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Anti-ICE protester confronts California police in June
Further

All You Fascists Bound To Lose

We staggered through the darkest ever ostensible celebration of American independence mournfully grappling with what Rev. William Barber calls the "all-out attack on who we even claim we are trying to be." A tireless pillar of righteous rage, he takes a long, moral view and a tough, simple stand on fighting for our rights and moving forward from catastrophe: "All of us have to find our way together now." Hopefully, we'd add, with brass bands accompanying us.

The good Rev. Barber, of course, comes to the fight against fascism armed with far more moral clarity and fortitude than most of the rest of us. His battle, both "a moral rebellion against Trump’s America" and against a deeper, longtime "architecture of inequality" since Frederick Douglas asked, "What to the slave is the 4th of July?" confronts a politics wed to nationalism, capitalism, exploitation and, in an especially "unholy relationship," religion, even as masked goons disappear our neighbors.

For the rest of us, Barber's resolve to bear witness, to build "a memory that resists the lie," takes many other, often mundane forms. We blunder forward as best we can. We seek strength and solace in small joys - friends, dogs, gardens, nature and solidarity - increasingly, at protests around the country, with music, often tubas. Kurt Vonnegut, always wise, was on it: "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: ‘The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.'"

In St. Louis, the Funky Butt Band sang This Land Is Your Land. In Auburn CA, people sang Les Miserables' soaring Do You Hear the People Sing? In New York, the Street Beat Brass Band play; in Minneapolis, since George Floyd's murder, it's Brass Solidarity with This Little Light of Mine and I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free. In Atlanta on No Kings Day, exuberant tubas drowned out the Proud Boys with Bella Ciao, a 19th-century Italian folk song turned anthem of freedom and resistance.


- YouTube www.youtube.com

In Somerville MA, the Good Trouble Brass Band has joined forces with the Boston Area Brigade of Activist Musicians (BABAM) for parades and protests in "a tradition of resilience and community" to contribute "something that is loud and joyful." And here in Portland ME we boast and love our Ideal Maine Social Aid & Sanctuary Band - "Easy tunes with friendly people" - a community activist, consensus-governed band in the New Orleans street band tradition spreading joy and advocacy since 2017.

They've played and marched at pride, homelessness, voting rights, abortion rights, Veterans for Peace events; at puppet slams, neighborhood gigs like Porchfest; a fabulous, four-tiered May Day gala; food coop, bike coalition, park conservancy parties; at a small, moving, buoyant Kneeling Photo Art Project - "We Kneel For An Equitable Future" - four years ago during a COVID winter, in their masks and down coats and sailor caps. Searing echoes of make love and music, not war and fascism.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Entirely aptly, these messengers of hope, rage joy offer diverse music, from Civil Rights- era anthems to old folk faves to Brass Band classics. Adding some spice is feverish new entrant from left field, Boston's Celtic punk rock band Dropkick Murphys. Longtime, blue-collar supporters of workers' and veterans' rights, they've been bringing their furious energy to protests; says front man Ken Casey “I think everything we’ve been doing for the past 30 years was a kind of warm-up for the moment we’re in.”

The hardscrabble Casey - from a recent show: "This Magger guy in the audience was waving his fucking Trump hat in people’s faces, and I could just tell he wanted to enter into discourse with me...I’m not going to shut up, just out of spite” - was raised by his grandfather. His foundational lesson: "If I ever see you bullying someone, I’ll kick the shit out of you. And if I ever see you back down from a bully, I’ll kick the shit out of you." On July 4th, they released new album For the People. Its fiery first single, Who’ll Stand With Us? and a quick-cut, seething video are a gut-punch call-out against fascist scumbags and oligarchs, with all the fury the moment demands. Just whew. Onward, evidently.

Through crime and crusade
Our labor, it’s been stolen
We’ve been robbed of our freedom
We’ve been held down and beholden
To the bosses and bankers
Who never gave their share
Of any blood
Of any sweat
Of any tears

Who’ll stand with us?
Don’t tell us everything is fine
Who’ll stand with us?
Because this treatment is a crime
The working people fuel the engine
While you yank the chain
We fight the wars and build buildings
For someone else’s gain.

