. It was confirmed to be adhering to that agreement until Donald Trump ripped it up in 2018, subsequently criticizing Iran for failing to adhere to the agreement that he himself had destroyed. Joe Biden declined to pursue the revival of that agreement, even though Iran signaled that it was open to it. But to this day, Iran has shown that it is willing to consider even highly unfavorable agreements in order to avoid war---it has never shown any sign of launching an unprovoked strike, only deploying military action in response to violence by others, such as an Israeli attack on its embassy or the assassination of its allies' leaders.
Iran has long wanted to keep a war with the U.S. from breaking out, which is why its responses to U.S. and Israeli attacks have previously been notably measured and cautious. (This time around, Iran reasons that unless it inflicts major damage, it will be perceived as weak and attacked further, since previous restraint only encouraged the U.S. and Israel to press their advantage.) Diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Iran were ongoing, and Oman, mediating talks, saw "the most promising diplomatic opening in years" and thought "diplomacy was producing tangible results and that a negotiated settlement was imminent." The U.S. and Israel decided to sabotage diplomacy and assassinate the Iranian head of state, possibly because they felt they just couldn't forgo the opportunity to kill as many high-ranking Iranians as possible in one fell swoop. (They killed so many Iranian government officials that Donald Trump admitted the U.S. had killed all of the people who had been considered likely candidates to take Khamenei's place.) Iran professed itself baffled as to why the U.S. attacked. "I do not know why the U.S. administration insists on beginning a negotiation with Iran and then attacking Iran in the middle of talks," said the country's foreign minister. He told NBC: "We were able to address serious questions related to Iran's nuclear program. We obviously have differences, but we resolved some of those differences, and we decided to continue in order to resolve the rest of [the] questions."
Because mass civilian casualties are a predictable consequence of intense airstrikes, to choose to unnecessarily end diplomatic engagement and start bombing is unconscionable depravity. But it's clear that the Trump administration didn't really care whether Iran was genuinely willing to engage in diplomacy, because Trump's position is that Iran should simply do what we say, period. There is nothing to negotiate, because for Trump, the only choice is whether a country is willing to comply with U.S. demands, or whether we will have to use force to ensure their compliance.
I haven't even gotten to the illegality of the war. Leaving aside the ridiculous Republican denials that this is a war (if a country assassinated our head of state and bombed our cities, would anyone doubt that they were waging war?), it's plain that all of this is unconstitutional. The Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress, not the president. Congress didn't declare war, therefore the war is illegal. Case closed. I know presidents have stretched their powers as far as possible (Obama's drone strikes, etc.) but if a president has the power to wage a relentless bombing and assassination campaign without Congressional approval, the Constitution simply ceases to mean anything. Congress has plainly failed in its responsibility to ensure that Trump complies with the Constitution, but the failure of our politicians to enforce the law doesn't change what it says.
Of course, it virtually goes without saying that the war violates international law. The UN Charter prohibits the use of force (or even the threat of force) except in response to an armed attack. Iran had not attacked the U.S., nor was there any evidence Iran was going to attack the U.S. Propagandists assert that Iran (and its "proxies") have killed "hundreds" of Americans over the years, but they decline to specify who these Americans are or discuss the Iranians killed by the U.S. and our own "proxies." There's no real point discussing international law, because Trump has made it clear he simply doesn't care about it, saying he doesn't need it and is unconstrained by it. Unfortunately, other countries have been just as pathetically weak as members of the U.S. Congress, with countries like Britain and France issuing statements that were de facto supportive of the assassination of a foreign head of state. (Canada issued a supportive statement and then appeared to regret it after noticing that letting the U.S. and Israel tear up the last vestiges of international law might be unwise.) Germany's chancellor has even made the stunning statement that Iran shouldn't be protected by international law, waving away the obvious illegality of the attacks by saying that "now is not the time to lecture our partners and allies." The killing of a head of state is a major crime, the normalization of which would open a horrible Pandora's box of lawless state action, and the world should be unified in condemning U.S.-Israeli lawlessness, but even among the Arab states there is a reluctance to antagonize the U.S.
None of the long-term consequences of this war will be good. The Trump administration does not appear to have any kind of strategic plan for what will happen next in Iran. (Lindsey Graham says it's "not [Trump's] job" to have a plan for what happens to the country's government next.) We could see the country's collapse into civil war, Libya-style. (Obama adviser Ben Rhodes recently admitted that Obama's decision to topple Libya's dictator without a plan for the country was a major error.) We could simply see the hard-line theocrats be replaced by more hard-line theocrats who are more convinced than ever that there can be no negotiating with the U.S., that the only language this country understands is force, and that the best thing for Iran's safety would be for it to obtain a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible. What we are unlikely to see is a pro-American government emerging, and this war puts Americans everywhere in considerable danger. (Ask yourself: if what happened to Sara Shariatmadar happened to someone you love, would you see the country that carried out the bombing as a liberator? Or would you want revenge?) Although plenty of Iranians are justly celebrating the end of the Ayatollah's rule, like the Iraqis who celebrated in 2003, they will soon find out that the U.S. has no interest in their well-being, and will happily watch their country slide into civil war if this serves America's perceived "national security" interest.
Six Americans have already died in addition to the 1,000 Iranians. Because this is a war of choice, totally unnecessary and unjustifiable, their blood is on Donald Trump's hands, and he (as well as Congress) should be treated no differently than we would treat someone who murdered these Americans with their bare hands. But the costs to this country are only just beginning. Of course, if you're an RTX shareholder this may be a bonanza, but the rest of us are likely to see major economic disruption, in addition to all the resources that are put into the production of weapons. Eisenhower famously tried to warn Americans that war spending is an act of "theft" from the public, because it's money not spent on schools and hospitals, and the "opportunity cost" is therefore enormous. But Eisenhower's warning has largely been ignored.
Worse, as Abby Martin notes in the terrifying and important new film Earth's Greatest Enemy, military action has catastrophic climate consequences, since the U.S. war machine is the world's biggest polluter and the carbon emissions of our vast, brutal empire are driving us toward ever-worsening climate catastrophe. Unfortunately, that's just fine with some in the administration and the military---terrifying recent reporting suggests that some evangelical Christian officers are celebrating the war as hastening the apocalypse, claiming Trump was "anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth." These people would sacrifice the rest of us to the inferno to fulfill their delusional prophecies.
Of course, the war reveals that Trump and his coterie were complete frauds when they pledged to keep the U.S. out of senseless Middle East wars. Trump fooled a lot of people with this stuff, although hopefully their illusions will now be hard to maintain. (Former hardcore MAGA types like Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes are now admitting they were duped.) If there is one silver lining here, amid all of the horror, it is that because this war is deeply unpopular and Trump has no idea how to deal with its consequences, perhaps we will finally see the MAGA movement collapse politically. Trump's approval rating was already in the toilet, and while I sadly have no illusions that public opinion will be especially moved by the bombing of a school, when the fallout in cost, lives, and global chaos begins to come home, perhaps Americans will turn once and for good against their warmongering president.
But it is hard for me to think hopefully right now, as I see pictures of the remnants of former schoolchildren, schoolchildren whose lives were brutally extinguished with the help of my tax dollars. All I can feel is horror and rage at the sociopaths willing to do such things, who claim to want peace while ensuring that humanity will be consigned to a future of endless, senseless conflict.
PHOTO: Graves being dug for the elementary school girls killed in the bombing of the Minab school. Iran Foreign Ministry.
From blog via This RSS Feed.
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'Colluding in Broad Daylight': Trump Praises Louisiana Governor for Suspending Elections
(www.commondreams.org)
Louisiana's Republican governor issued an order on Thursday suspending his state's US House primaries to allow lawmakers to draw up a new congressional map, citing the Supreme Court's decision earlier this week that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Gov. Jeff Landry published his executive order just as early voting was set to begin in Louisiana's congressional primaries—and after some absentee ballots had already been cast. The order states that the US House primaries are "suspended for the duration of the May 16, 2026 and June 27, 2026 election cycles and until July 15, 2026 or until such time as determined by the Legislature," which is instructed to "pass legislation to enact new congressional maps."
The order was met with immediate alarm and outrage. Joel Payne, spokesperson for MoveOn Civic Action, said that "Republicans are colluding in broad daylight to try to rig the electionand silence Black voters."
"The MAGA court made their decision to gut voting rights just in the nick of time for Louisiana Republicans to postpone the scheduled primaries to slice and dice voting maps to pick and choose voters of their liking," said Payne. "MoveOn members will fight like hell against MAGA’s extreme power play in Louisiana and push for stronger voting rights to ensure we the people have the final say in our elections.”
Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), said the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has "opened the floodgates for racial gerrymandering in states across the South" with its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which severely narrowed the 1965 Voting Rights Act's protections against racial discrimination.
"Even in ruby red states, Republicans see the writing on the wall that voters will hold them accountable for soaring costs this November, which is why they’re rigging the system to dodge accountability," said Williams. "The DLCC stands with Louisiana Democrats in their fight against Republicans’ egregious actions to suppress votes, and the mission to transform the landscape of state legislative power has never mattered more."
The Washington Post reported that Landry, an ally of President Donald Trump who took office in 2024, privately notified Republican US House candidates on Wednesday that he planned to suspend the Louisiana primaries.
"A new Louisiana map would position Republicans to gain one or two seats in the midterms," the Post noted.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump praised Landry for "moving so quickly" to suspend elections and order the redrawing of Louisiana's maps in the wake of the Supreme Court's latest assault on the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court's ruling struck down Louisiana's current map, which included two majority-Black districts.
"What is happening in Louisiana right now," warned Democracy Docket's Marc Elias, "is both a redistricting power grab and a dry run for authoritarian election subversion this fall."
If there is one thing the Republican Party should learn from President @realDonaldTrump— it’s to FIGHT!
That’s exactly what we are doing in Louisiana. Thank you for your support Mr. President! pic.twitter.com/W4rbcTuPp9
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) April 30, 2026
Trump, who has repeatedly floated the idea of canceling elections, also said Thursday that he spoke to Tennessee's Republican governor and secured a commitment to "work hard to correct" the state's maps following the Supreme Court's ruling.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) voiced support for the large-scale redrawing of congressional maps in light of the Supreme Court's decision.
