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Minnesota in today's Land of the Free
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The Promised Land: When Fate Looks Upon You

OMG. We have landed in an inane, insane, bombastic Monty Python skit, slap-dash improvised by a sick vengeful child king churning through endless hissy fits. He wants to invade Greenland, occupy Minnesota, whitewash America, attack allies, bomb everyone, be Hitler with a shiny Peace Prize so his daddy will like him, and Jeffrey who? Still, there are heroes, often unlikely, among us. MLK Jr., surely spinning in his grave: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Who would've thought: Despite so much winning, polls show almost 60% of Americans say Trump's year in office has been "a failure," 71% say the country is "out of control," he has a lame 37% approval and 65% say a deranged, ignorant old man who spends his time pointing at random countries on a map squealing "mine" - and/or abducting their leaders - is "not someone they are proud to have as president." He probs hasn't won over many more with his rage-posting we really have to invade Greenland - "World Peace is at stake!" - because it only has "two dogsleds as protection" and his "very brilliant" imaginary Golden Dome system can only work at its full potential "because of angles, metes, and bounds" if Greenland is included, though just 4% of Americans agree, so "thank you for your attention to this matter, DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," also Biden's autopen.

In the face of "the ramblings of a man who has lost touch with reality" - and whose "stunningly vindictive," "extraordinarily dangerous" hallucinations could “incinerate the NATO alliance" and world peace with it - eight E.U. countries "united in our resolve" have pledged military support for Greenland; meanwhile, that country's sardonic populace have designed cool new MAGA hats - Make America Go Away - and gathered over 200,000 signatures on a petition to buy California from us. Undeterred and Adderalled-up, Trump has also announced a vague new Board of Peace, "the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled," whose inchoate mission would be doing...something about peace, especially if as yet unnamed countries - Orbán's in! Putin's invited! - pay a billion dollars for permanent membership in his secret club, and, again, "thank you for your attention to this matter!"

In other world news, we got the pathetic spectacle of the ever-needy boy giddily accepting a re-gifted, illegitimate Nobel Peace and Participation Prize - like Goebbels! - from Venezuela's Maria Corina Machado "for the work I have done," like bombing nine countries, more than any former president, killing 100 fishermen and turning this country into a war zone. He gave Machado some crappy MAGA swag but evidently stayed so miffed he wrote a juvenile, "beyond precedent, parody and reality" letter" to Norway's Prime Minister - whose government has nothing to do with the Nobel Committee and neither of them is Denmark - to whine because they didn't give him the real prize "though I stopped 8 Wars PLUS" and he's "done more for NATO than any other person" he no longer feels he has to "think purely of peace" so he might as well invade Greenland. Media felt obliged to note: "This story is actually not a parody.”

Equally terrifyingly and less entertainingly, he's also embracing his longtime urge to play dictator by invading Minnesota with thousands more ICE thugs after the murder of Renee Good, play dictator, subpoenaing Walz, Frey and other state officials and threatening to send in the military to subdue his stubbornly diverse, decent, welcoming new enemy - "a nice place, filled with nice people." Lydia Polgreen, a foreign correspondent who's covered civil wars in multiple countries, describes being stunned by "the size, scope and lawlessness of the federal onslaught (in) my once placid home state" - shops closed, empty desks in classrooms, ICE agents lurking in idling SUVs, the "quiet, yet pervasive fear" one resident deems, "fucking close to civil war." Its "true mission": To stage "a spectacle of cruelty," an occupation designed to "terrorize anyone who dares defy this incursion and, by extension, (Trump’s) power to wield limitless force against any enemy he wishes."

"We don’t have to speculate what American fascism looks like," says A.G. Keith Ellison. "It’s right outside the door." Somali American journalist Mukhtar Ibrahim echoes him: "Minnesota represents everything the administration hates. It's ground zero. If Minnesota falls, the country will fall." With ICE/CBP stormtroopers outnumbering local police 3,000 to 600, Stephen 'Goebbels' Miller gloats, "Only federal officers are upholding the law. Local and state police have been ordered to stand down and surrender." His lies and hubris reflect the feds' sense they can get away with "just being pure evil": Detaining an older, underwear-clad, U.S citizen Hmong man, CIA allies in Laos; tear-gassing a couple "human-trafficking their six kids home in their weaponized assault-SUV" so severely their six-month-old stopped breathing before her mother performed CPR; partly blinding two peaceful protesters with "non-lethal" munitions; and brutally gassing and tackling photographers, who get back up: "The world needs to see it."