So tell me
Who will stand with us?

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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Brazil climate protest
News

'Highly Inspiring' Court Ruling Affirms Nations' Legal Duty to Combat Climate Emergency

In a landmark advisory opinion published Thursday, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—of which the United States, the world's second-biggest carbon polluter, is not a member—affirmed the right to a stable climate and underscored nations' duty to act to protect it and address the worsening planetary emergency.

"States must refrain from any conduct that reverses, slows down, or truncates the outcome of measures necessary to protect human rights in the face of the impacts of climate change," a summary of the 234-page ruling states. "Any rollback of climate or environmental policies that affect human rights must be exceptional, duly justified based on objective criteria, and comply with standards of necessity and proportionality."

"The court also held that... states must take all necessary measures to reduce the risks arising, on the one hand, from the degradation of the global climate system and, on the other, from exposure and vulnerability to the effects of such degradation," the summary adds.

"States must refrain from any conduct that reverses, slows down, or truncates the outcome of measures necessary to protect human rights in the face of the impacts of climate change."

The case was brought before the Costa-Rica based IACtHR by Chile and Colombia, both of which "face the daily challenge of dealing with the consequences of the climate emergency, including the proliferation of droughts, floods, landslides, and fires, among others."

"These phenomena highlight the need to respond urgently and based on the principles of equity, justice, cooperation, and sustainability, with a human rights-based approach," the court asserted.

IACtHR President Judge Nancy Hernández López said following the ruling that "states must not only refrain from causing significant environmental damage but have the positive obligation to take measures to guarantee the protection, restoration, and regeneration of ecosystems."

"Causing massive and irreversible environmental harm...alters the conditions for a healthy life on Earth to such an extent that it creates consequences of existential proportions," she added. "Therefore, it demands universal and effective legal responses."

The advisory opinion builds on two landmark decisions last year. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings to rapidly phase out fossil fuel production.

The following month, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found in an advisory opinion that greenhouse gas emissions are marine pollution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and that signatories to the accord "have the specific obligation to adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control" them.

The IACtHR advisory opinion is expected to boost climate and human rights lawsuits throughout the Americas, and to impact talks ahead of November's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Belém, Brazil.

Climate defenders around the world hailed Thursday's advisory opinion, with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calling it "a landmark step forward for the region—and beyond."

"As the impact of climate change becomes ever more visible across the world, the court is clear: People have a right to a stable climate and a healthy environment," Türk added. "States have a bedrock obligation under international law not to take steps that cause irreversible climate and environmental damage, and they have a duty to act urgently to take the necessary measures to protect the lives and rights of everyone—both those alive now and the interests of future generations."

Amnesty International head of strategic litigation Mandi Mudarikwa said, "Today, the Inter-American Court affirmed and clarified the obligations of states to respect, ensure, prevent, and cooperate in order to realize human rights in the context of the climate crisis."

"Crucially, the court recognized the autonomous right to a healthy climate for both individuals and communities, linked to the right to a healthy environment," Mudarikwa added. "The court also underscored the obligation of states to protect cross-border climate-displaced persons, including through the issuance of humanitarian visas and protection from deportation."

Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that "this opinion sets an important precedent affirming that governments have a legal duty to regulate corporate conduct that drives climate harm."

"Though the United States is not a party to the treaty governing the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, this opinion should be a clarion call for transnational fossil fuel companies that have deceived the public for decades about the risks of their products," Merner added. "The era of accountability is here."

Markus Gehring, a fellow and director of studies in law at Hughes Hall at the University of Cambridge in England, called the advisory opinion "highly inspiring" and "seminal."

Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife, and oceans at Earthjustice, said that "the Inter-American Court's ruling makes clear that climate change is an overriding threat to human rights in the world."

"Governments must act to cut carbon emissions drastically," Caputo stressed. "While the United States and some other major polluters have chosen to ignore climate science, the rest of the international community is advancing protections for all from the realities of climate harm."