"I think they should do it before the midterms," Johnson said Thursday.
Landry's order in Louisiana is already facing legal action from state residents, who argued the governor's move would disenfranchise voters.
"These harms are not speculative," warns a lawsuit filed Thursday. "They are imminent: early in-person voting commences on Saturday, May 2, 2026. They are irreparable: once an election day passes, no monetary remedy can restore the franchise."
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
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Take Back Power redistributes essential items whilst occupying high-end stores and hotels
(www.thecanary.co)
Take Back Power supporters have been occupying the playgrounds of the wealthy again on the morning of 1 May. And they’ve ‘liberated’ items from a superstore to redistribute them back to the communities that need them. Take Back Power is a nonviolent campaign, demanding a tax on extreme wealth, to be decided by a ‘House of the People’.
At around 9am, three Take Back Power supporters entered the Tesco Extra on Acre Lane in Brixton, took essential items from the shelves and left without paying. The action takers then donated the items at a local food-bank drop-off point. At around 10am, all three attempted to hand themselves in at Brixton Police Station. So far none have been arrested.
Take Back Power carried out a similar action in four UK cities in March.
At 11.45am, a further 18 Take Back Power supporters occupied the luxury department store Liberty, on Regent Street in London. They could held signs which read ‘3 MILLION HOUSEHOLDS SKIPPING MEALS’ and ‘TAX THE SUPER-RICH NOW.’
At around 1pm, this group then reconvened, disrupting access to the luxury hotel Claridges. The group chanted “WE DEMAND EQUALITY!’ and ‘HOW DO WE TAX THE SUPER RICH? – A HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE!’ as security attempted to move the supporters away from the door.
A Take Back Power spokesperson said:
Take Back Power is calling for an emergency ‘House of the People’ to deal with the cost of living crisis. When politicians are too busy lining their pockets to fix our problems, we need the people most impacted to have a seat at the table.
A House of the People selected by democratic lottery, like a jury, is a no-brainer solution to cut out the corruption and decide how to redistribute wealth.
Take Back Power supporters explain the action
One of those taking action redistributing food today, Moshe Dixon, 25, from Dundee, said:
My mother came from poverty and fought tooth and nail to give me a better future. Like so many mothers she was promised that hard work would be rewarded, yet we are living in a country where so many families can’t make ends meet despite working multiple jobs.
6.5 million people had to turn to foodbanks in 2024. Meanwhile the CEO of Tesco is taking home 430 times the pay of the average Tesco employee, and the rich are paying a smaller share of tax than working people.
Also taking action today, occupying high-end stores and hotels, was Hannah McDonald, 20, a student from Liverpool, who said:
14 million people last year were faced with the prospect of going hungry, in this, the sixth richest nation on earth! Now we have a cost of living tsunami on the way and the government is nowhere to be seen.
This is broken Britain. We need a House of the People – an assembly with real power, where ordinary mums, nurses, posties & cleaners, get a real say in how to take back our power from the super rich, and redistribute that wealth and power back to working people.
The actions come as the UK braces for food shortages and soaring prices as a result of Trump and Netanyahu’s war on Iran. Rising fuel, fertiliser and commodity prices are beginning to feed into business costs.
Take Back Power says it’s time to take on the super-rich who are profiteering from a world in crisis. This is why it’s demanding that the UK government establishes an emergency House of the People – a citizen’s assembly chosen by democratic lottery, that has the power to tax extreme wealth and fix the UK.
Until the government makes a meaningful statement in response to this demand, the group says it will undertake nonviolent action to resist the super-rich, who are driving us towards social collapse. Donate or sign up to take action at TakeBackPower.net.
Featured image via Take Back Power
By The Canary
From Canary via This RSS Feed.
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140 years since the Haymarket affair in Chicago: The struggle for the eight-hour day
(www.idcommunism.com)
This year marks 140 years since the Haymarket Affair, a pivotal episode in the struggle for the eight-hour working day and the development of the modern labor movement.
In the late 19th century, industrial workers in the United States typically worked 12 to 14 hours a day under demanding and often dangerous conditions. The demand for an eight-hour day gradually became a central objective of organized labor.
In the weeks leading up to the nationwide strike of May 1, 1886, major newspapers warned that such a reform would bring wage cuts, poverty and social disorder, frequently describing the movement as “un-American” and driven by foreign agitators.
Despite this pressure, participation in the strike was substantial. On May 1, around 340,000 workers took part in strikes and demonstrations across the country. Chicago was at the center of events, with more than 80,000 workers marching in what was one of the largest labor mobilizations of the time.
Tensions rose sharply on May 3, when police opened fire on striking workers outside the McCormick Reaper Works, killing at least four and injuring several others. The following day, May 4, a protest rally was held in Haymarket Square. As the gathering was drawing to a close, a bomb was thrown by an unidentified individual, killing one policeman and injuring many others. Police then fired into the crowd, causing further casualties among workers and bystanders.
In the days that followed, authorities arrested eight labor activists, several of whom had no direct connection to the bombing. The trial that followed was widely criticized for serious procedural flaws and a lack of credible evidence. Four—Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel—were executed in November 1887. Louis Lingg died in prison, while the remaining three defendants received long sentences.
Although the events at Haymarket were followed by repression, the campaign for shorter working hours continued. As a result of the 1886 mobilizations, around 185,000 workers secured the eight-hour day, while approximately 200,000 others achieved reductions to 10 or 9 hours.
In 1889, the Second International established May 1 as International Workers’ Day, in recognition of the struggle for the eight-hour day and the events in Chicago.
From In Defense of Communism via This RSS Feed.
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More than 200 activists on the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) lost all contact with the outside world on Wednesday night, when they were attacked by warships, jet skis and speedboats full of heavily-armed Israeli commandos. The flotilla participants were sailing just off the coast of Greece at the time – more than 500 nautical miles from Gaza.
Given that Ashdod port – where Israel has historically taken kidnapped flotilla participants and their stolen boats – is several days’ sail from Greece, I did initially wonder what the plan was. During the last flotilla, Israel hijacked boats just off the coast of Gaza in October 2025, and yet its ‘elite naval command unit’ still struggled to sail them the short distance to port.
Embarrassingly, commandos reportedly became extremely seasick on board the small boats, and appeared not to know how to sail. Ultimately, they resorted to the only thing they are good at – violence, or threatening it – to force activists to pilot their own vessels into detention.
But last night, we got an answer. Israeli foreign affairs minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that activists would be unceremoniously dumped on a beach in Greece.
Of the 57 boats at sea on Wednesday night, 22 are believed to have been intercepted in the attack, which began at around 11pm local time. 35 others escaped interception, with many sailing into Greek territorial waters for protection. As of today, all intercepted activists – bar two lead organisers – have been released to the Greek authorities.
Initially, participants had no idea what was going on. Australian filmmaker Juliet Lamont posted a video that primarily showed flashing red lights and said: “We are now in the sight of a potential warship from an unknown entity. We don’t know what’s going on. We’re completely at a loss. Our radios have been jammed. There’s been drone activity… We’re preparing for interception. Safety protocols are in place. We’re preparing to go. Wish us luck.” That was the last thing we heard from her.
It’s no wonder activists were confused. While Israel has illegally intercepted dozens of past flotillas in international waters, the distance from Gaza and proximity to Europe this time was unprecedented, outrageous – and frankly just absurd.
Unable to believe what they were seeing – and hearing, when even a Greenpeace support vessel was contacted by an alleged Israeli official telling it to turn around – participants speculated that the interceptors could be part of another navy, working on behalf of the IDF.
But Israel quickly took responsibility for the hijackings, claiming there was an “operational necessity to act early”.
While most participants were eventually taken from their boats and loaded on to an Israeli warship, some are reported to have been left onboard their smashed-up vessels, unable to communicate with organisers or the coastguard. In a statement, GSF described their situation as “a calculated death trap”.
“After smashing engines and destroying navigation arrays, the military retreated – intentionally leaving… civilians stranded on powerless, broken vessels directly in the path of a massive approaching storm,” the statement read.
While the flotilla is now regrouping – with some boats already saying they are carrying on towards Gaza, and others going to rescue their intercepted comrades – many observers are asking how European governments could have allowed the attack to happen.
UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese said on social media that it should send “shock waves across Europe”. “Alarm! How on earth is [it] possible that Israel is allowed to assault and seize vessels in international waters just off Greece/Europe?” she wrote.
Italy, Germany and Spain have now all called for international law to be respected, with Spain outright calling Israel’s actions illegal. Meanwhile, Turkey has called the attack what it is: piracy.
But given that the rest of the world generally allows Israel to act with total impunity, should this attack really have come as such a surprise?
On the last flotilla, participants who had also been taken hostage in international waters, albeit far closer to Israel, were tortured in detention, with prison guards inflicting extreme violence, including sexual violence, on activists. Considering there still haven’t been any consequences for this, with many governments failing to say anything at all, perhaps we should have expected Israel to be emboldened to break international law in an even more flagrant way.
From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.
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The former lead guitarist of folk rock band Mumford & Sons said Britain should build a mine-laden “floating wall” to stop migrants crossing the Channel.
On April 25, Winston Marshall told Fox News that the best way to stop “military-aged men” who are “economic migrants” entering Britain is to “build a giant wall”.
“We could build a floating wall, that’s mined, across the Channel,” Marshall hypothesised last week.
The Dover Strait, the narrowest part of the Channel, is the busiest shipping lane in the world.
Marshall is the son of media baron Paul Marshall, the hedge fund investor and media baron who co-owns GB News and owns the Spectator and UnHerd.
Marshall left Mumford & Sons in 2021 to avoid “self-censoring” after the band faced criticism for his beliefs. In the same year, the banjo player publicly praised rightwing US influencer Andy Ngo, whose book on antifa has been slammed for inaccuracy by journalists and described by the LA Times as “supremely dishonest”.
Marshall has since rebranded as a rightwing influencer, hosting a podcast on the Spectator and launching his own podcast in 2024.
