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President Elon Musk and his son, X, speak in the Oval Office
Further

Tomorrow Belongs To Me: On Boogers and Bullshit

In a freakish snapshot of the GOP's descent into brutal, gonzo nihilism, this week saw the brash Nazi-Oligarch-in-Chief helming an Oval Office presser to hype his political, economic, cultural demolition of democracy "in compliance with the President’s executive orders" - no more health care or feeding hungry kids, lots of Kid Rock - as his four-year-old son wiped boogers on the Resolute desk where an impassive, discomfited Trump sat in the "most powerless image of a President ever." Nothing to see here.

In a record three weeks - it took Hitler 53 days - the Musk/Trump regime has created, mostly illegally, a Stasi-like state in the name of "right-sizing the Federal inventory," which in their wee twisted minds means slashing almost every government agency to eliminate, according to their Orwellian mantra, "fraud, waste and abuse" Offering no evidence, and with his usual depth and nuance, Trump says they've already eliminated "billions and billions of dollars" that didn't need to be spent, coincidentally, invariably on behalf of helping vulnerable, marginalized, hungry or sick people. "The whole country looks like it's a fraud. It's fraud, waste and abuse," he exclaimed. "What Elon and his group of geniuses have found is unbelievable." Unbelievably brazenly, he has now called on the heads of all federal agencies to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" with the lofty goal of him and his rich buddies getting ever more ginormous tax cuts.

Meanwhile, countless innocents are being swept up in the Stalin-esque purges. They range from U.S. civil servants losing their jobs for doing their jobs to law-abiding, newly arrived Venezuelans disappeared to Guantanamo as "high-threat illegal aliens" for Michael Jordan tattoos to millions worldwide, Burma to Ukraine to South Africa, losing vital support from the shuttering of USAID, including over 280 million hungry people in 59 countries. Already thousands of aid workers have lost their jobs; over 475,000 metric tons of U.S.-grown food, enough to feed 36 million people, is at risk of going bad; Uganda has ended Ebola screenings; multiple African countries have closed HIV/AIDS clinics, hospitals in war-torn Syria have shut down; millions of Sudanese refugees are at risk of cholera and malaria; hundreds of millions of girls who lost access to schooling may become victims of trafficking. Says one expert, “People will starve, babies will die, poverty will skyrocket."

At home, where Trump vowed he'd bring down prices "on Day One" and protect basic safety net programs, prices are soaring and the House GOP is poised to decimate those programs. On Thursday they discussed a plan to cut $880 from Medicaid and $230 billion from food stamps over 10 years - cuts MAGA Mike expects to pass "unanimously," even though over 80% of voters oppose them, 20 million people could lose their health insurance, and it still wouldn't make a dent in the $4.5 trillion tax cuts they want for fat cats. Meanwhile, Musk just burrowed into New York City accounts to steal $80 million - or per Kristi Noem, "clawed back" the funds from "deep state activists" - allocated for sheltering migrant families in budget hotels the richest man in the world called "luxury." Then he fired four employees who tried to stop him. "If we're going after fraud and abuse," noted one Dem, "maybe go after abuse of power by the two billionaire freaks currently looting the government."

The day before, those freaks put in a "jarring," take-my-presidency appearance in the Oval Office, ostensibly for Trump to sign (another!) executive order to continue the looting and expand the power of Musk's DOGE, never mind the flood of lawsuits and court orders they face for slashing cancer research, kids' education, food for poor people and your Social Security in a flagrantly illegal power grab. In a bizarre spectacle, Trump hunched behind the Resolute desk, mostly silent, hands folded, eyes vague, randomly nodding - and often impotently babysitting Musk's fidgety four-year-old son X while ignoring X's whispered entreaty he had to pee and scowling as he picked his nose and wiped what he found on the sacred desk - as the Nazi native son of South Africa and richest guy in the room stood tall in his heedless black t-shirt and cap and offered up to the gaggle of press a murky load of chutzpah and bullshit to elucidate how American democracy works, or doesn't.

