CARTOON: KILLING ZONE -- Targeting Your Free Speech & Freedom Of Movement
This is the time for active ‘F-you’ resistance. Exercise your rights, or be complicit in losing them.
It’s time to resist the bastards…
Cartoon & photo by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
This is not the time for obsequious compliance and ‘wait-n-see’ timidity. Now is the time for active ‘F-you’ resistance.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (5/20/25)
If anyone still thinks fascism is some hazy, unlikely possibility in the ‘Land of the Free’, the collection of news items from yesterday displayed below should vaporize that delusion. Fascism is here, and now. It’s real and being swung like a club in all directions by the criminal Trump gang of thugs.
From free speech to legal due process, our basic elemental civic rights are under daily attack. Not just threatened, but under repeated direct attack.
The circle always expands
While the unconstitutional round-ups, incarcerations and illegal deportations have been largely focused on immigrants, native-born citizens — including a 4 year-old with a rare form of cancer — have also been targeted and deported. The one thing you can count on in any brutish totalitarian regime is that the circle of the unwanted and damned always expands. An example is the far-right Heritage Foundation’s Christian Zionist ‘Project Esther’ attack on free speech, equating any criticism of the genocidal state of Israel to antisemitism.
Take a moment to grasp this. While one is free — for now — to criticize any nation in the world, including our own, Project Esther is demanding a special criticism-free legal carve out status for the government of Israel. Under the Zionist lobby owned-and-controlled-Congress, there have been several Congressional attempts to make Project Esther law. My guess is, some form of it will soon pass. Would it survive Supreme Court review? At best, that is a toss up. Would that even matter?
This is not the time for obsequious compliance and pansy-ass Democratic Party ‘wait-n-see’ timidity. The crisis is here and now. The house is on fire. The murderer is not only in the house, he’s next to you in the bed. Now is the time for active ‘F-you’ resistance. Speak out. Join and support local organizations of resistance. Participate in civic action. Every day find a way, large or small to exercise and protect your rights, or be complicit in losing them.
Resist
Persist
Don’t be complicit!
‘PROJECT ESTHER’ — Right-Wing Heritage Foundation Plan To "Rebrand ALL Critics Of Israel" As Hamas Supporters
"Project Esther aims to rebrand ALL critics of Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters as providing material support for terrorism. They're very explicit that this is what they're doing.” (Emphasis added.)
Democracy Now! (5/19/25)
A new report in The New York Times takes a deep dive into Project Esther, a policy blueprint to crush the pro-Palestinian movement in the United States from the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank best known for spearheading Project 2025.
Project Esther was formed during the Biden administration and lays out plans for surveilling, silencing and punishing pro-Palestinian activists, including deporting non-U.S. citizens and withholding funds from universities. Many of the Heritage Foundation's proposals appear to have been taken up by the Trump administration.
"Project Esther aims to rebrand all critics of Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters as providing material support for terrorism," says investigative reporter Katie Baker. "They're very explicit that this is what they're doing. … This is all laid out online, and it has been for months."
13-minute video
Fascist Christian Nationalist Forces Behind Anti-Free Speech ‘Project Esther’
“Meanwhile, in an open letter published this month, influential American Jewish leaders warned that a “range of actors” in the US are currently “using a purported concern about Jewish safety as a cudgel to weaken higher education, due process, checks and balances, freedom of speech and the press”.
“Now, if the Trump administration seems to be taking Project Esther and running with it, it is more out of concern for propagating a white Christian nationalist agenda that utilises Zionism and anti-Semitism charges to its own extremist ends. And this, unfortunately, is just the beginning of a far more elaborate project.”
— Belén Fernández, Project Esther And The Weaponisation Of Zionism (Al Jazeera, 5/19/25)
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : US Christian Zionists Attack Free Speech
Judging Freedom (5/19/25)
39-minute video
CALL TO DUTY: Free Speech Champions Challenge Trump Assault On Key Rights
“Each surrender makes the assertion of First Amendment rights more costly and more perilous. We fear that if major institutions continue to submit rather than stand on their rights, the freedoms of speech and the press will be seriously and perhaps irrecoverably weakened."