Climate litigation is increasing globally in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. In the Americas, Indigenous peoples, children, and green groups are among those who have been seeking climate justice via litigation.

However, in the United States, instead of acknowledging the climate emergency, President Donald Trump has declared an "energy emergency" while pursuing a "drill, baby, drill" policy of fossil fuel extraction and expansion.

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Supporters hold campaign signs and chant slogans during a rally for Zohran Mamdani
News

Tax-Dodging Billionaires Promise to Leave NYC If Mamdani Wins

"You don't have to sell it to me. I'm already in."

That was the comedic response from one progressive historian Thursday following reported threats from a number of New York City billionaires, warning they will leave if Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist now surging in the polls, wins the Democratic mayoral primary next week.

Grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman were among the wealthy New Yorkers who warned The Free Press Wednesday that many of the city's billionaires are likely to move to Florida or other states where they will be "welcomed as opposed to viewed as the enemy," if Mamdani, a state Assembly member currently polling second to disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, becomes the Democratic candidate and probable winner of the November general election.

Mamdani's proposed policies—including a rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartment dwellers, a network of city-owned grocery stores that would keep prices low, an expansion of his fare-free public bus pilot program, and no-cost childcare—would result in a "massive loss of confidence" for New York's richest residents, Ackman claimed.

"If Mamdani becomes the mayor of New York," Ackman told The Free Press, "you're going to see the flight of businesses from New York... It only takes a handful of successful people to leave to decimate the city's tax base."

But as social scientist Justin Feldman observed, the billionaires' threats of an exodus served only a "description of the status quo" that Mamdani has pledged to replace by raising the city's corporate tax rate and requiring the city's wealthiest 1% of residents to pay a flat 2% tax in order to fund programs for working families.

The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants noted in an article last year that the wealthiest New Yorkers "go to great lengths not to get taxed as residents in the city"—often by ensuring they spend fewer than 184 days per year there, the threshold for being considered a permanent resident.

The organization detailed location tracking apps that help users track how many days they've spent in New York in a taxable year to ensure they can avoid paying income taxes.

Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of New York's Gristedes grocery chain, referenced the 184-day rule as he told The Free Press he plans to go to "the promised land"—Florida—if Mamdani wins and moves to open low-cost, government-run grocery stores.

"I would spend far less than 183 days a year here, that's for sure... How can you compete against somebody giving it away for free?" he said, incorrectly suggesting that Mamdani plans to give New Yorkers free groceries.

The threats from Catsimatidis, Ackman, and other wealthy New Yorkers served as "a very good argument against billionaires and wealth inequality, not Zohran Mamdani," said legal scholar Alan Greene.

Ackman became the third-largest donor to Cuomo's campaign this week, contributing a total of $500,000 to the former governor's super PAC.

Other billionaires who spoke to The Free Press also said they'd donated to Cuomo "out of concern that Mamdani would turn one of the 'greatest economic engines in the world into a place that is business unfriendly,'" as one sports team owner told the outlet.

"Conservative billionaires are in fight or flight mode to elect Cuomo, to keep NYC a city only they can afford," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Health. "It's up to everyone to make sure it's money poorly spent."

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Donald Trump and UFC President and CEO  Dana White
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'Authoritarian Theater' Meets 'Pure F*cking Idiocracy' as Trump Promises White House UFC Match

Critics of President Donald Trump's announcement of a planned Ultimate Fighting Championship event on White House grounds to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial next year took to social media Friday to call the proposal something "straight out of 'Idiocracy'"—the comedy cult classic about a dumbed-down 26th-century America—and condemn what one detractor called "authoritarian theater."

"Every one of our national park battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250," Trump said at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Thursday. "We're going to have a UFC fight—think of this—on the grounds of the White House."

Yearning for a time when every new day isn't exponentially dumber than the day before.

[image or embed]
— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM

While Octagon aficionados cheered the prospect of a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue fight card, many observers couldn't help but notice parallels with the plot of Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy," a satirical skewering of issues including the erosion of White House decorum in a future when IQs have plummeted and a sports drink corporation owns the country, whose voters elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, "five-time ultimate smackdown champion and porn superstar," as president.