After making broad claims of fraud with no evidence, he babbled about the dangers of a political system run by "unelected bureaucrats," evidently, spectacularly unaware he, too, is unelected. Decisions should be made by "elected representatives, the president, House, Senate," he explained. "If unelected bureaucrats are in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?...We don't live in a democracy, we live in a bureaucracy." His baffling solution: "So we close that feedback loop, we fix it." Umm, okay. He admitted he made up the claim the U.S. sent $50 million in condoms to Gaza - it was sent to Mozambique to help control HIV - but dismissed it with, "We will make mistakes - not everything I say will be correct." To concerns of transparency or his billions in conflicts of interest, he hilariously disingenuously insisted, "All of our actions are fully public. So if you see anything like, ‘Elon, there may be a conflict,' they are going to say it immediately.” Super convincing.

DOGE's new guidelines demand agencies hire just one employee for every four who depart, and agency heads must "consult with a DOGE Team Lead" for approvals, which isn't Big Brother-ish at all. But Musk argued it's justified: "The people voted for major government reform, and that's what people are going to get." Except they didn't: Trump won about 32% of the vote, Harris 31%, and almost 38% voted for neither. Many felt Musk used his son, 1 of his 11 kids, to deflect questions - "La la la I can't hear you" - which seemed creepy, especially after X's mother, musician Grimes, said she's "made it clear" she considers her kids in the public eye "a personal tragedy." To Lawrence O'Donnell, the spectacle of Musk "doing his billionaire thing" behind Trump as he awkwardly turned to interact was "a picture of presidential subservience the likes of which we have never seen." Musk, he said, "is doing everything he possibly can to tell the world (that) Donald Trump is not the boss of me."

The same day, the House held their first DOGE subcommittee meeting, headed by Klan Mom MTG, who used the occasion to say, "Taxes are collected by law at gunpoint!” “The American people are $36 trillion in debt. Somebody should be fired," and, for fun, “The gentleman’s time is expired." The day's highlight came when California's Dem Rep. Robert Garcia noted the ironic presence of supposed decorum fan MTG: In the last Congress, he said, "She literally showed a dick pic. So I thought i'd bring one as well." Then he hoisted a large photo of Musk, adding, "This of course is President Elon Musk." Cue appreciative chortling in the House. Later he was asked by a wide-eyed pundit if "calling Elon Musk a dick is effective messaging." Garcia didn't blink. "Well, he is a dick," he said. "And he's harming the American public in an enormous way. What I think is really important, and what the public wants, is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is a fight for democracy."

It's also a fight, Zack Beauchamp argues, where both institutional and citizen resistance, most effectively by federal workers, will be needed as a weak president with slim margins of victory continues to depend on "flagrant lawbreaking." For now, too many are being bullied into silence; says one critic, "Profiles in cowardice will be a very thick book." Often, the crimes are thoughts or words - important ones like "diversity" or "inclusion," and really, really dumb ones like "Gulf of Mexico." The Associated Press was banned from the Musk/X debacle because it didn't use the term "Gulf of America" to "align its editorial standards with the President," who is clearly a feckin' moron. Ugly rumors are also floating that other culprits will not get a Happy Meal or Fruit Cup. Juvenile much? Gulf of Idiocracy. The dream of many: For a reporter, thrown out of a press conference for saying something "the whiny one" has forbidden, to yell back, "Would you people fucking grow up??"

Still, heroes have emerged. While Google, Disney, PBS have folded on DEI - the latter, adding a mealy-mouthed assurance to "continue (to) reflect all of America" - Comcast, owner of NBC, has refused; it will now be investigated "to root out invidious forms of DEI discrimination." Manhattan's Trump-appointed, Federalist Society prosecutor Danielle Sassoon just resigned rather than obey a DOJ order to drop corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams; she was then ultimately joined by six more prosecutors under her. "The Department of Justice (says) it will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct," Sassoon wrote in a fiery resignation letter. "Dismissal of the indictment would be all three.” And U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson reversed and blasted Trump's illegal firing of a top federal watchdog for being "disruptive" with, “It’s as if the bull in the china shop looked back over his shoulder and said, ‘What a mess!’”