Meanwhile, deaths mount at the $1.24 billion Texas detention center where many Minnesotans are sent. A medical examiner just classified the death of Geraldo Campos, the third in 44 days, as a homicide, days after a 55-year-old Cuban died of "asphyxia due to neck and chest compression" by guards and a 49-year-old Guatemalan died of "liver and kidney failure." Still, robotic regime mouthpiece Press Barbie insists, ICE is "doing everything correctly," though she utterly lost it when a reporter for center-right The Hill dared to note 32 people have died in ICE custody, 170 U.S. citizens have been detained and Renee Good was shot in the head. He's "a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion," a "left-wing hack," "a left-wing activist posing as a journalist," she shrieked. "Shame on people like you." Pot/kettle. Ditto strutting Il Ducette Bovino leading the charge - hilariously, to shouts of "Coward chicken shit fuck!" and "Brown shirts!"

The Bovino hecklers stand in fine, bountiful company in Minnesota, with its "exceptionally broad solidarity" forged in the wake of George Floyd's murder. So many people have been galvanized to protest, including many who hadn't before, the city was moved to announce that vehicles abandoned "due to an ICE detention" and subsequently towed would be released at no cost to patriotic owners. Their resolve is powerfully noted by Robert Arnold, who salutes the 6,000 marchers in cold rain, "and not the cinematic kind," representing "a people who showed up when staying home would have been so much easier." Also emblematic is the teenager insisting that, though he's white, "I'm not going to not care just because it’s not going to happen to me." Such callousness - see Trump's vileness on those from Somalia, "filthy, dirty, disgusting...I don't want them in our country" - would be "irresponsible, disrespectful, actually sinful."

As usual, judges have largely been on the right side of history. Most recently, a federal judge ruled thugs in Minnesota cannot "retaliate against, detain or attack (people) engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity"; one plaintiff testified of the "terrifying violence" that she asked a single question - "Are you ICE?" - before goons "rushed me, grabbed me, and slammed me face-first into the snow" as other DHS louts filmed the assault for their "ongoing production of political theater." In the face of state terror - sequentially, Good's clearly documented murder as she was shot three, possibly four times, the appalling lies and smears from Noem, Vance, Miller et al, the despicable failures of accountability by DHS and FBI, which found a new low by then targeting Good's widow, and the mindless, ongoing escalation - we're left to take solace, in part, from the savage, stalwart wise guys of tragi-comedy who've seen us through other dark times.

On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart has offered both helpful geography lessons to moronic imperialists - "Dibs on Greenland" - and Don't Join ICE videos to aspiring thugs: "Are you the type of guy who wants to go join ICE because it looks like playing Halo? Here's a better idea: Don't join ICE, stay home in your basement where it's warm, and play Halo! Whatever void in your life is making you respond to those ICE ads, we'll fill it! Stay home! It's better for everyone! Brought to you by everyone who just wants to go outside without getting shot." Andy Borowitz announced Greenland, along with the EU, has begun construction of a maximum-security prison for pedophiles that will house "the worst of the worst." A Greenlandic spokesperson said the construction “should not be seen as an act of provocation, adding, "The only person who could be offended would be a pedophile.”

Trump's fake Peace Prize - "Local man receives giant gold-framed second-hand soother" - led Jimmy Kimmel to suggest pacifier analogies; he also offered his own bribes - his 1999 Emmy for Best Game Show Host and his 2015 Soul Train Award for "White Person of the Year" - if Trump would pull ICE out of Minnesota. Jimmy Fallon, meanwhile, claimed he'd gotten audio from the meeting with Machado, which mostly consisted of, "Gimme, gimme," "Mine," and, "Me wanty." Along with "what a view" GIFS, many others posited additional awards that Trump by all rights should receive. They include the Ten Commandments (from Moses), the All Valley Karate Championship, the Wimbledon Women's Singles, the 4H Biggest Pig, Best In Show from Westminster Kennel Club, the Award for Unusually Quickly Healed Ear, and the 1936 Olympic Gold from his hero, Hitler. It remains to be seen if, as suggested, he'll ask Taylor Swift for one of her Grammys.