By Julia Conley
Common Dreams (5/19/25)
In an open letter on Monday, seven leading free speech organizations in the United States warned that the capitulation of universities and other institutions to President Donald Trump's demands for suppressed speech affect not just those organizations, their employees, and their students—but the state of U.S. democracy itself.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University spearheaded the letter that was signed by the ACLU, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America, and Reporters Without Borders USA.
"If First Amendment freedoms are compromised, our democracy will be compromised, too," wrote the groups. "Democracy and free speech are inextricably linked. If we are to govern ourselves, we must be able to inquire, speak, write, associate, and protest without fear of governmental retaliation."
It followed several recent victories for some international students who have been arrested for expressing opposition to the United States' support for Israel. Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk was marked for deportation and sent thousands of miles away from her home in Massachusetts to a detention facility in Louisiana for writing an op-ed calling on her school to divest from companies benefiting from Israel's assault on Gaza—and was released earlier this month, with a judge saying her detention was a clear assault on the First Amendment.
Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri was released from immigration detention in Texas last week; he was apparently targeted by the Trump administration for his support for Palestinian rights and because his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, was a former adviser to a Hamas leader. Yousef has publicly condemned Hamas' October 2023 attacks.
Columbia graduate Mohsen Mahdawi wore a keffiyeh over his robe at commencement on Monday in solidarity with Palestinians—and received a standing ovation—less than a month after he was freed from detention. He had also been marked for deportation for organizing pro-Palestinian protests.
But another Columbia graduate, Mahmoud Khalil, remains in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana more than two months after being accosted at his campus apartment along with his pregnant wife and hustled into an unmarked car by immigration agents for his role in last year's pro-Palestinian protests.
The open letter on Monday did not mention Columbia University by name, but condemned universities and organizations that have capitulated to the White House.
Columbia University’s shame
Columbia trustees allegedly collaborated with ICE to detain Khalil, and when threatened with the revocation of $400 million in federal grants and contract, agreed to take a number of steps the Trump administration claimed were aimed at "fighting antisemitism." The school agreed to impose a ban on masks, appointed an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hire "special officers" with the authority to swiftly remove people from campus.
"The logic that leads even powerful institutions to compromise or submit in these circumstances is of course easy to understand," reads the open letter. "But when one institution 'bends the knee,' its peers face increased pressure to do the same. Each surrender makes the assertion of First Amendment rights more costly and more perilous. We fear that if major institutions continue to submit rather than stand on their rights, the freedoms of speech and the press will be seriously and perhaps irrecoverably weakened."
Along with its attacks on higher education, the Trump administration has targeted major law firms—terminating their federal contracts and limiting their employees from entering federal buildings—in retaliation for their representation of his political opponents.
Some law firms have filed legal challenges against the president—and won—but others, including Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, have negotiated with the administration, offering pro bono legal services and promising to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Call to resist
"These actions call for a forceful, uncompromising response. Some institutions have countered in exactly this way, to their credit," wrote the free speech groups on Monday. "It has been disheartening, however, to see so many others capitulating to the administration's unconstitutional demands rather than asserting their rights."
The letter also condemned the Trump administration's decision to bar legal scholars from providing information to the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; its rule banning The Associated Press from White House press briefings for its refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico by Trump's chosen name, the "Gulf of America"; and the Federal Communications Commission's threat to revoke the licenses of TV and radio networks if the president disagrees with their news coverage.
"In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions," reads the letter. "If our democracy is to survive, the freedoms of speech and the press need a vigorous, determined defense. Leaders of this country's most powerful, well-resourced, and prestigious institutions must play a larger part in this effort."
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, warned that "First Amendment freedoms will wither if institutional leaders don't assert and defend them."
"This letter is meant to be a call to duty," he said, "and to civic courage.”
Common Dreams work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Rights Groups Raise Alarm Over First US City's Broad Use Of Racially-Biased Facial Recognition Tracking
"This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about," said one civil liberties campaigner.
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams (5/19/25)
Amid a Washington Post investigation and pushback from civil liberties defenders, New Orleans police recently paused their sweeping—and apparently unlawful—use without public oversight of a private network of over 200 surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology to track and arrest criminal suspects.
On Monday, the Postpublished an exposé detailing how the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) relied on real-time facial recognition technology provided by Project NOLA, a nonprofit organization operating out of the University of New Orleans, to locate and apprehend suspects.
"Facial recognition technology poses a direct threat to the fundamental rights of every individual and has no place in our cities."