Meanwhile, Drop Site News, a new investigative site by The Intercept's Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill, has launched to follow the money trailing Musk and his Nerd Reich. They exposed a federal procurement announcement that the guy squawking about abuse is set to make $400 million for purchases of his armored Tesla Cybertruck, which he claimed was bulletproof though it seems the windows aren't. After Drop Site's story ran, the feds removed the Tesla name, changed the buy to generic "electric armored vehicles," and said the document naming Tesla was "incorrect." As Musk scrambles to hide his profits, Trump stays busyl incomprehensibly yammering. He just raved that Marxists aren't using hydraulics "that go through hurricanes" but are spending "billions and billions of dollars" on magnets - "It's a new theory!" - to "lift up the ships that come into LaGuardia." "Waste, fraud and abuse this country is going through..." he muttered. 'We have to straighten it out."

Between rants, acting on a longtime grudge, he's also taken petty revenge on the uppity Kennedy Center - "We didn't like what they were showing and various other things" - by firing its top officials and Biden-affiliated board members, replacing them with clueless lackeys including his former caddy, and announcing they'd "unanimously elected" an "amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” to launch a "GOLDEN (white) AGE of American Arts and Culture," and "it's not going to be 'woke.'" Instead, it will presumably be Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, WWE wrestling, Lara Trump, The Village People, and Bible salesman Lee Greenwood croaking out God Bless the USA. So we guess it's true: Like shrieky Kimberley Guilfoyle once famously hollered, "THE BEST...IS YET...TO COME!!" Macro carnage, micro carnage, dystopian hellscape, the looming dread of Cabaret's final scene. Orwell: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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Barrasso, Zeldin, Boozman
News

'Catastrophic Blow': GOP and Three Democrats Confirm Zeldin for EPA

Climate and public health advocates were outraged on Wednesday after a trio of U.S. Senate Democrats voted with Republicans to confirm President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.

Critics have warned that Zeldin—like other Cabinet nominees—will serve billionaire polluters, not the American people and the planet, since Trump named him in November. They renewed those warnings after Democratic Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), and Mark Kelly (Ariz.) voted with Republicans to confirm him as EPA administrator.

After Zeldin's confirmation, the youth-led Sunrise Movement called him "a disaster for our planet and a win for Big Oil."

Climate Action Campaign director Margie Alt said in a statement that "Lee Zeldin's confirmation as EPA administrator is a catastrophic blow to the health of Americans, the climate, and the economy. Under Zeldin's leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency will no longer protect the American people and our communities—it will protect polluters."

Pointing to the new administrator's record and public statements, Alt said that "this dangerous agenda that Zeldin will oversee will roll back vital pollution limits that protect us, abandon clean energy investments, and lock the country into reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels that cost families at the gas pump."

"Americans didn't vote for dirtier air, more asthma attacks, or rising healthcare costs, yet that is exactly what Zeldin's EPA will deliver. Vulnerable communities, especially children, and seniors will bear the brunt of these policies, while a few fossil fuel executives rake in profits," she continued. "Zeldin's confirmation is a tragic failure for all Americans."

Marc Yaggi, CEO of Waterkeeper Alliance, declared that "this is a make-or-break moment for clean water, and the American people deserve leadership that puts their needs above the influence of corporate polluters."

While praising Zeldin's past rejection of offshore oil drilling and support for "sensible policies" on "forever chemicals," Yaggi said that "his history of voting against critical infrastructure and environmental funding and opposing clean water and air protections raises serious concerns about his commitment to effectively leading the Environmental Protection Agency."

Moms Clean Air Force suggested a rebrand for the EPA under Zeldin and Trump: Extreme Pollution Agency.

Since returning to the White House just 10 days ago, Trump has already taken various executive actions to attack the planet.

"The EPA's stated mission is to protect human health and the environment," Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said. "In the wake of Donald Trump's dangerous executive orders and illegal push to freeze all federal funding, the new EPA administrator will face a decision of whether to carry out the necessary duties of the role, or fold to Trump's deadly fossil fuel-backed agenda and broken promises."

"The American people want to breathe clean air and drink clean water," she stressed. "They want a healthy environment for their families today and the future generations of tomorrow. And they want to know that their government is doing everything in its power to protect them from the destructive impacts of the climate crisis that we sadly witness more and more of each day. That is now Lee Zeldin's charge, and we will do everything in our power to hold him accountable to the American people."