Trump gets a 1936 Olympic medal from Hitler to go with his recycled peace prize Trump gets a 1936 Olympic medal from Hitler to go with his recycled peace prizeMeme from Bluesky

By way of resistance, others have just done their (jury) duty. Jacob Winkler, a 33-year-old homeless man in D.C., was arrested in September on a felony charge after allegedly shining a toy laser beam at Trump's helicopter as he left the White House. As with Sandwich Guy, fake US Attorney Jeanine Winebox Pirro was eager to prosecute another lowly perp "to the fullest extent of the law." A Statement of Probable Cause described the gritty crime: A cop shone a flashlight at Winkler, who shone a beam at the cop, then "in the direction of" the helicopter. The cop "immediately identified" the action as a lethal danger. Winkler said he didn't know he couldn't point the laser there: "He points it all kinds of things," like stop signs. Last week, a jury deliberated 35 minutes before finding him not guilty. His public defender noted the feds "spent scarce resources to make a felon out of a homeless man (with) a cat toy keychain...We need to stop policing poverty and start investing in dignity.”

There's also the unnamed hero in Florida who registered the domain nazis.us and redirected it to the DHS website. It still works. Go there. It shrieks "Become a homeland defender," "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out," and "New Year, New Dirtbags," which announces 5,000 more "criminal illegal aliens added to wow.dhs.gov, “Worst of the Worst” and the arrest of "over 10,000 criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans, hurting children and reigning terror (sic) in Minneapolis." No, wait, ICE Barbie says "brave" Gestapo have arrested 3,000 "criminal illegal aliens including vicious murderers, rapists, child pedophiles and incredibly dangerous individuals." They name three "criminals." No word on the other 2,997. This week their shock troops swarmed into coastal Maine in "Operation Catch of the Day." Just what the fucking fuck. Childish sociopaths are running our government.

Also safeguarding the worst pedophile in modern history. The DOJ has again stonewalled on releasing files legally mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) to have been released by Dec. 19, a month ago. Instead, Pam Bondi, hours after posting, "No one is above the law!" filed a motion to block an effort by Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie to compel her to...follow the law. Autoworker T.J. Sabula wants that too, which is why he just yelled "Pedophile protector!" at Trump as he toured a Ford plant; ever stately Trump screamed "FUCK YOU!" and flipped him off before launching into a vile racist speech that blamed high living costs on....Somalis in Minnesota. Sabula was suspended - "Know your place" - the union vowed to fight for him, a GoFundMe - "TJ Sabula is a patriot!!" - raised almost half a million dollars before shutting down to make room for other causes, and Sabula had "definitely no regrets whatsoever...I don't feel as though fate looks upon you often."

On Tuesday, in the same spirit, the members of Secret Handshake marked what would have been Epstein's 73rd birthday with a new "participatory public artwork" on the National Mall. Following up on their faux-bronze besties holding hands, they installed a massive, 10-foot-tall replica of the infamous, obscene birthday card Trump sent Epstein. One side reads, "Happy Birthday to A Terrific Guy!", the other reproduces the drawing of a naked woman, or, chillingly, girl. Next to it are mock boxes of redacted files, Sharpies, and an invitation for visitors to write "your own message" to salute the birthday of Trump's "closest friend." Read one, "RAPISTS LOVE RAPISTS.” Their art, the group says, provides a vital, life-affirming "voice in dark times.” So did Springsteen the other night when he appeared unannounced at a New Jersey benefit to dedicate his song The Promised Land, "an ode to American possibility," to Renee Good - "if you believe that truth still matters, and it's worth speaking out."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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US President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks to the United Nations General Assembly
News

Trump Abandonment of Global Treaties 'Threatens All Life on Earth'

President Donald Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from dozens of international treaties and organizations aimed at promoting cooperation on the world's most pressing issues, including human rights and the worsening climate emergency.

Among the treaties Trump ditched via a legally dubious executive order was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), making the US—the world's largest historical emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases—the first country to abandon the landmark agreement.

The US Senate ratified the convention in 1992 by unanimous consent, but lawmakers have repeatedly failed to assert their constitutional authority to stop presidents from unilaterally withdrawing from global treaties.

Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that "Trump cutting ties with the world’s oldest climate treaty is another despicable effort to let corporate fossil fuel interests run our government."