Sophia Sheera is a journalist in Novara Media’s social media team.
From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.
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More than 100 candidates standing in next week’s election for the Senedd have made the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)’s “Pledge for Palestine”, which includes supporting the Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions on Israel.
A total of 115 candidates have so far signed the pledge, representing a wide range of political parties, including 46 Green candidates, 37 from Plaid Cymru, 8 from the Liberal Democrats, 6 from Labour, and 5 independents.
The “Senedd Palestine Pledge” commits candidates – if elected – to “take all appropriate steps to” (1) uphold the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, (2) stand up to Israel for its crimes of genocide and apartheid, and (3) ensure the Welsh government is not complicit in these crimes, including by supporting the Palestinian-led call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
Prominent Senedd candidates taking the pledge
The pledge has been made by prominent Senedd candidates, including Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter, former Members of the Senedd standing again such as Mike Hedges (Labour), Sioned Williams (Plaid Cymru), Llyr Gruffydd (Plaid Cymru), Sian Gwenllian (Plaid Cymru), Heledd Fychan (Plaid Cymru), former MP Beth Winter (community independent) and Rob Griffiths of the Communist Party of Britain.
With the new ‘closed proportional list system’, where voters select based on parties or independent candidates, rather than parties’ individual candidates, the pledge has been signed by 2 Labour, 3 Liberal Democrat, 10 Plaid Cymru and 12 Green first-placed candidates.
The pledge has direct relevance to the Senedd, particularly in light of last year’s revelation that the Welsh government had given a £500,000 grant to an arms company that exports parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets, despite the First Minister’s claims to the contrary. These aircraft have been used in Israel’s obliteration of Gaza, which is widely considered to have amounted to the crime of genocide, a finding confirmed by the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry.
The Senedd Pledge for Palestine follows PSC’s similar initiative in the English local elections, where more than 1,800 council candidates have made a ‘Pledge for Palestine’.
Bethan Sayed, co-chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign Cymru, said:
Reaching 100 pledges is a milestone. It is a clear message that Palestine is on the ballot in this Senedd election. Wales has always aspired to be a nation that stands on the right side of history, a globally responsible nation that holds human rights and international law at its heart. These 100+ candidates are giving real meaning to that aspiration.
Support for Palestinian rights stretches across every community and every constituency in Wales. Polls show public backing for this issue. Voters will be watching closely to see who has the conviction to stand with them.
To those candidates who have not yet signed: time to act is now. This is a test of moral leadership. We urge every remaining candidate to sign the Pledge before polling day.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
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The Golders Green attacker Essa Suleiman has been charged with attempted murder and not terrorism.
London’s Metropolitan Police charge Essa Suleiman with attempted murder after a stabbing attack in Golders Green. The incident follows the antisemitic attack that raised Britain’s terrorism threat level.https://t.co/cKx923lIHw
— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) May 1, 2026
Rightly so, since Suleiman had been discharged from a mental health unit just before the attack.
Channel 4 News has learned the Golders Green attacker left a psychiatric hospital run by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in recent days.
More tonight at 7pm.
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) April 30, 2026
The discharge of a man clearly still struggling with ill health, speaks volumes about Labour’s attrition of the NHS. Many hospital trusts have been forced to fill doctor positions with non-doctors, such as the Maudsley trust.
@Channel4News We’ve been warning @wesstreeting about @MaudsleyNHS for years .
When you have Dr substitutes such as physician Assistants managing these vulnerable patients instead of psychiatrists this is the result .
Death and harm to innocent people https://t.co/8TeG3sdYFu
— @medicalmodelwithabriochebun (@medicalmodelbri) April 30, 2026
Was earlier attack on police and their dog ‘antisemitic’?
Further research shows that Suleiman is also being charged with attempted murder for an attack in Southwark earlier the same day. The area is not predominantly Jewish. This very detail is, somehow, absent from BBC and other mainstream media headlines, even if you tailor your Boolean search.
Suleiman appears to have a record of knife attacks. This includes stabbing two police officers and a dog almost twenty years ago:
Can we stop claiming it was an “antisemitic attack” please. Same mental health case previously stabbed two police officers and a police dog in 2008. Was the dog Jewish too? So please stop LYING. https://t.co/EmGdyIXFKt
— Robin Monotti (@robinmonotti) April 30, 2026
Despite this, Keir Starmer’s functionaries have raised the ‘terror threat’ level to severe. His home secretary Shabana Mahmood has — of course — used this as cover to claim that anti-genocide marches are “stirring up hate against Jews.”
Mahmood also plans to tighten Starmer’s already anti-democratic, anti-human rights protest laws. Apparently too many people are opposing Israel’s crimes too often – and she lied that the protests include hate crimes:
Hon Secretary Shabana Mahmood says Palestine marches are stirring up hate towards Jews.
“There are too many instances when hate crime is committed.
“And the scale of their protests – the repeat nature of the protests – is intimidating.”
— Kate Ferguson (@kateferguson4) April 30, 2026
In fact, the only violence and hate at anti-genocide marches is perpetrated either by police, or by pro-Israel counter-demonstrators.
‘Surprisingly’, the government didn’t take the opportunity to crack down on Islamophobia or Zionist racism — or to raise the terror alert. Neither did the January 2026 stabbing — to death — of a Muslim man during Ramadan. Nor did the racist rape of women whose attackers thought they were Muslims, which barely made the front pages.
Keir Starmer has no interest in even speaking out against the terrorism of the Israeli apartheid colony. He will however exploit any excuse to further his war on British people’s rights to protest Israeli war crimes.
The Golders Green attack was certainly violent, as was the police’s response, but it was no act of antisemitism or terrorism — as the charges today confirm.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
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At 9am on 30 April, over 20 activists from Axe Drax hunted down Drax’s executives to their central London office after they refused to turn up to their own AGM.
The activists vaulted the building’s barriers and stormed the third floor offices, unfurling banners reading ‘Drax Kills’, ‘Drax is Toxic’ and ‘Go Breathe Poison, Willard’ in reference to Drax’s pollution of communities in the Southern US and the Drax CEO Willard Gardiner.
After activists had occupied the offices for an hour, security forcibly dragged them out one at a time. Activists heard an office worker saying “you know I don’t believe in climate change”. And the building manager said “if you let another person in you’re sacked” to security during the commotion. At 11am, two more activists entered the building letting off portable alarms attached to “retirement” helium balloons.
The Axe Drax action follows the revelation Drax received £999m in subsidy and the announcement by board members that they wouldn’t attend their AGM in person this year. This is after they closed their AGM early last year following interventions from activists. Drax cited “security concerns”, but this has been met with widespread condemnation as a move to simply avoid mounting criticism across sectors.
This action is one of many to happen around Drax’s AGM, including a demonstration outside the building where Drax’s shareholders are gathering by the Stop Burning Trees Coalition and the Climate Choir Movement with a planned day of tuneful protest.
Rosie Gloster, from pressure group Axe Drax, said:
Drax is falling apart as a company, facing numerous lawsuits, investigations by the FCA and rapidly falling profits despite the almost £1bn received in subsidies last year that we all footed the bill for.
It’s utterly pathetic that Drax thinks they can hide from the public and community members like this; we can all see through their dirty lies. We want to make one thing clear: whatever Drax does, we will not let them hide from the death and destruction they’re spreading around the world.
Sam Simmons, also from Axe Drax, said:
As much as Drax tries, they will never be able to hide from the fact they’re poisoning communities, destroying vital forests and ripping off billpayers here in the UK. If Drax wants to try and hide from the public, we will come to them.
Our money is footing the bill for their multi-million pay packets, we’re being forced into funding the poisoning of working-class, Black communities in the US – we will not let Drax hide behind a screen for as long as they continue their deadly business.
Featured image via Axe Drax
By The Canary
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Independents in the London borough of Ealing have been “making a breakthrough” as support for the Labour Party there is tanking. Labour currently dominates in Ealing, but Ealing Community Independents (ECI) leader, Craig Smith, told the Canary:
The number of people who are willing to admit on the doorstep that they’re voting Labour is breathtakingly low. Single percentage figures… So I know that things are going to look very different on May 8th.
Building “a credible alternative to Ealing Labour”
He compared the credentials of these independent and Labour councillors and what they stand for, saying:
None of the people that are going to be candidates for Ealing Community Independents are career politicians. None of them have been councillors before […] Essentially, all of our members are part of local residents’ associations. We have people who lead litter picking campaigns. We have people who are recognised community champions.
So they all do something as community organisers above and beyond just wanting to become councillors. Because, honestly, that’s been part of the problem with Ealing Labour Council over the years – 16 years now of councillors just doing it because they enjoy the status but they don’t want to get their hands dirty. They don’t actually want to be seen between the elections.
In waging an campaign led by independents to remove Labour’s majority on Ealing Council, he insisted that:
It’s the largest ever attempt by a new party or a grouping of independents to do this.
Their efforts to offer local voters “a credible alternative to Ealing Labour” include a key promise not to cut public services.
Labour has consistently “cut back on crucial services,” Smith lamented, with numerous children’s centres “up for the chop” last year. He stressed that independents would “reverse” that policy.
In short, ECI’s position is that, if their candidates are in charge:
you won’t see any cuts or closures or privatisations to frontline vital services [adding that] more than 20% of the working population is earning below the London Living Wage.
And to fight back against that, ECI councillors would work:
to make sure that all of the local employers are paying at least the London Living Wage to their employees
Holding housing developers to account
Smith also highlighted the need for more “affordable housing” which ECI is pushing for.
He explained why the current situation needs to end, and what ECI would do to deal with it:
As with many councils, Ealing Labour Council makes promises every year that it consistently breaks in terms of new house building and the number of affordable units that go into the developments that they’ve given planning approval to…
Essentially, planning approval is given for a major developer to throw up a block of flats. They agree to a certain ratio of affordable housing and then, almost inevitably, by the time that development is finished, they renege on the promise and say ‘it’s no longer affordable, costs have gone up, we can’t afford to do that’, and they reduce the number of units.
So literally every year, Ealing Council come back and say ‘oh, we haven’t hit our target’. And they don’t seem to be at all embarrassed about it.