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Trump tariffs
News

Even Those Who Believe Tariffs Are Useful Think Trump's Trade War Makes 'Zero Sense'

The trade war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched over the weekend by announcing sweeping new tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China drew intense criticism from experts and analysts across the ideological spectrum, including those who believe strategically deployed tariffs can help protect domestic jobs and workers.

"Tariffs are a powerful, effective tool to deliver certain goals. But Trump's Canada/China/Mexico tariffs make zero sense. And even undermine tariffs' legit uses," Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote on social media late Sunday, expressing agreement with United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.

Fain said in a statement that the UAW "supports aggressive tariff action to protect American manufacturing jobs as a good first step to undoing decades of anti-worker trade policy," pointing specifically to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor agreement that Trump negotiated during his first White House term.

The union does not, however, "support using factory workers as pawns in a fight over immigration or drug policy," Fain continued. "The national emergency we face is not about drugs or immigration, but about a working class that has fallen behind for generations while corporate America exploits workers abroad and consumers at home for massive Wall Street paydays."

The officially stated purpose for Trump's 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% tariffs on Chinese imports is to confront what the White House described as the "extraordinary threat" posed by the movement of migrants and drugs across the southern and northern U.S. borders.

But Wallach argued Sunday that using tariffs to address immigration and the flow of drugs "is like trying surgery using a saxophone—wrong tool!"

"After decades of an American trade policy run by and for the largest corporations and to the detriment of American workers, independent farmers, and small businesses, we certainly do need a new approach," she added. "But simply imposing 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada and another 10% on China will not rebuild American manufacturing/create U.S. manufacturing jobs or raise wages. Particularly, if such tariffs can be axed, lowered, or upped at the president's whim for reasons unrelated to trade/jobs."

"While tariffs can play a constructive role in protecting U.S. jobs and enforcing labor and environmental standards when part of a strategic industrial policy, Trump's approach is neither strategic nor appropriate."

Trump told reporters late last week that he is "not looking for a concession" in response to the new tariffs, which prompted swift retaliation from Canada, Mexico, and China.

The announced tariffs, which are set to take effect on Tuesday, also shook U.S. and global equity markets as Trump threatened additional duties against imports from European Union nations and admitted Americans could experience "some pain" stemming from the trade war. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her country reached an agreement with Trump to delay implementation of the tariffs on Mexican imports for a month, reportedly in exchange for the deployment of 10,000 Mexican soldiers to the country's northern border.

Contrary to Trump's insistence that tariffs are paid by targeted nations, they are in fact paid by U.S. importers, who then either eat the costs or pass them on to consumers through higher prices. Economist Dean Baker noted that the new tariffs amount to "a tax increase of roughly $200 billion a year ($1,600 per family) that will overwhelmingly be paid by moderate-income and middle-income families."

"It is the largest tax increase on them that has ever been imposed," Baker wrote Sunday. "And retaliation from both countries is likely to impose additional costs."

Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement that "no matter the intractable problem, Trump's go-to playbook is to bully our neighbors through tariffs and to scapegoat immigrants."

"Instead of addressing the actual causes or seeking real solutions to the complex public health crisis surrounding fentanyl, Trump jumps to impose damaging and self-defeating across-the-board tariffs and to spout more hateful rhetoric that dehumanizes our immigrant neighbors," said St. Louis. "While tariffs can play a constructive role in protecting U.S. jobs and enforcing labor and environmental standards when part of a strategic industrial policy, Trump's approach is neither strategic nor appropriate."

"Using tariffs to bully countries to advance an anti-immigrant and anti-humanitarian agenda will do nothing to support U.S. workers and will make our immigrant neighbors less safe," she added.

The tariffs also drew backlash from the right-wing Wall Street Journaleditorial board, which slammed the president for launching "the dumbest trade war in history."

"Bad policy has damaging consequences," the editorial board wrote late Sunday, "whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to admit it."

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House Republicans Unveil Budget Bill With Tax And Program Cuts
News

House GOP Advances Budget After Blocking Amendments to Protect Food Benefits, Medicaid

House Republicans advanced their budget plan out of committee Thursday night after a 12-hour markup session during which they rejected dozens of Democratic amendments, including proposed changes that would have protected Medicaid and federal nutrition benefits from the deep cuts the GOP hopes to impose to help finance trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the richest Americans.