"Given deeply polarized US politics, it’s going to be nearly impossible for the U.S. to rejoin the UNFCCC with a two-thirds majority vote. Letting this lawless move stand could shut the US out of climate diplomacy forever," Su warned. "Withdrawing from the world’s leading climate, biodiversity, and scientific institutions threatens all life on Earth."

Trump also pulled the US out of the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the UN International Law Commission, the UN Democracy Fund, UN Oceans, and dozens of other global bodies, deeming them "contrary to the interests of the United States."

The president's move came as he continued to steamroll domestic and international law with an illegal assault on Venezuela and threats to seize Greenland with military force, among other grave abuses.

Below is the full list of international organizations that Trump abandoned with the stroke of a pen:

(a) Non-United Nations Organizations:

(i) 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact;

(ii) Colombo Plan Council;

(iii) Commission for Environmental Cooperation;

(iv) Education Cannot Wait;

(v) European Centre of Excellence for Countering

Hybrid Threats;

(vi) Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories;

(vii) Freedom Online Coalition;

(viii) Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund;

(ix) Global Counterterrorism Forum;

(x) Global Forum on Cyber Expertise;

(xi) Global Forum on Migration and Development;

(xii) Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research;

(xiii) Intergovernmental Forum onMining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development;

(xiv) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;

(xv) Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services;

(xvi) International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property;

(xvii) International Cotton Advisory Committee;

(xviii) International Development Law Organization;

(xix) International Energy Forum;

(xx) International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies;

(xxi) International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance;

(xxii) International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law;

(xxiii) International Lead and Zinc Study Group;

(xxiv) InternationalRenewable Energy Agency;

(xxv) International Solar Alliance;

(xxvi) International Tropical Timber Organization;

(xxvii) International Union for Conservation of Nature;

(xxviii) Pan American Institute of Geography and History;

(xxix) Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation;

(xxx) Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia;

(xxxi) Regional Cooperation Council;

(xxxii) Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century;

(xxxiii)Science and Technology Center in Ukraine;

(xxxiv) Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme; and

(xxxv) Venice Commission of the Council of Europe.

(b) United Nations (UN) Organizations:

(i) Department of Economic and Social Affairs;

(ii) UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) — Economic Commission forAfrica;

(iii) ECOSOC — Economic Commission forLatin America and the Caribbean;

(iv) ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific;

(v) ECOSOC — Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia;

(vi) International Law Commission;

(vii) International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals;

(viii) InternationalTrade Centre;

(ix) Office of the Special Adviser on Africa;

(x) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General forChildren in Armed Conflict;

(xi) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict;

(xii) Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children;

(xiii) Peacebuilding Commission;

(xiv) Peacebuilding Fund;

(xv) Permanent Forum on People of African Descent;

(xvi) UN Alliance of Civilizations;

(xvii) UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions fromDeforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries;

(xviii) UN Conference on Trade and Development;

(xix) UN Democracy Fund;

(xx) UN Energy;

(xxi) UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women;

(xxii) UN Framework Convention on Climate Change;

(xxiii) UN Human Settlements Programme;

(xxiv) UN Institute for Training and Research;

(xxv) UN Oceans;

(xxvi) UN Population Fund;

(xxvii) UN Register of Conventional Arms;

(xxviii) UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination;

(xxix) UN System Staff College;

(xxx) UNWater; and

(xxxi) UN University.

Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Trump's withdrawal from the world's bedrock climate treaty marks "a new low and yet another sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation."

"Withdrawal from the global climate convention will only serve to further isolate the United States and diminish its standing in the world following a spate of deplorable actions that have already sent our nation’s credibility plummeting, jeopardized ties with some of our closest historical allies, and made the world far more unsafe," said Cleetus. "This administration remains cruelly indifferent to the unassailable facts on climate while pandering to fossil fuel polluters.”

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Retail Report Shows Consumer Spent More On Goods In June
News

Major Study Shows US Consumers, Businesses Pay for Vast Majority of Trump's Tariffs

President Donald Trump has long insisted, in the face of decades of research by economists, that foreign producers are the only ones who are paying for his tariffs on imported goods.

However, a major new study released Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic think tank based in Germany, shows that US businesses and consumers are shouldering the burden for the vast majority of Trump's tariffs.