So one of the things that we are sort of committing to do is to hold the developers to their initial obligation… I think the public and the developers need to know that we are serious when they make a commitment and they get an approval in the first place, that we expect affordable and social housing to go into those developments.
You can see all of ECI’s policies and positions here.
Ealing deserves better
Labour’s tanking support in Ealing is, in part, due to councillors being so disconnected from residents. As Smith asserted:
The thing that we hear most consistently is how angry they are at the lack of responsiveness from their councillors.
These independents have been making it clear to residents that unlike Labour, they put the voices of ordinary people at the heart of what they do. One key question when canvassing is whether people have heard of ECI. And though it’s a new party, Smith notes that:
Increasingly, people are saying yes. So it’s definitely working. We’re making a breakthrough.
ECI has also received the endorsement of Your Party. And it has been strategic too, having positive conversations with the local Green Party. As Smith clarified:
We agreed not to stand in three of their highest priority wards.
However, the green part, as he noted:
have pressure from above, from the central party, to field candidates, as many as possible, across all of the wards… So they are fielding candidates in our wards.
Greens have not been actively campaigning in ECI target wards, though.
Cooperative efforts between independents and Greens are entirely possible, as the Hackney campaign this year has shown. But as numerous independents around the country have told us, the national Green Party seems to be gauging where it can get significant support with minimal effort, and where it struggles — ahead of local elections.
Because of our highly problematic, anti-democratic voting system and obscenely wealthy individuals force-feeding Reform’s racist elitism — now is the time for change. To stop far-right Reform and an increasingly authoritarian Labour, Greens must work more collaboratively with independents.
Smith hopes this will happen after the local election, with parties to the left of Labour coming together to hold it to account.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
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The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is bragging about staff completing autism awareness training. This comes right when they’re trying to prove neurodivergent conditions are overdiagnosed.
The department put out a self-congratulatory press release reporting that about 4,000 DWP healthcare professionals had completed “part of” the Oliver McGowan Trust’s autism and learning disability training.
Yes, you read that right, part of. In theory, this could be as little as an introductory session. But the DWP aren’t ashamed to celebrate the bare minimum.
DWP patting themselves on back for bare minimum
The press release explains:
The training tackles “diagnostic overshadowing” – where symptoms are wrongly attributed to a person’s disability rather than investigated properly – ensuring people receive the right support at the right time.
Which sounds great, but this is the DWP we’re talking about. But how much of this will be used to punish disabled people?
The release also says the training is intended to give staff the tools to make “meaningful reasonable adjustments” as they navigate the fucking cruel benefits system
These include:
- More time in assessments, reducing anxiety and allowing people to communicate clearly and confidently.
- Simpler, clearer communications from Jobcentres, making information accessible to people who may find complex language difficult to process.
- Sensory-aware Jobcentre environments, ensuring spaces feel safe and manageable for people who may find busy or loud environments overwhelming.
Again, nice promises, but in a system that feels like it’s built to catch you out, it’s going to take a lot of convincing. This is already a department that gets a horrific amount of complaints. The number of complaints from Universal Credit claimants rose by 43% last year. This happened despite there only being a 12% increase in claims.
In its press release, the DWP also had the fucking audacity to say:
The accomplishment is a clear demonstration of the government’s commitment to putting disabled people at the heart of everything it does.
To back this up, the department once again brags about the Independent Disability Advisory Panel. As the Canary has extensively covered, this is a complete farce. It only includes 10 whole disabled people with mere hours to pore over reams of policy. In fact, that’s if they’re allowed to do anything meaningful at all.
The government also had to backtrack on the IDAP before it even launched. This is because they tried to insist participants sign NDAs. The panel also sparked fury as only one of them is from the north of England.
DWP can never be trusted
There’s also the glaring elephant in the room — the DWP bragging about this minimum training whilst doing everything in their power to strip autistic people and those with other neurodivergent conditions of their vital benefits.
The DWP is currently in the process of reforming PIP with its bullshit Timms review. One of the main things the disability benefits cuts protests stopped last year was limiting eligibility. This was especially true for those with neurodivergent conditions.
At the same time, the Department of Health and Social Care is undertaking a review into whether neurodivergent conditions are overdiagnosed. It predictably isn’t going well for them. Not only did 132 experts come out to disprove them. But their own interim report did exactly the same.
This is coupled with the constant noise from the shit rags and think tanks about how people are faking it for benefits or ‘gaming the system’. Just this week, warmonger Tony Blair piped up to propose that neurodivergent conditions should be recategorised as ‘non-work-limiting conditions’ and not eligible for benefits.
Personally, I think war criminals shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near welfare, but that’s just me.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much the DWP pretends to care about autistic people. Until they stop attacking neurodivergent people and trying to prove they’re all faking, their “training” is hubristic bullshit — meaningless to disabled people.
Featured image via the Canary
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17
The following speech was delivered by Trotsky to the Moscow Soviet in April 1924 in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of May Day. On this occasion, Trotsky reaffirmed the revolutionary origins of May Day and its three fundamental slogans: the demand for the eight-hour day, for international class solidarity, and against militarism.
From In Defence of Marxism via This RSS Feed.
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The White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend became the site of the third failed attempt to assassinate President Donald Trump. “I remember the feeling was very similar to when it was clear that the House had been invaded on January 6, 2021,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was in attendance, tells The Intercept Briefing. “Everybody was afraid that somebody had come in with an AR-15 or something like that.”
This week on the podcast, host Akela Lacy speaks to Raskin about his experience at the dinner and later being asked by CNN’s Dana Bash about whether he’s thinking twice about his “heated rhetoric” toward Trump. “It was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that she would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks,” says Raskin. “He calls people crazy, insane. He calls people evil, wicked. He will buttonhole reporters and tell them that they’re stupid, they’re ugly. … But we try to keep it at the level of policies and their actions.” Some examples, which Raskin discusses, is his forthcoming investigation into Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s role in the administration and conflicts of interest, and his fight in Congress to stop the reauthorization of warrantless surveillance on Americans.
After this latest assassination attempt on Trump’s life, claims that it was staged flooded the internet, from comments section to social media posts to videos of influencers dissecting alleged evidence.
“We are so conditioned to distrust what we are being told by authorities that people immediately began concocting conspiracy theories about it even before we even knew what had happened. Whether it was a shooting or just dishes breaking,” says journalist Mike Rothschild. He’s the author of “The Storm is Upon Us,” the first complete book on the QAnon conspiracy movement, and more recently, a 200-year history of conspiracy theories called “Jewish Space Lasers.”
Rothschild joins Lacy to unpack the growing world of conspiracy theories that question whether the multiple assassination attempts against Trump were staged. They also dive into other conspiracy theories currently capturing the public imagination, such as the dead and missing scientists and a wildfire in Georgia. “This is one of our more fun and disturbing interviews,” says Lacy.
For more, listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.
Transcript
Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Akela Lacy, senior politics reporter for The Intercept.
Katherine Krueger: And I’m Katherine Krueger, the Voices editor at The Intercept.
AL: Katherine, do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about what Voices is before we jump into the show today?
KK: Voices is basically The Intercept’s op-ed section we run. Things that are more narrative, things that are a little more first-person-driven, things that advocate for a specific point of view.
AL: An Intercept editorial board, if you will.
KK: Yes, I’m a one-woman editorial board. [Laughs.]
AL: Speaking of opinions on the news of the day, I am going to throw several topics at you. [Laughs.]
KK: OK. Hit me.
AL: On Thursday morning, news broke that Janet Mills is dropping out of the Maine Senate race. Katherine, what was your reaction to seeing that?
KK: So Janet Mills is the current governor of Maine, former attorney general, running against Graham Platner in the Democratic primary to be the next senator of Maine.
She was neck and neck with the upstart, insurgent, more-left candidate Graham Platner, who has certainly had his share of controversies during this race. But my jaw dropped when I saw the news that she was dropping out. It feels like all polling that I had seen was that her and Platner were pretty close in the polls.
In a statement she put out, she’s blaming a lack of money for not continuing the race, which is also strange to me because she had all of the backing of the Democratic Party. No one at DNC national was pulling for Platner.
AL: Yeah, this was pretty shocking to me. I also got an AP alert on Wednesday evening. The title was “Underdog Governor,” and the dek was “Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills says she’s used to being underestimated even as she runs for Senate at age 78.”
Literally 12 hours later, Janet Mills is dropping out of the race for U.S. Senate.
[
Related
Democratic Leaders Wanted to Control the Maine Senate Race. Their Pick Just Dropped Out.](https://theintercept.com/2026/04/30/maine-janet-mills-graham-platner-senate/)
I was also pretty shocked at the statement that Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand put out after she dropped out of the race, which was “[Maine Sen. Susan] Collins has never been more vulnerable” — what? “We will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, to defeat her.” [Laughs.]
KK: Yeah, it’s a bit strange. Also, I just love the framing in that headline, which is “underdog governor” — don’t those things pull in opposite directions? Also, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer were fully behind Janet Mills. It all strikes me as a bit strange. It also seems Platner had been in general polling ahead of Mills, but it does seem like the race was quite close. My jaw dropped when I saw the news. It seems out of nowhere.
AL: Also in midterms and voting rights news, on Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a decision that rolled back voting rights. This was focused on a case in Louisiana. After that decision, Louisiana postponed its May 16 primary. Which is kind of insane, considering that that was supposed to happen in two weeks.
KK: It does seem like an existential threat for the Democrats to respond. Gerrymandering has been an issue for a long time. The Republicans are fully aware that without gerrymandering, the force of the electorate is against them. Democrats need to respond as other states, I’m sure, will look to redraw their maps in even more draconian ways.
“The Republicans are fully aware that without gerrymandering, the force of the electorate is against them.”
AL: In that vein, Democrats are also facing intense scrutiny over a series of key votes in the house this week, including on extending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which 42 Democrats voted to support and 22 Republicans opposed on Wednesday. This version would authorize warrantless surveillance of Americans.