The House Budget Committee advanced the Republican resolution, unveiled earlier this week, in a 21-16 vote along party lines. Prior to the vote, GOP members agreed to adopt an amendment offered by Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) that, according toPolitico, effectively caps "the cost of the tax cuts at $4 trillion, with a dollar-for-dollar increase in that ceiling if Republicans cut more spending, up to a total of $2 trillion in cuts."

Democrats on the panel offered more than 30 amendments to the budget resolution, all of which Republicans rejected.

"Each of our amendments was a direct effort to shield the American people from the reckless cuts embedded in this proposal, cuts that will hurt the most vulnerable while giving trillions of dollars of handouts to the ultra-rich," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in his closing remarks at Thursday's hearing. "We fought to protect Medicaid and Medicare, ensuring that seniors, low-income families, children, and people with disabilities don't see their healthcare stripped away."

"We proposed amendments to maintain funding for public education, ensuring that schools remain adequately resourced and that teachers don't bear the burden of budget shortfalls," Boyle continued. "And we stood up for veterans who risked their lives for this country and deserve more than empty rhetoric. They deserve fully funded healthcare, food assistance, and the benefits they earned through their service. Yet, despite the clear benefits of these proposals, Republicans oppose all of them."

"Instead of choosing to protect the American people," he added, "they chose to protect billionaires and corporations."

"This isn't government of, by, and for the people; it's government of, by, and for billionaires."

The Republican budget blueprint calls for more than a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provide healthcare and food aid to tens of millions of low-income Americans.

"These aren't just numbers," Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, stressed in response to the House GOP resolution. "The loss of Medicaid means, for example, a parent can't get cancer treatment, and a young adult can't get insulin to control their diabetes. Cuts to food assistance mean a parent skips meals so their children can eat or an older person who lost their job has no way to buy groceries."

In addition to advancing the GOP's far-right ideological project, such cuts would partly offset the costs of Republicans' proposed tax breaks—which would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest people in the country, including the billionaires in President Donald Trump's Cabinet.

"Republicans are cutting Medicaid and SNAP to pay for tax breaks for the richest 1% of Americans," the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness wrote in a social media post on Thursday. "They are literally taking $1.1 TRILLION away from you, and giving it to the wealthiest people in the country."

Thursday's vote marks a first step toward passage of a sprawling, filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package that will include a slew of Republican priorities.

But the House GOP must resolve its differences with Senate Republicans, who are pushing for two bills instead of one. The Senate plan, which Republicans advanced out of committee earlier this week, also calls for major cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

"This Republican budget opens the door to massive cuts for families," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said Thursday. "Democrats on the committee offered amendment after amendment to protect healthcare, housing, and education—all of the foundations working families need to thrive—and Republicans blocked every single one of them, all to later divert those cuts into massive tax breaks for the richest Americans."

"This is the Great Betrayal," Merkley added. "Trump campaigned on protecting families, but President Trump and Senate Republicans are all about protecting their billionaire friends. This isn't government of, by, and for the people; it's government of, by, and for billionaires."

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Demonstrators gather outside of the Office of Personnel Management
News

Judge Lets Trump-Musk 'Fork in the Road' Worker Purge Proceed

After temporarily blocking a deadline for U.S. President Donald Trump's deferred resignation program to purge the federal workforce, a judge on Wednesday allowed the initiative to move forward, ruling that the labor unions challenging it lacked the standing to do so and the court didn't have jurisdiction over their claims.

District Judge George O'Toole Jr. initially halted the program's progress last Thursday, just hours before a deadline for federal workers to decide whether to take the "Fork in the Road" offer seemingly inspired by Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. The billionaire is now chairing Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which the president further empowered last Tuesday.

After a Monday hearing, O'Toole, a Boston-based appointee of former President Bill Clinton, issued Wednesday's five-page order declining to grant the unions' request for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction against the program—under which workers who resign supposedly could be put on leave and continue receiving pay through the end of September.

The case was filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE Local 3707, the National Association of Government Employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

"Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program."

"Today's ruling is a setback in the fight for dignity and fairness for public servants. But it's not the end of that fight," AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a Wednesday statement. "AFGE's lawyers are evaluating the decision and assessing next steps."