After examining more than 25 million shipment records of goods imported to the US last year, the institute found that foreign exporters only absorbed 4% of the $200 billion in tariff payments, with the remaining 96% being passed on to US importers and consumers.

"This finding has profound implications," the study explains. "If foreign exporters do not reduce their prices in response to tariffs, then the entire burden of the tariff falls on US buyers. The tariff functions not as a tax on foreign producers, but as a consumption tax on Americans. Every dollar of tariff revenue represents a dollar extracted from American businesses and households."

The study identifies several factors to explain why exporters did not slash their prices to remain competitive in the lucrative US market, including exporters shifting their sales to other markets where they will not face such high tariffs; firms not being able to shoulder the high price cut that would be needed to overcome the tariff rates set by the president; and companies not wanting to give Trump an incentive for further tariffs by rewarding US consumers with lower prices.

Julian Hinz, research director at the Kiel Institute and an author of the study, described the Trump tariffs as an "own goal" that has harmed Americans far more than it has harmed foreigners.

"The claim that foreign countries pay these tariffs is a myth," explained Hinz. "The data show the opposite: Americans are footing the bill."

The Kiel Institute study came out two days after Trump vowed to slap even more tariffs on European countries opposed to his efforts to take over Greenland.

In an analysis published Monday, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said that the latest Trump tariffs on Europe amounted to a "$75 billion tax increase" in an attempt to fulfill the president's "demented dreams" of taking over the self-governing Danish territory.

"Well over 90% of the cost of a Trump tariff is borne by consumers or importers in the United States, not by the exporting countries," Baker contended. "When Trump starts yelling 'tariff, tariff, tariff,' he is yelling 'tax, tax, tax,' and we’re the ones paying it. And $75 billion is not trivial. It’s 1% of the budget, more than twice the cost of the enhanced premiums for Obamacare policies that Trump says we can’t afford."

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EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas
News

'Senseless Betrayal' of Workers as Trump Agency Scraps Anti-Harassment Guidance With No Public Input

The Trump administration, quietly and with no public input, voted Thursday to scrap federal guidance aimed at clarifying and bolstering anti-harassment protections on the job, a move that rights advocates condemned as yet another destructive attack on workers.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which President Donald Trump targeted last year by firing two of its Democratic commissioners before their terms were up, voted 2-1 to rescind the anti-harassment guidance approved under the Biden administration.

Unlike the approval process, which garnered tens of thousands of public comments, the decision by Republicans on the EEOC to completely scrap the guidance was made without any feedback from the American public.

Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), said in a statement that the Trump administration is "abandoning millions of workers who face harassment on the job and sending a clear message that this administration will not lift a finger to protect them."

"Trump-installed Chair Andrea Lucas orchestrated this rescission through the back door, refusing to issue the opportunity for public comment," said Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA). "Requests for meetings to discuss the rescission, including ERA’s request, were canceled. This administration does not want to hear from the workers it is abandoning."

"The Trump administration’s rescission of the EEOC workplace harassment guidance is about weaponizing a civil rights agency against the very people it was created to protect," Farrell added.

Ahead of Thursday's vote, Lucas was vocal in her opposition to the portions of the 2024 guidance that clarified the illegality of workplace harassment based on gender identity. Under Lucas' leadership, the EEOC last year moved to drop virtually every lawsuit the agency had filed in the previous year over discrimination against transgender workers.

Late last year, Lucas reportedly received a green light from the Trump White House to pursue the complete rescission of the 2024 guidance—not just the sections related to sexual orientation and gender identity, which had already been vacated by a federal court.

Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the EEOC's only Democrat and the lone vote against rescinding the guidance, lamented that "instead of adopting a thoughtful and surgical approach to excise the sections the majority disagrees with or suggest an alternative, the commission is throwing out the baby with the bathwater."

"Worse, it is doing so without public input," Kotagal added.

"This move will leave the commission enforcing guidance from a time when gay marriage was illegal and most people didn’t have internet at home."

US Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement that the guidance rescission "is a senseless betrayal from an administration doing everything it can to make working people’s lives harder at every turn."

"While this move doesn’t change the underlying law, this administration is turning back the clock decades by abandoning robust enforcement of sexual harassment in the workplace—this hurts everyone and helps no one," said Murray. "Andrea Lucas is openly waging war on the independence and basic mission of the EEOC—and this move will leave the commission enforcing guidance from a time when gay marriage was illegal and most people didn’t have internet at home."