[
Related
Ron Wyden Is Pissing Off the NSA’s Biggest Backers. Tom Cotton Warns There Will Be “Consequences.”](https://theintercept.com/2026/04/30/wyden-cotton-nsa-surveillance-fisa-702/)
There’s also been some developments in the fight to end the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. After a monthslong shutdown, the House passed legislation to reopen DHS on Thursday.
After federal immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota earlier this year, Democrats had attempted to block additional funding for DHS until the agency could make some very modest reforms to ICE and Border Patrol. Democrats’ demands have so far gone nowhere. Though some places are framing the vote on Thursday, which did not fund ICE, as a win for Democrats. Katherine, what do you make of all of this?
KK: Well, it does seem that the Republicans are pretty desperate to restore this funding. You know, as an op-ed editor — Democrats need to hold the line on this.
AL: It’s my understanding that this bill will pay for DHS operations except ICE and parts of Border Patrol through September 30. Those agencies are already being generously funded by the Trump so-called Big Beautiful Bill that approved a record $85 billion for immigration crackdowns.
KK: Right. So for now it appears to be all eyes on the Democrats to see what they can do, if anything, to gum up the works on billions in new funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
AL: And of course, this is all coming on the heels of the third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump over the weekend, which we talk about with Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who was present at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during the shooting attempt.
Later in the show, we hear from journalist Mike Rothschild about the world of conspiracy theories swirling around the shooting and other recent events in the U.S.
KK: Akela, you got really great details from Rep. Raskin from inside the Correspondents’ Dinner. So let’s listen to that conversation now.
AL: Welcome to the Intercept Briefing, Rep. Raskin.
Rep. Jamie Raskin: Great to see you, Akela.
AL: So you were at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday evening. Tell us what you witnessed.
JR: I entered maybe 10 minutes before the incident happened and the violence and the confusion and the melee and the chaos. All of a sudden, we heard the loud noises, boom boom boom, glasses flying, plates flying — horrific noises taking place. And then people yelling, “Get down, get down.” Somebody, I think it maybe was a Secret Service agent or an officer, somebody threw me to the ground.
Then we stayed on the floor for two or three minutes before people started saying they got the guy, or it’s OK, you can get up. But there was a lot of confusion.
I remember the feeling was very similar to when it was clear that the House had been invaded on January 6, 2021, and everybody was afraid that somebody had come in with an AR-15 or something like that.
It was a scene of crowd chaos and fear in America, which means people are going to be thinking about the possibility of an assault weapon or some kind of deadly gun attack.
AL: The day after the shooting, you spoke to CNN’s Dana Bash about the incident in an interview where she asked you about the responsibility of Democrats whose rhetoric toward Trump she described as “heated.” Let’s hear that clip.
[Clip from CNN]
Dana Bash: And you have, and as many of your fellow Democrats have, used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that when something like this happens?
Rep. Jamie Raskin: What rhetoric do you have in mind?
DB: Just talking about some of the fact that he is terrible for this country and so on and so forth. I understand that’s your democratic right, but overall, do you have no responsibility?
JR: I have no personal problem with Donald Trump at all. I talk about the policies of this administration. The authoritarianism, like we saw on display in Minneapolis where two of our citizens were gunned down in the streets simply for exercising their First Amendment rights; Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and others have died in custody. I’m talking about policies. I don’t personalize it, and I certainly have never called the press the enemy of the people. I think the press are the people’s best friend, and that’s why it’s written right there into the First Amendment.
We need the press to be a vigilant watchdog against every level of government, federal, state, local, all of it.
[Clip ends]
AL: I also want to note that on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Democrats who have criticized Trump for the shooting, naming several members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
What did you make of Bash’s question to you and the idea behind it, that somehow the real problem here is criticizing the president and his policies, no matter what those policies are?
JR: The freedom of speech has to be wide open, vigorous, and uninhibited in America. But the point I was trying to make was that we should keep to policy matters and political matters, and not personalize it.
So I literally didn’t know what she was talking about. I do not use, or at least I try not to use, the kind of rhetoric that President Trump routinely and habitually uses where he calls people communists, he calls people terrorists. He calls people crazy, insane. He calls people evil, wicked. He will buttonhole reporters and tell them that they’re stupid, they’re ugly, all those kinds of things.
I just thought it was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that [Bash] would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks, because we are indeed very vigorous and aggressive in standing up to violent insurrections and attempts to overthrow elections. And we’re very vigorous and aggressive in opposing illegal wars because Congress has been cut out and so on. But we try to keep it at the level of policies and their actions.
“It was curious that, in the wake of this terrible episode, that she would try to equate the way that Democrats talk and the way that President Trump talks.”
AL: A letter that you sent a few weeks ago to the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner opened by saying, “You are now reportedly participating as ‘Special Envoy for Peace’ in negotiations on behalf of the United States government to address the roiling conflicts in the Middle East. At the same time, you are soliciting billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies for your private business ventures while already managing billions of dollars of their money in your international investment firm.”
The letter is meant to notify Kushner about a forthcoming investigation into his role in the administration and conflicts of interest. What do you hope to investigate here, and can you talk about what you find most concerning about Kushner’s role in trying to negotiate an end to the war in Iran and being involved in other foreign policy ventures?
JR: Any reasonable person would see this as an absolute conflict of interest — that you can’t serve two masters at the same time.
So on the one hand, he’s got billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and they have specific interests of their own. Their leaders do, like Mohammed bin Salman, the homicidal crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. They’ve got particular interests.
It’s been reported widely that his interest — and therefore Saudi Arabia’s interest — is to keep the war going for as long as possible. There’s money to be made there, and they also want to do everything they can to degrade the power of Iran. That’s one set of interests that Jared Kushner is representing. Those are his business partners, those are his clients.
[
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Saudi Crown Prince Boasted That Jared Kushner Was “In His Pocket”](https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/jared-kushner-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman/)
And at the same time, he’s representing the United States. And I asked him the question straight up: Are you representing, 100%, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and Qatar and your business with all of those people? Or are you representing, 100%, the people of the United States? Or do you think you’re doing 50/50? Everybody would see that as a dramatic, egregious conflict of interest to do it.
But, of course, in the Trump era, the Trump officials see it not as a conflict of interest but as a convergence of interest. The way they think of it is, “Oh, this is great. We can go over, and we can talk about the war, and we can also talk about our business deals and recruit more clients and get more money from them.”
“Trump officials see it not as a conflict of interest but as a convergence of interest.”
There was reportage about how he’s seeking to get even more billions of dollars from them, which obviously means they have additional leverage beyond the money that they’ve already put in. This has never happened in another presidency, anything remotely like it.
So we want to investigate, to get to the bottom of exactly who he’s representing. How is he representing himself? What is the mixture of private and public business he’s conducting when he goes on these trips?
AL: The BBC also just published a report on insider trading around Trump’s presidency amid questions about how markets have responded to the Iran war. The House Oversight Committee released a report earlier this year on Trump and his family profiteering from his administration.
Do you know if that’s going anywhere, and are you looking into any of those issues in your capacity on the Judiciary Committee?
JR: Yes, because his sons clearly are venturing into defense contracting and are participating in various ventures where they are selling goods to the Department of Defense.
So look, this is a president who started off in his first administration dipping his toes in the water to see what kind of reaction there would be to collecting millions of dollars from China and Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and Egypt and all of these countries at the Trump hotels, at the Trump golf courses, the Trump resorts, some other independent business ventures — but it was basically “ma and pa” brick-and-mortar-type ventures.
[
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Trump Is Rewriting History to Justify His Sketchy Pardon of a Crypto King](https://theintercept.com/2025/10/24/trump-pardon-crypto-binance-cz/)
Now they’ve gone digital. They’ve gone from millions of dollars to billions of dollars with the crypto schemes and scams that they’ve put together, with the military–industrial complex. All bets are off at this point. They have thrown off any kind of guardrails or inhibitions.
I fault us for not having impeached him in the first term for violating the foreign emoluments clause and also the domestic emoluments clause, which says that the president is limited to his salary in office and cannot receive any other money from the United States — and yet was regularly billing the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, the Department of Commerce, every other federal department for staying at his hotels, making them stay there, then billing them for it, and the golf courses, and so on and so forth.
The Constitution tried to create a wall of separation between the president’s private businesses and the public Treasury and the public good. Congress has to act. Obviously, our friends on the MAGA side are not going to act on this. But the Democrats will. We need to reestablish that wall of separation.
AL: While I have you, I know you were on the floor on Wednesday for debate on extending FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and whether the government can conduct warrantless surveillance on the public. The House voted to pass the surveillance program extension in the face of fierce opposition from critics and civil liberties advocates. What is the latest here?
JR: It’s an interesting situation because Chairman Jim Jordan, my counterpart on the Judiciary Committee — I’m the ranking member, he’s the chairman for the Republicans — he represented. Nobody else was willing to speak for the FISA bill on the House side. He had no speakers participating in his roster.
I had tons of people who wanted to speak against it and was able to have several of them do it. He was even uncharacteristically subdued in his presentation because he had taken the position historically that there needs to be a warrant requirement and probable cause before you start searching the foreign intelligence database drawn from all the communications companies, emails, texts, phone calls. But he’s changed his position in working with the White House.
The press at least, is reporting this has to do with his desire to become the next minority leader. So I do not think he advanced the most coherent arguments for this.
[
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Democrats Might Save Mike Johnson’s Push to Give Trump Domestic Spying Power](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/23/trump-domestic-spying-fisa-702-democrats/)
Our position was simple, which is that before you go searching about in querying information that exists in a foreign intelligence database that was gathered without any Fourth Amendment standards — no probable cause, no search warrant, none of it — before you go searching for the information about hundreds of millions of Americans, you’ve got to go and talk to a judge first. The Fourth Amendment says search warrants have to be based on probable cause, and you need to interpose a neutral, independent magistrate between the government and its detective work and its searches.
They say, no, let’s just leave it up to the FBI director to be reasonable. Well, that’s Kash Patel. When there were complaints about that, even on the Republican side, they added something to say, Kash Patel has got to report what he’s doing to Tulsi Gabbard. So if you think having Kash Patel report to Tulsi Gabbard is a great substitute for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, go ahead and vote for this.