"Importantly, this decision did not address the underlying lawfulness of the program," Kelley stressed. "We continue to maintain it is illegal to force American citizens who have dedicated their careers to public service to make a decision, in a few short days, without adequate information, about whether to uproot their families and leave their careers for what amounts to an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk."

AFSCME president Lee Saunders similarly said that his organization "and our partners remain committed to stopping this illegal attack on the freedoms of public service workers. It is critical that we act swiftly to protect working people against the billionaires who want to take our power and block us from serving our communities. Today may be a step back, but we won't back down."

Government Executivereported Wednesday that the Trump administration "said Monday that 65,000 employees had accepted the deferred resignation offer thus far" and the Office of Personnel Management, the federal human resources agency, "did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding what the new deadline would be."

The outlet also noted that "around the same time that O'Toole issued his decision, a new lawsuit brought in Washington, D.C., by a union for Treasury Department employees asked a judge to declare the deferred resignation program illegal."

Trump and Musk's sweeping attacks on the government since the Republican returned to the White House last month have been partly thwarted by the federal judiciary—leading to concerns that the administration will simply defy court orders.

Even before Wednesday's rare court victory in the "fork" fight, Trump on Tuesday continued his push to overhaul the federal workforce with an executive order directing leaders of nonmilitary federal agencies to develop hiring plans with DOGE.

The unions behind the case before O'Toole also criticized that order. Kelley said that "firing huge numbers of federal employees won't decrease the need for government services... It will just make those services harder or impossible to access for everyday Americans, veterans, and seniors who depend on them."

"Americans just want government to work when they need it," the AFGE leader stressed. "These reckless, unjustified cuts will accomplish only two things: huge tax cuts for Musk and Trump's billionaire buddies and a broken government for the rest of us."

AFSCME's Saunders said: "It is unsurprising that an administration run by billionaires is eliminating oversight and firing dedicated federal workers. They know federal workers protect the public against corporate abuse and won't allow them to use taxpayer dollars as their own personal slush fund."

"So, instead of trying to improve the lives of working people, they are creating a staffing crisis in the public service that hurts children, seniors, people with disabilities, working people, and those most vulnerable," Saunders added. "We won't stand for it, and we will keep fighting back."

This article has been updated with additional comment from AFSCME.

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Israeli raid on Educational Bookshop
News

Outrage as Israeli Police Raid Beloved Palestinian Bookstores in Occupied East Jerusalem

The leading Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem was among those voicing outrage Monday in response to an Israeli police raid on a pair of renowned Palestinian-owned bookstores in illegally occupied East Jerusalem over the weekend.

Haaretzreported that after confiscating books they claimed were "inciteful," Israeli officers on Sunday arrested the owners of the two branches of the Educational Bookshop.

"The Educational Bookshop chain is the most well-known bookstore chain in East Jerusalem, with three locations on Salah al-Din Street and in the American Colony Hotel complex," the Israeli newspaper noted. "The stores specialize in Arabic and English books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of Jerusalem, and they are well-known to researchers, diplomats, journalists, and tourists."

Mourad Muna, the brother of Mahmoud Muna—one of the shop owners who was detained—said Israeli police "used Google Translate" to determine which books to seize. Among the books confiscated was one titled, "From the River to the Sea: A Colouring Book."

"They even found a Haaretz newspaper with a picture of the hostages and asked what it was, saying it was incitement," said Mourad Muna. "They took every book with a Palestinian flag on it."

The owners were arrested on suspicion of "violating public order."

B'Tselem said in response to the raid that "Israel is continuing its war on the entire Palestinian people."

"The attempt to crush the Palestinian people includes harassment and arrest of intellectuals," the group said. "Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna, well-known figures in the Jerusalem cultural scene, run the Educational Bookshop—a meeting point for cultural and political discussion. Israel must immediately release them from detention and stop persecuting Palestinian intellectuals."

In the wake of the raid and arrests of the Educational Bookshop owners, Haaretz reported that "protesters gathered outside the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court" in a show of opposition ahead of a hearing on the detention of Mahmoud and Ahmad Muna.

"Diplomatic representatives from the Netherlands, the U.K., Belgium, Brazil, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, and the E.U. all visited the courthouse in Jerusalem where the hearing is due to take place, to show support for the bookshop owners," the Israeli newspaper added.

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