Project NOLA's website says the group "operates the largest, most cost-efficient, and successful networked [high definition] crime camera program in America, which was created in 2009 by criminologist Bryan Lagarde to help reduce crime by dramatically increasing police efficiency and citizen awareness."
The Post's Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Schaffer described Project NOLA as "a surveillance method without a known precedent in any major American city that may violate municipal guardrails around use of the technology."
As MacMillan and Schaffer reported:
Police increasingly use facial recognition software to identify unknown culprits from still images, usually taken by surveillance cameras at or near the scene of a crime. New Orleans police took this technology a step further, utilizing a private network of more than 200 facial recognition cameras to watch over the streets, constantly monitoring for wanted suspects and automatically pinging officers' mobile phones through an app to convey the names and currentlocations of possible matches.
This, despite a 2022 municipal law limiting police use of facial recognition. That ordinance reversed the city's earlier outright ban on the technology and was criticized by civil liberties advocates for dropping a provision that required permission from a judge or magistrate commissioner prior to use.
"This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about," Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told the Post. "This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone—for that matter, everyone—as we go about our lives walking around in public."
Since 2023, Project NOLA—which was paused last month amid the Post's investigation—has contributed to dozens of arrests. Proponents including NOPD and city officials credit the collaboration with Project NOLA for a decrease in crime in the city that had the nation's highest homicide rate as recently as 2022. Project NOLA has even been featured in the true crime series "Real Time Crime."
New Orleans Police Commissioner Anne Kirkpatrick said in an email last month that she is "sure that the use of [Project NOLA] meets all the requirements of the law and policies."
However, critics point to racial bias in facial recognition algorithms, which disproportionately misidentify racial minorities, as a particular cause for concern. According to one landmark federal study published in 2019, Black, Asian, and Native American people were up to 100 times likelier to be misidentified by facial recognition algorithms than white people.
The ACLU said in a statement that Project NOLA "supercharges the risks":
Consider Randal Reid, for example. He was wrongfully arrested based on faulty Louisiana facial recognition technology, despite never having set foot in the state. The false match cost him his freedom, his dignity, and thousands of dollars in legal fees. That misidentification happened based on a still image run through a facial recognition search in an investigation.
"We cannot ignore the real possibility of this tool being weaponized against marginalized communities, especially immigrants, activists, and others whose only crime is speaking out or challenging government policies," ACLU of Louisiana executive director Alanah Odoms said. "These individuals could be added to Project NOLA's watchlist without the public's knowledge, and with no accountability or transparency on the part of the police departments."
"Facial recognition technology poses a direct threat to the fundamental rights of every individual and has no place in our cities," Odoms asserted. "We call on the New Orleans Police Department and the city of New Orleans to halt this program indefinitely and terminate all use of live-feed facial recognition technology."
Common Dreams work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
“This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone—for that matter, everyone—as we go about our lives walking around in public."
Trump Moves To MASS ARREST Democrats
By Kyle Kulinski
Secular Talk (5/19/25)
10-minute video
BREAKING: Trump DOJ Has Charged Dem Rep. McIver Over Incident At Newark ICE Facility
[Editor’s Note: Gee, do you think this might motivate the Democrats to finally do something to resist the fascist state? Like the rest of us, Rep. McIver better have a back-up plan. — M. Taylor]
MSNBC (5/19/25)
Rachel Maddow reports breaking news that the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, previously an attorney for Donald Trump, has announced charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” during a confrontation at an ICE detention center in Newark, NJ.
3-minute video
Wall Street Employee Handbook
Rule #1: Workers must be reduced to mere numbers.
Rule #2: Workers are expendable.
Rule #3: Loyalty is irrelevant.
Finally, the most sacred rule of all…
Rule #4: Bottom-line financial calculations trump all other considerations.
— Les Leopold, Wall Street’s War On Workers: How Mass Layoffs And Greed Are Destroying The Working Class And What To Do About It (p.2)
Wall Street Employee Handbook
Rule #5 Monetise EVERY aspect of human behaviour and invent new ways to extract profit.
Shame on Alina Habba. She's immigrant Iraqui. Even though she as a child has experienced atrocities of war imposed on Iraq, she has joined forces with the oppressors. She studied Law, but trashes Constitutional Law. Immigrants who have come to USA for Freedom, violating freedoms is heartbreaking