“If you think having Kash Patel report to Tulsi Gabbard is a great substitute for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, go ahead and vote for this.”
But if you want to stand by the Constitution, this is not legislation for you. So the wheel is still in spin as we work our way back and forth between the House and the Senate.
Kash Patel had been spending a lot of taxpayer money by getting FBI agents to shepherd and chauffeur his girlfriend around the country for security and for transportation. When the New York Times somehow got ahold of that, somebody leaked it and wrote a story about it, Kash Patel’s response was not, “Oh my God, I’ve made such a mistake, I’ve gotta apologize and stop using taxpayer money and SWAT teams to chauffeur my girlfriend around America.” No. His response was, let’s investigate her. Let’s search all the databases that we’ve got.
So if you think that’s the guy you want to trust to be respecting the privacy rights of the American people and the Fourth Amendment rights — fine, this is for you. But we had more than a dozen Republicans join us after our debate in opposing it, the vast majority of Democrats voted against it, but they were able to win that one on the floor. We’ll see where it goes, and whether our friends on the Senate side can hang tough.
AL: Thank you so much, Congressman Raskin.
JR: Thanks for having me, Akela.
Break
AL: After the latest assassination attempt on President Donald Trump over the weekend, claims that it was a false flag, another orchestrated and staged incident flooded the internet, from the comments section to social media posts to videos of influencers dissecting the alleged evidence.
Today I speak to journalist Mike Rothschild about the growing world of conspiracy theories that question whether the multiple assassination attempts against Trump were staged. We’ll also dive into other conspiracy theories currently capturing the public imagination, from dead and missing scientists to a wildfire in Georgia.
Mike writes Rough Edges for TPM, covering fringe groups, conspiracy theories, moral panics, and how the Internet broke our brains. He is the author of the first complete book on the QAnon conspiracy movement called “The Storm is Upon Us” and most recently a 200 year history of conspiracy theories called “Jewish Space Lasers.”
Mike, welcome to The Intercept Briefing.
Mike Rothschild: Thank you for having me.
AL: Last week’s attempt to assassinate Trump already feels far away. But this was the third such attempt after two other failed attacks in recent years. One in Butler, Pennsylvania and another in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mike, one of the reasons that we wanted to bring you on the show is to discuss a growing chorus of online chatter claiming these assassination attempts were staged
Even before the latest attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, prominent MAGA voices like Marjorie Taylor Green were raising questions. Greene wrote on X, “I’m not calling the Butler assassination a hoax. But there are a lot of questions that deserve public answers. I’m asking why won’t Trump release the information about Matthew Crooks?” Crooks being the 20 year old gunman, killed by secret service while trying to attack Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania two years ago.
To start, can you lay out what we know so far about what happened on Saturday and the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, the 31 year old from Torrance, California? And then we’ll get into the various conspiracy theories surrounding the shooting.
MR: For an incident that happened fairly recently, we know quite a bit. We know what his motive was because he sent a manifesto to his friends and family. We know what he did because it was caught on camera. He was armed with a shotgun and knives. He ran toward a medal detector on the floor above where the actual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was taking place. He never got in the room. He never actually fired a shot at Trump or was even close. And he was subdued by the Secret Service and security and taken away. This is not the kind of thing where you would think that there would be conspiracy theories about it being fake because we have a timeline of what happened almost immediately.
[
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How Trump’s America Produces Normie Assassins](https://theintercept.com/2026/04/27/white-house-correspondents-dinner-shooting-trump/)
But we are so conditioned to distrust what we are being told by authorities that people immediately began concocting conspiracy theories about it even before we even knew what had happened. Whether it was a shooting or just dishes breaking.
AL: Let’s unpack some of the “fake shooting” claims. You wrote on BlueSky “Trump keeps staging assassination attempts’ is the same Infowars brainworm strain as ‘Obama keeps staging mass shootings.’ Different party, same paranoia.” What are the conspiratorial claims surrounding the assassination attempt on Saturday?
MR: The biggest one is that it was staged, that Trump hired this person and set all of this up and that everyone in the room who needed to know where they were going to go, knew about it, and you could tell from the looks on their faces and the way security acted, and he was staging all of this so that he could bump his approval ratings or that he could create more interest for his super mega ballroom bunker.
All of these are things that have been said about other incidents involving Trump. It’s just that it happened incredibly quickly. I don’t think we even had the name of the suspect before people started saying that it was staged.
AL: You also had Karoline Leavitt having said there will be shots fired tonight and people taking that and running with it as the verbal version of numerology. I don’t know what the word for that is.
MR: Right. There is actually a term for it. It’s this term called “predictive programming.”
AL: Thank you. Thank you.
MR: Yes, I wish I didn’t know that. In the conspiracy world, it means that the cabal that perpetrates these plots has to tell us what they’re going to do for karmic reasons, but they do it in a way that we won’t understand it. You get this a lot with the Simpsons ironically, or other pieces of entertainment where there’s a clue to some upcoming event that’s hidden in a cutaway on the Simpsons or in the plot of something, and it’s the cabal telling us what they have to do.
I once had somebody say, “Oh, it’s like vampires, they have to be invited into your house.” And I said, “well, vampires aren’t real either.” It’s like come on, what are we doing?
AL: [Laughs.] What are we doing? That is the question though. What makes these conspiracy theories take hold as opposed to coming out of something like this with more of a collective sense of an effort to address gun violence, or talk about how these incidents are used to police dissent and criticism of the president.
Last year we had the Minnesota lawmaker and her husband who were killed in their home by a Trump supporter who had radical anti-abortion views. This is in the vein of our longstanding inability to address mass shootings, but what makes it easier to respond to something like that with a conspiracy theory rather than some other kind of response?
MR: Conspiracy theories are easy. They don’t require any evidence. They don’t require any research or self-reflection looking at an incident where the highest ranked people in the United States are all in one room and the security isn’t as tight as it should be, and guns are too easy to get, and there’s too many people who have mental illness because they’ve been radicalized and brain poisoned on the internet.
Those are really difficult issues to solve. They go to the core of American politics and communication right now, but just deciding that it was staged so that the president could get his ballroom bunker or get five points on his approval rating that’s easy. That doesn’t take any effort.
And then you can do it immediately. If you do it well, you can get viral clout out of it. You get clicks, you make money. It’s a very easy solution to a very, very complicated problem.
AL: Right now, in the political environment that we’re in there’s always a rush after these shootings to ascribe either far-left or far-right extremism to the suspect or the assailant.
We saw that in this case, where it turns out he seems like a pretty normal centrist, liberal Democrat. After the Minnesota killing of Melissa Hortman and her husband, we spoke to journalist Taylor Lorenz about how quick prominent figures on the right took to social media to blame the left for their deaths.
Utah Senator Mike Lee said it was due to “Marxism.” Elon Musk claimed it was the “far left.” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, said it “seems to be a leftist.” Lorenz said, “There’s an entire right-wing media machine aimed at pushing disinformation around breaking news events and specifically attributing violence to the left.”
What’s your assessment of how this dynamic works and how it worked in this last shooting as well?
MR: There is. We don’t know how organized or coordinated this apparatus is, but it clearly exists. Minutes after this incident broke on social media, you already had people, “Oh, that’s why we need the ballroom. We gotta have more security around the president. He needs to have his bunker where he can never leave.” You had dozens of extremely popular influencers and politicians all saying this at the same time. These people they coordinate their messaging because that’s what you do in politics.
So I think there is a very real apparatus designed to push the blame onto a convenient scapegoat. Usually someone who is not aligned with the president’s values and to turn it into something that the president can use for his own ends. Some of that I think revolves around this particular president having a very vocal cult of personality around him.
But I think it’s also that we are so used to things happening very quickly and immediately being seized upon for political ends. We all do this now. It’s just that the right is a lot better at it.
AL: The other piece of this is that Donald Trump himself — his political career — has been fueled by conspiracy theories that propelled him to the White House. How has Trump in particular used that race that we’re talking about to ascribe blame and the current media environment that has elevated conspiracy theories to where they’re now shaping national discourse and even policy? We could talk about RFK, Jr. all day.
MR: Donald Trump was really the first conspiracy theorist presidential candidate. He rose to political power certainly based on his celebrity and his apparent wealth, but also because he was able to say things that had been very popular on the fringes for a long time that the mainstream right really didn’t want anything to do with.
Things like Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Antonin Scalia was murdered. Obama is secretly a Muslim. Vaccines cause autism. These are things that mainstream Republicans wanted absolutely nothing to do with. But they were incredibly popular on the sort of fringes and sometimes not the fringes of the far-right.
If you look in the history of these things, you look at some of the more popular conspiracy theory books — and I’ve written about this before — you have the 1970s book, “None Dare Call It Conspiracy,” which was written by two members of the John Birch Society, the far right anti-communist group. It sold 5 million copies in the United States in the early ’70s. Clearly there is a market for this, and clearly there are a lot of people who believe this.
Trump was just the first person to say it in a way that made it mainstream grist for discourse. And of course, everybody’s now catching up to him. So when Trump spouts these insane conspiracy theories or pushes these ridiculous memes, he’s doing something that he’s been doing for the last decade and he’s very good at, and that people expect from him and want from him. He’s filling this niche that I think a lot of people didn’t want to believe was there.
AL: If you look at the current podcast charts in the news or politics category or the top YouTube shows, you’ll find shows swimming in conspiracy theories topping those charts like Candace Owens’s podcast. We know the media environment is fragmented. We have a problem with media literacy, yada, yada. But is there a way to come back from that level of saturation of conspiracy is now the most popular form of media consumption? What do we do with that?
MR: Unfortunately I don’t know if there’s a way to do it at scale. I don’t know if there’s a way to glue everyone’s brains back together after 10 years of this insanity, because I think it is extremely lucrative.
AL: What an image.
MR: Yeah. It’s extremely lucrative and it really fills a need that a lot of people have. These are very chaotic times. I think people flock to conspiracy theories and conspiracy theory content creators because these are the people who are saying, “Yeah, this is all crazy, but here’s what’s really going on.”