"If anyone defends Trump saying there will be a UFC fight on the White House lawn never listen to them again," former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois wrote on the social media site X Friday, adding that Trump's announcement was like the "plot to 'Idiocracy' with an equally stupid-ass president."

Another X user fumed: "This is what happens when a failed empire hits rock bottom and throws a party about it. UFC fight on the White House lawn to celebrate 250 years of what used to be a country with brains. This ain't strength, this is pure fucking Idiocracy. Straight out of Rome before it burned, give the mob a fight and some burgers while the world collapses around them.

Yet another social media critic joked that "'Idiocracy' was actually a documentary from the future, sent back in time as a warning to us all."

Some critics pointed to the decadeslong business ties between Trump and UFC President and CEO Dana White, who has donated at least $1 million to Trump's campaign coffers.

Others noted the "bread and circuses" vibes of Trump's proposed event, which some called a cynical ploy meant to distract from the devastating impact of policies like Friday's signing of a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations, while ballooning the deficit and leaving millions of Americans without desperately needed health insurance coverage and food assistance.

"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP. But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn," New York Times opinion contributor Wajahat Ali wrote on Bluesky. "America, F-YEAH!"

Writing for The Guardian Saturday, Karim Zidan asserted: "Donald Trump's UFC stunt is more than a circus. It's authoritarian theater."

"It carries shades of fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, particularly its obsession with masculinity, spectacle, and nationalism—but with a modern, American twist," he wrote. "Fascist Italy used rallies, parades, and sports events to project strength and unity."

"Similarly, Trump has relied on the UFC to project his tough-guy image, and to celebrate his brand of nationalistic masculinity," Zidan continued. "From name-dropping champions who endorse him to suggesting a tournament that would pit UFC fighters against illegal migrants, Trump has repeatedly found ways to make UFC-style machismo a part of his political brand."

"There was once a time when the U.S. could point to the authoritarian pageantry of regimes like Mussolini's Italy and claim at least some moral distance. That line is no longer visible," he added. "What was once soft power borrowed from strongmen is now being proudly performed on America's own front lawn."

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Student Activist Mahmoud Khalil Attends Rally After Being Freed From Detention
News

Case Challenging Trump's 'Ideological Deportations' of Pro-Palestine Students Heads to Court

The Trump administration, for the first time, had to defend its policy of deporting immigrants for their political views in court Monday.

A case filed by a group of professors will be heard in a Massachusetts federal court. The lawsuit challenges attempts by the Trump administration to arrest and remove foreign-born college students from the country based purely on their pro-Palestine speech.

Though hundreds of cases have been filed against the Trump administration since January, this is one of very few that has reached the trial phase.

The case was filed in March by Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP); AAUP's Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers campus chapters; and the Middle East Studies Association.

It is one of half a dozen other lawsuits filed following the arrest of Columbia graduate student and protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, who was abducted in the dead of night by plainclothes ICE officers and shipped to a detention center for nearly three months.

Khalil and several other students had their legal immigration status revoked not for having committed any crime, but because the Trump administration deemed their views at odds with the "foreign policy objective[s]" of the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the defendant in this case, has acknowledged stripping the legal status of hundreds of student protesters based on their speech.

"The policy chills noncitizens from speaking and, by extension, robs these organizations and their U.S. citizen members of noncitizens' perspectives on a matter of significant public debate," the Knight Institute said in a statement on behalf of the plaintiffs.

In a pre-trial brief, the group argued that this "ideological deportation policy" illegally discriminates against students and faculty based on their pro-Palestinian viewpoints.

"The First Amendment framework that applies is straightforward," the brief said. "If a regulation of speech discriminates based on content or viewpoint, then the regulation is 'presumptively unconstitutional' unless the government demonstrates that it is 'narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.'"

The plaintiffs argue that the intent behind the Trump administration's stripping of green cards and visas from legal holders was to punish speech they found disfavorable and to coerce others into silence.

"Noncitizen members of the AAUP have been chilled by these ideological deportations and forced to self-censor in a variety of different ways, and citizen members have been harmed as a result, because they have been deprived of the insights and engagement of their non-citizen students and colleagues," the brief said.