“Whether it’s protecting sexual predators in the Epstein files, promoting alleged abusers to the highest offices in government, or getting rid of basic standards to protect workers against harassment, this administration has proven time and again that they couldn’t care less about workers, women, or victims of abuse," the senator added. "Under Trump, the EEOC is taking the side of abusers over working people just trying to do their jobs. We can’t let this get swept under the rug."

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A business is seen with signs in its windows protesting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
News

'Rot in Hell!' 'F*ck You, Nazis!': Mainers React With Fury as Horrors of ICE Operations Multiply

As the Trump administration continues to insist it is targeting violent criminals as it ramps up immigration enforcement operations in Maine—while releasing details about just a small fraction of the more than 100 people federal agents have reportedly arrested so far—residents in the state are expressing growing anger over the operations that have seen their neighbors, friends, and coworkers hauled away in unmarked cars by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In at least two cases in Portland on Thursday, ICE agents pulled drivers out of their cars and left the vehicles running in the street.

A crowd gathered as agents detained a Lyft driver near the University of Southern Maine, with residents calling the masked officers "Nazis" and demanding, "If you're so proud, show your face!"

"Rot in hell!" one person yelled, while others said, "Fuck you, Nazis!"

Another man, identified by the Maine Monitor as Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, was cut off by an unmarked car with tinted windows while driving in downtown Portland Wednesday morning. Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia, is in the US on a work visa according to his colleagues, and earned a master's degree from University of Maine.

The agents moved rapidly, trying to pry open Carvajal-Munoz's window before smashing it and pulling him out of the car, hauled him into their vehicle, and drove away.

“In less than two minutes, they smashed his window and dragged him out of the car,” an eyewitness, Jesse Smith, told the Monitor. “He was compliant. He wasn’t resisting or anything.”

A background check system from TransUnion found that Carvajal-Munoz has no criminal record, despite the Department of Homeland Security's persistent claims that ICE is targeting the "worst of the worst" violent criminals—a claim the agency's own data does not support.

The agents left Carvajal-Munoz's car running with the window smashed and the engineer's belongings and keys in the passenger seat. A passerby drove the vehicle into a nearby parking lot.

Another incident on Wednesday evening, in which several ICE agents stopped a corrections officer recruit in his vehicle and detained him, provoked outrage from Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce.

The man's record was "squeaky clean," said Joyce at a press conference where he explained the recruit was hired in 2024 after an extensive background check that is standard for his office's staffing procedures, complete with fingerprinting and a polygraph test. He is eligible to work in the US until 2029, as verified through a federally required I-9 form.

In a video of the arrest, he was heard telling the officers he could prove his identity if they allowed him to get his ID as they handcuffed him and ignored his pleas.

“Every indication we found was that this was an individual trying to do all the right things," Joyce said, adding that ICE later inexplicably claimed to him that the recruit was in the US illegally.

The sheriff also criticized the agents' methods during the arrest.

"There were five to seven ICE agents there," said Joyce. "We've arrested some dangerous people on the back roads of Cumberland County with three or less deputies, yet this was a show of force or a show of whatever they were trying to do."

Of the agents' decision to leave the recruit's car running in the street, Joyce added, "Folks, that's bush-league policing."

Joyce was one of more that 10 sheriffs who attended a meeting last year with border czar Tom Homan to learn about the Trump administration's alleged plan to remove violent criminals from the streets.

“The book and the movie don’t add up,” Joyce said.

Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner addressed the recent arrests in a video he posted on social media from the Copenhagen airport as he travels back to Maine from Norway, saying, "Our home is under attack" and calling on state leaders to allow law enforcement to directly act to protect Mainers from ICE.

"ICE is just kidnapping people," he said. "People who are here legally, including local law enforcement. I'm sick and tired of hearing that legally, there's nothing that law enforcement in Maine can do to protect citizens from these thugs. I very much urge our state leadership to empower local law enforcement to do what it's supposed to do, which is protect our communities. Right now our communities need protecting from the authoritarian overreach of ICE. And if they aren't going to do that then we all need to turn out."

A rally is planned in Lewiston on Saturday, and Portland residents are planning to gather Friday evening to protest ICE's surge in the state.