There is a kind of a smugness to the conspiracy theory world. This idea of I know something you don’t know. I’ve got the secret knowledge. I know what’s really happening and I’m going to share it with you because you think I’m the crazy one, but I think you’re the crazy one. And that’s just a very basic human nature kind of thing.
AL: When you talk about feeling this need, I think that’s really a key piece of it because it brings to mind what Cole wrote in his manifesto about feeling like he was filling this role that no one else was taking up — this responsibility to fight back against these sort of like raging evils in the administration, some of which is fueled by conspiracy. He writes a lot about the Epstein stuff, which we’ll get into, which is ironically the least conspiratorial part of this. It’s just real and horrible.
But he talks about feeling like nobody else was going to pick up the torch and do this. That is interesting to me that that sense of finding meaning in something or taking responsibility where no one else will take it, is also caught up in how we come to believe these conspiracy theories in the first place.
MR: There’s a grandiosity to this. There’s a messianic fervor to a lot of these things. You hear it if you listen to Alex Jones. I’m standing in the gap against evil and they’re all coming after me because they know I’m a threat. It’s the same thing, it’s the same delusions of grandeur.
Now with somebody like Alex Jones or Candace Owens or Tucker [Carlson], you wonder how much of that is a character. Not all of it, but some of it is.
With a guy like Cole, it’s not. He really believes this, and there is of course an inherent irrationality to strapping up a shotgun and going to try to kill the president. It’s not something a rational person does.
AL: In Trump’s second term, there are also some signs that some of these conspiracy theorists are breaking with him, including prominent figures that we’re talking about, like Candace Owens and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Where and when did you begin to see cracks in that part of Trump’s allies and what is driving those fractures?
MR: The Trump relationship with the conspiracy community it’s very hot and cold. They will turn on him, but then they’ll always come back. But when they really did start to lose faith, I think for good and much more vocally was Epstein.
This idea that we’re going to break open the Epstein files, we’re going to put everything out there. They had that infamous meeting at the White House with the Epstein files, phase one binders, and they’re all standing there looking very smug.
Then Trump goes, oh, there’s nothing there. There’s no Epstein files. It’s a hoax. The Democrats did that. Biden and Obama did the Epstein files. You know anyone who thinks that is an idiot.
These are influencers who helped get him back into office. Trump is now telling them they’re idiots for believing what he said he was going to do about Epstein. You can only humiliate somebody so many times before they actually start to have feelings.
So I think we started to see it happen with Epstein and then it really happened with Iran. The Iran war really was an abrogation of what Trump said he stood for. He said up and down, I’m the peace president. There’s not going to be any more stupid Middle East forever wars. We’re going to be America first. We’re going to go back to isolationism. We’re not getting involved. Maybe we’ll bomb them if we have to, but we’re not going to war.
Then we go to war. And we go to war for reasons nobody can articulate. The reason changes constantly. We don’t know what the objective is. We don’t know how we know if we’ve achieved the objective. It just looks like yet another Middle Eastern misadventure.
A lot of these people realized their audiences are turning on Trump. If you’re somebody like Tucker or Alex or Candace Owens, you know that you can’t trust Trump, but you still feel stupid. You have feelings, you’re still a person. So I think there is a sense of betrayal and of feeling dumb.
But more than that, they know their audiences are feeling betrayed and dumb. They know their audiences thought we were going to get $2 gas prices. That hasn’t happened. Our electric bills are going to get cut in half. That hasn’t happened. We were going to have so much tariff money we wouldn’t need to pay income tax. That hasn’t happened.
So these people are feeling the effect of Trump’s lying and storytelling in their pocketbooks and in their fuel tanks. And now they’re getting told, yeah, Iran, we gotta go to a war with Iran. You said you weren’t going to go to a war with Iran.
His audiences are feeling betrayed and the influencers are going where their audiences are going because they know they’ve got to start getting ready for a post-Trump world. They just have to do it a little bit faster than they thought they were going to have to.
AL: You’ve also written extensively about the right-wing conspiracy movement QAnon.
In a story you wrote for TPM recently, you wrote about how the movement differs from the Epstein case. You wrote, “Where QAnon was different, and where it failed spectacularly, was in promising that justice would finally be delivered to these untouchable insiders. It offered believers not nihilistic scapegoating, but a utopia that was just a few executions away. The basis of Q, and why it was so compelling to so many people, was that the monsters were finally going to be brought down by Donald Trump, a figure of outsider wealth beholden to nobody except those who elected him.”
Can you talk about how these worlds intersect — the Epstein and QAnon conspiracies — and what it says about both our political discourse, but also accountability and lack thereof?
MR: Lack thereof. Yeah. I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds on the Q drops because no one will survive that. But Epstein is a central figure in this world. This idea that he’s got this satanic temple and these tunnels and he’s trafficking all these girls on the planes with Bill Clinton and all these super elite power brokers and Trump is going to take them down. That was always the biggest part of it. That these people have been an untouchable cabal for thousands of years, and it’s Donald Trump who’s finally going to take them down.
But of course he’s not. So you need an explanation for why he’s not doing it. So something like QAnon invents an explanation of he’s doing it, it’s just in secret, and it’s happening in all of these ways that the public doesn’t know about, but I’m going to tell you about them so that you don’t lose faith.
At some point you have to start delivering. I think there was a sense when Trump came back into office of, “OK we’re going to get rid of all this. We’re going to undo the stolen election, we’re going to undo all the COVID stuff. We’re going to finally bring down the elite trafficking rings. Like no one’s standing in Trump’s way.” Then he just says, the whole thing is stupid and nothing’s going to happen, and you’re an idiot if you believed him.
So the idea of Q was right because there’s elite traffickers. Well, there’s always been elites who’ve gotten away with terrible things that the rest of us would all be in prison for. The point of QAnon was that they were going to go down, they were going to be punished, they were going to be executed, they were going to be mass arrests, and Trump was going to get rid of all of these people.
Trump hasn’t gotten rid of them. He’s protected all of them. You’re finally seeing some of the rank and file Trump believers who are still maybe hardcore conspiracy believers going, “Yeah, this guy lied to
19
2
Privacy Advocates Relieved Trump Allies 'Can't Get Their Warrantless FISA Reauthorization Across the Finish Line'
(www.commondreams.org)
Just a day after Democrats in the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives helped Republicans send a major spying bill to the Senate, despite warnings that it was dead on arrival there, both chambers on Thursday passed a 45-day extension to continue negotiations.
The Senate approved the stopgap bill for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—which allows the federal government to spy on electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States without a warrant—by a voice vote. The House signed off with a 261-11 vote, just hours before a previous short-term extension was set to expire.
President Donald Trump and his homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, have been demanding a "clean" extension of the program, while critical lawmakers from both parties and over 100 civil society groups have called for privacy reforms to protect Americans whose data is swept up in federal surveillance efforts.
Hajar Hammado, senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, one of the organizations leading reform calls, said in a Thursday statement that "intelligence agencies, the White House, and their allies in Congress have tried every trick in the book from fearmongering to misinformation, but they still can't get their warrantless FISA reauthorization across the finish line."
"The reason we keep ending up at this point is congressional leaders' refusal to allow votes on overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan reforms," she continued. "This 'my way or the highway' approach needs to stop."
According to Politico, US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters on Thursday that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) discussed the short-term extension during a closed-door meeting the previous day.
"I think there's already a pretty substantial dialog going on" between key Democrats and Republicans in both chambers, Thune added. "We're interested in looking at some ways in which it can be reformed... So we're entertaining those ideas at the moment."
Hammado declared that "when Congress returns, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune must allow votes on amendments for real privacy protections or we'll keep repeating this farce over and over again. Our bipartisan movement in defense of civil liberties is holding strong, and we won't accept anything less."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime defender of privacy rights who had threatened to block the extension, highlighted on social media Thursday that he "secured a commitment that the FISA court opinion revealing abuses of Americans' rights will be DECLASSIFIED before Congress votes on reauthorization."
"The more Americans know about these abuses," he said, "the more they'll demand real reforms."
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
20
Coventry city council has renewed a contract with Palantir despite opposition from councillors and trade unions.
The AI and analytics giant, whose technology is used by the Israeli military and by ICE to power US president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, will receive £750k in the deal.
The contract is an extension of an original 12-month pilot scheme, valued at £500k and signed in September 2025, for work in the children’s services department.
Despite trade unions warning that the agreement posed “serious ethical questions” and calls by councillors to cancel the contract, the Labour-run council said it has “decided to extend its Strategic AI Platform contract for a further year”.
Co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel and built with CIA funding, Palantir holds more than £600m in contracts with public bodies in the UK, including a £240m deal with the Ministry of Defence and a £330m contract with the NHS.
It also has a number of smaller contracts with local councils and services in the UK, including Bedfordshire and Leicestershire police forces.
“When you outsource judgment about vulnerable children to a surveillance company, you are reaching into the very core of local democratic accountability” Labour MP Clive Lewis told The Nerve.
“These are decisions that should be made by trained, experienced social workers embedded in their communities – not by an algorithm built by a firm whose first clients were spy agencies.”
Independent MP for Coventry South Zarah Sultana posted: “Labour-run Coventry city council has just handed £750,000 to Palantir – a company that profits from hunting immigrants for ICE and produces ‘kill lists’ for the Israeli military.
“A company lobbied for by Mandelson himself. Shame on them.”
A spokesperson for Coventry city council said the pilot had reduced admin, freeing up social workers to spend more time with residents and providing cost savings.
The council insists “strong safeguards are in place” to protect resident data. “No data is shared with third parties or used to train AI models. AI supports staff but does not replace professional judgement – there is no automated decision-making about residents,” the spokesperson said.
Tom Midlane is a freelance journalist.
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Under the 2000 Terrorism Act, the maximum sentence for encouraging terrorism is 15 years in prison. Inviting support for a proscribed organisation carries a maximum term of 14 years. When Majid Freeman began to speak at Birmingham Crown Court, standing accused of supporting Hamas through a series of social media posts related to the Gaza genocide, he knew his liberty was on the line.