They cited examples of professors scrubbing their social media accounts to remove commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict, abandoning research on the Middle East that could prove too "nuanced" for the administration's liking, and even cancelling international travel for academic opportunities for fear of being disallowed entry back into the country.

"The First Amendment does not permit government officials to use the power of their office to silence critics and suppress speech they don’t like," said Andrew Manuel Crespo, a Harvard Law professor and general counsel of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter.

The AAUP lawsuit marks the first time the Trump administration will defend its use of deportations for political speech in court. But it is not the first time the courts will rule on its attacks against higher education.

Courts have blocked the Trump administration's efforts to ban Harvard from hosting foreign students and strip its funding, saying the measures violated due process.

While the case over deportations deals with non-citizens, AAUP President Todd Wolfson said it has implications for free speech for everyone in America.

"The Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won't stop there," Wolfson said. "They'll come next for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide gender-affirming health care or who research climate change or who counsel students about their reproductive choices. We all have to draw a line together—as the old labor movement slogan says: an injury to one is an injury to all."

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At least 60 Palestinian civilians killed after Israeli attacks in Gaza
News

'Killing Is Normalized': IDF Soldier Speaks Out About Orders to Shoot Civilians in Gaza

Another Israel Defense Forces soldier has spoken out publicly against the IDF's brutalization of civilians in Gaza.

In an interview with the British Sky News Monday, a reservist who has served three tours of duty in Gaza spoke candidly about orders he and other soldiers received to shoot any person arbitrarily who entered defined "no-go zones," regardless of whether they posed a threat.

The soldier gave his testimony anonymously for fear of being labeled a "traitor." However, he identified himself as a reservist from the 252nd Division who was stationed at the Netzarim Corridor, a road which divides North and South Gaza.

The area has been one of the most critical strategic points for Israel's occupation of Gaza, allowing control over the flow of aid and people.

The soldiers, stationed on the edge of a civilian neighborhood in the homes of displaced Palestinians, were ordered by their commanders to kill anyone who passed an "imaginary line" that marked the beginning of the military stronghold, the soldier said.

"We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die," the soldier said. "If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is."

"It was like pretty much everyone that comes into the territory, and it might be like a teenager riding his bicycle," he said.

The soldier said that the prevailing attitude among the troops was that all Palestinians were "terrorists," and that this attitude was reinforced by commanders.

"They say if someone comes here, it means that he knows he shouldn't be there, and if he still comes, it means he's a terrorist," he said. "This is what they tell you. But I don't really think it's true. It's just poor people, civilians, that don't really have too many choices."

He said that when soldiers in the corridor kill civilians, a lot of them "think that they did something good."

That sense of impunity, he said, comes from the higher-ups.

"Some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don't face the consequences of that," he said.

"You can't be in this scenario for so long and not normalize it," he said. "Killing is normalized, and you don't see the problem."

This anonymous soldier is the latest of many who have decided to speak out against atrocities their military has committed.

His testimony comes on the heels of a harrowing Haaretz expose, in which several other Israeli soldiers described being ordered to shoot Palestinian aid-seekers, turning the U.S.-Israeli administered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites into "killing fields." Others provided The Associated Press with video of soldiers bombarding civilians in an aid site with pepper spray and stun grenades.

Others have spoken out against the attacks on civilians near the Israeli stronghold at Netzarim.

In April, a report by the Israeli veterans group Breaking the Silence detailed many more accounts of brutality over the first year-and-a-half of the war. It included accounts of Israeli soldiers razing agricultural land, bulldozing entire city blocks, and designating "large swathes of the land" that "were turned into massive kill zones."

"All of them were wiped off the face of the Earth. Annihilation, expropriation, and expulsion are immoral and must never be normalized or legitimized," the report said.

The soldier who spoke to Sky News said his deployment left a similar stain on his conscience.

"I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out, because I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country," he said. "I think the war is... a very bad thing that is happening to us, and to the Palestinians, and I think it needs to be over."

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