Freeman takes the stand
Defence barrister Hossein Zahir KC is a seasoned professional and imposing presence, his words booming across the courtroom.
His questioning began with several reminders to the softly-spoken Freeman to raise his voice. Judge Andrew Smith KC politely suggested:
Aim for the back row of the jury, even if you need to shout.
First trip to Gaza
The court heard details of Freeman’s first trip to Gaza in 2012, as part of the “Games 2 Gaza” initiative.
It was on this trip that Freeman first met his wife, his barrister confirms. Now, she looks on with a concerned expression from the public gallery.
Freeman explains:
It was designed to replicate the 2012 Olympics for the orphans in Gaza. We took sports equipment: boxing gloves, skipping ropes, and footballs.
On one of the days, we gave the children paper and colouring pens. Most drew their parents being killed or attacked by tanks or fighter jets. I was taken aback. I’d never seen anything like it.
‘I was devastated’
The jury were shown photographs of Freeman delivering medical aid to hospitals in Beit Hanoun and Gaza City.
Freeman’s defence barrister asked: “How did the trip to Gaza affect you?”
I was devastated.
His barrister continued: “Did anything happen after you returned home?”
Yes. In November 2012, the Israeli military attacked Gaza again.
In February 2013, Freeman went back to Palestine: “What was the impact of the second visit?” Freeman took a deep breath:
I couldn’t believe the level of destruction in just a few months. Yes, things were bad before, but now, they were worse.
Freeman was asked by his barristers about his views on the Zionist project and ideology:
I think it’s a disgusting ideology. Because of Zionism, Palestinian families have been displaced from their homes. I believe every Palestinian has the right to defend themselves and their families, including by using force.
The ‘Palestine’ question
Next, Zahir asked about his view on a potential solution to the Palestine question:
I believe that the two-state solution is unrealistic. Maybe it was once a possibility, but not now. In fact, I believe that the Israeli government uses it as cover to continue expanding and removing Palestinians from their land.
Zahir asked: “But what do you believe the answer is?”
I believe that all citizens of Palestine should be able to live side-by-side, with equal rights, regardless of their faith, like the rights we have here. They should not be forced to live under two separate judicial systems.
“Are you a supporter of Hamas?” Zahir asked. Freeman replied:
No. I do not support Hamas as a group. I support the right of all Palestinians to defend themselves, whether they are part of any group or none.
Not just Hamas, but every Palestinian group has the right to defend themselves against Israeli aggression and genocide. This is the basics. Every people has the right to self-determination.
I am totally against being forced to criticise Hamas as a condition for speaking on the issue of Palestine. It is a trap designed to prevent discussion.
“Do we hear the same condition, to condemn the actions of the IDF, imposed as a precursor to discussion?” his barrister asked.
Hardly ever. Palestinians ‘die’; Israelis are ‘killed’. Language matters.
A clear, unapologetic account
Whatever the outcome of the trial, Freeman made sure to set out his stall. The jury has been presented with a clear, unapologetic account of his views. Now, they must decide whether or not he has broken the law.
Tomorrow, Freeman will be cross-examined by the prosecution.
At one point, defence barrister Zahir asked Freeman to explain a poem he had reposted on Instagram.
There were times [during the Gaza genocide] that I felt despondent, but then I’d come across a powerful reminder like this.
I’ve got my voice; I don’t have time to feel disheartened.
Featured image via the Islam21c
By The Canary
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The BBC, which has been accused of acting more like a spin doctor than an impartial broadcaster in its recent coverage, has not named Israel as the perpetrator in 50% of reported Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza, and has also been getting things wrong on immigration.
Two recent immigration errors reveal a similar pattern of failing to correct misleading claims or of wrongly stating figures.
The BBC: propping up the colonialist system
The first involved unchallenged misinformation from Nigel Farage about why net migration is falling. The second involved wrongly stating small boat arrivals were 100,625 when the correct figure was 41,472, a staggering 143% error.
In the first instance, speaking to Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking Podcast back in February, racist-in-chief Nigel Farage claimed net migration had fallen due to an “exodus” of people leaving the UK.
BBC’s Nick Robinson did not correct or contextualise this. In fact, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data for the year to June 2025 shows that net migration fell by two-thirds, with 90% of that drop due to fewer people arriving. Immigration fell by 401,000. Farage’s framing was therefore misleading and went unchallenged.
The BBC has since added this episode to its official Corrections and Clarifications page, dated 17 April 2026.
The second instance took place on the BBC News website article (14 April 2026), where the BBC had initially reported that the number of small boat crossings had increased dramatically, when in fact the opposite was true. The story, which opened with the declining number of asylum hotels in the UK, did not appear on the Corrections and Clarifications page as of 30 April, although the news story itself includes a correction note.
That note, added on 21 April, acknowledges that the piece initially claimed 100,625 small boat arrivals in 2025 when the correct figure was 41,472.
The mistakes have been picked up by the media and commentators, though.
SNP criticises the error
Peter Wishart, MP of Perthshire for the Scottish National Party (SNP), shared the National’s coverage of the BBC’s second error and said:
This is totally shocking. The far right depend on disinformation to conduct their ugly business and promote their division. Now the BBC gets small boat crossings wrong by 140%. Do they not know how sensitive this debate is.
This is totally shocking. The far right depend on disinformation to conduct their ugly business and promote their division. Now the BBC gets small boat crossings wrong by 140%. Do they not know how sensitive this debate is. https://t.co/JQVGt0dzx3
— Pete Wishart (@PeteWishart) April 28, 2026
Sunder Katwala was the one who had pointed out the second mistake to the BBC.
He posted on X:
I have asked the BBC to correct this mistake: in trying to give context, it reports 100k small boat crossings in 2025 (There were 41,472, which is a lot, but not 100k, but different statistics have got garbled up here). https://t.co/ZDYptPCXUV pic.twitter.com/4OUPJQr2D8
— Sunder Katwala (@sundersays) April 18, 2026
Farage’s misleading claim about an “exodus” went unchallenged on air. The small boat figure was overstated by 143% on the website. Neither error would have overstated the case for lower immigration or reduced crossings.
This pattern of asymmetric inaccuracy becomes harder to dismiss as mere coincidence when set alongside the BBC’s coverage of Gaza. There, too, the corporation has failed to name Israel as the perpetrator in 50% of reported Israeli attacks on civilians.
In all cases, the BBC’s errors ran in one direction: inflating public concern. When a public service, publicly-funded broadcaster is behaving like a propagandist for the colonialist far-right, it is time to ask whether or not it can even be trusted.
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
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By World BEYOND War, May 1, 2026
Today we’ve published an annual update of Mapping Militarism, our collection of maps of the globe illustrating trends in war and peace. Each map has a spinnable globe, each nation clickable for more information, or a list view for simple text and data — plus a slider to move back in time to previous years and see what has changed.
Here are all the maps!
One section of maps is dedicated to steps advancing peace. It includes maps called:
- Member of International Criminal Court
- Party to Kellogg-Briand Pact
- Party to Convention on Cluster Munitions
- Party to Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- Member of Nuclear Free Zone
- Recognizes the Nation of Palestine
- Residents Have Signed World BEYOND War Declaration
- WBW Chapter or Affiliate
- WBW Chapter
Those last two are new this year. World BEYOND War is gradually adding chapters and affiliates around the globe. Having a chapter or affiliate does not, of course, guarantee peace, but it does mean that we, as a global community working for war abolition, have a group of people we can collaborate with to advance the cause of global peace.
Another section of maps, on weapons, includes maps called:
- Weapons Exported
- U.S. Weapons Imported
- U.S. Military “Aid” Received (US$)
Yet another section has the single map:
- Number of Nuclear Warheads
We’ve ceased trying to include a map on chemical and biological weapons for lack of solid sources, given the unreliability of governments’ claims about themselves or about other governments on the topic.
As always, most nations — including most nations at war — are not exporting any weapons to speak of, and among those that are, a single nation dominates, exporting more weapons than do most other nations combined: the United States, the world’s top weapons supplier to every variety of government. France has maintained a far distant second place, while Israel has climbed into third and South Korea into fourth, followed by Russia.
The map of nuclear weapons does not show where the horrible things are on submarines or airplanes, but does include six nations in which the United States, and one nation in which Russia, has “shared” (or, less euphemistically, illegally proliferated) them. The UK and France have made noises about doing the same.
The map of where U.S. weapons have been imported varies greatly from year to year, with the big customers shuffling around in the order. The top importers in 2024 were Ukraine, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Poland. In 2025 — the new map — they were Saudi Arabia, Japan, Poland, Qatar, Australia, Netherlands, and Ukraine.
Another section of maps focuses on the U.S. empire and includes maps called:
- U.S. Bases
- U.S. Troops Present
- NATO Members and Partners
- NATO Members
- U.S. Wars and Military Interventions Since 1945
- Sanctions Applied by U.S.
The map of bases has some changes. There are now U.S. bases in Papua New Guinea and Panama, for example. In Syria, the count of U.S. bases is down from 22 to 1.
Another section of maps includes:
- Spending
- Spending Per Capita
These maps / lists allow comparison of nations’ spending on war in dollars and in dollars per capita. There is no map displaying war spending as a percentage of an economy because war is not a public good to be maximized but an evil to be eradicated. By every sane measure, spending is up, both in the one nation that dominates all others — the United States — and in the nations badgered by the U.S. government to dramatically increase their spending.
While in absolute spending the U.S. still tops most others combined, and 33 of the next 35 on the list are U.S. allies and/or weapons customers, in per capita spending Israel remains at the top of the list, while the United States has dropped from second place to fourth, having been surpassed by Norway and Singapore.
Another section of maps includes:
- Wars Present
- Drone Strikes
- U.S. and Allies Air Strikes
- Troops in Afghanistan
The second and third maps in that list are developed using what little reliable data is available. All maps have links to data sources. Government secrecy is not our friend. The fourth map above is no longer updated, because that occupation ended.
The maps of where the wars are and of where the illegal U.S. economic sanctions are — found in two different sections — have much in common, as seen in the image below.
Enjoy exploring Mapping Militarism!
The post Mapping Militarism 2026 appeared first on World BEYOND War.
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