Mainers have taken cueseng from communities in cities such as Minneapolis and Chicago, where ICE has been met with strong shows of resistance to the Trump administration's anti-immigrant enforcement in recent months.

Back Cove Books in Portland reported Thursday that it was ordering a second shipment of free whistles for community members to warn neighbors when ICE is in the vicinity or conducting an arrest, as it was "very quickly running out" of its first shipment in just one day.

Businesses across the city have placed signs designed by a local artist declaring "NO ICE" in their windows.

And about 75 protesters banged pots and pans outside a hotel where they believe, based on reports, that ICE agents are staying in Portland on Thursday night.

Panagioti Tsolkas, communications manager for the Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition, told Common Dreams that the group has trained hundreds of volunteers to help verify reports of ICE operations. Other local groups have reported huge numbers of residents volunteering to deliver groceries to immigrants and people of color who don't feel safe leaving home.

"This community is engaged and not just lowering their heads or turning away," Tsolkas said. "Maine also really values itself as a welcoming place. And that culture has been developed, especially with the refugee resettlement program and population. That's part of the reason that Maine is being targeted, is because it has a history of being a welcoming place and accepting place."

Despite stereotypes about Maine being "remote and cold," he added, "I think [what] people are hearing and seeing is that people in Maine really pride themselves as being a place that has a welcoming value as a core principle."

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Israeli Forces Begin Demolition Of UNRWA Headquarters In Jerusalem
News

‘New Level of Open and Deliberate Defiance of International Law’: Israel Demolishes UNRWA Buildings

Israeli authorities' demolition of the headquarters of the United Nations agency that has for decades provided aid and civil services to Palestinians in territories illegally occupied by Israel was about "more than destroying walls," said one journalist and rights advocate in the region.

The bulldozing of the complex on Monday attacks the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East's (UNRWA) "very mission since 1949, violates the rights of Palestinian refugees, and aims to erase the support system they rely on," said Maha Hussaini, head of media and public engagement at the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

Hussaini was among those who spoke out as Israeli forces stormed the complex with bulldozers and began destroying buildings at the site after having sealed off the surrounding streets in East Jerusalem, the occupied city that Palestinians consider the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The Israel Defense Forces and demolition workers were also accompanied by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said the destruction of the compound, which has operated at the site for decades, marked a "historic day."

UN officials and other rights advocates, such as Jonathan Whittall—formerly the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories—said Israeli authorities were once again broadcasting their "contravention of their obligations under international law."

Whittall emphasized that Israel's destruction of UN property came months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) "reaffirmed that Israel 'may not obstruct the functions of UNRWA.'"

UNRWA released a statement accusing Israel of "a new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law," noting that the country is obligated "to protect and respect the inviolability of UN premises."

Ben-Gvir led the destruction of the headquarters more than a year after Israeli lawmakers passed a law banning UNRWA, and weeks after the country banned dozens of international aid groups from operating in Gaza. Israeli officials claimed in 2024 that a small fraction of UNRWA's 13,000 staffers in Gaza had been involved in a Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, but an independent investigation found that they had not backed up their claims with evidence.

UNRWA noted that last week, Israeli forces stormed an UNRWA health center in East Jerusalem and ordered it closed, and water and power supplies to the agency's health and education buildings across the region are scheduled to be cut in the coming weeks.

"These actions, together with previous arson attacks and a large-scale disinformation campaign, fly in the face of the ruling in October by the International Court of Justice, which restated that Israel is obliged under international law to facilitate UNRWA’s operations, not hinder or prevent them," said UNRWA. "The court also stressed that Israel has no jurisdiction over East Jerusalem."

"There can be no exceptions. This must be a wake-up call," the agency added. "What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission, whether in the occupied Palestinian territory or anywhere around the world. International law has come under increasing attack for too long and is risking irrelevancy in the absence of response by member states.”

In the UK, member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn spoke to his fellow lawmakers about the destruction of the UNRWA compound—on top of Israel's continued slaughter of Palestinians despite a "ceasefire" deal that was reached in October and settler attacks in the West Bank—and demanded to know: "When is the British government going to impose sanctions on Israel for its endless violations of international law?"

International law advocate and UN representative Mohamad Safa noted that Israeli authorities violated Article 52 of Additional Protocol (I) Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter when they took over UNRWA's headquarters and raised the Israeli flag there.

"Another violation of international law being broadcast live. Israel's impunity must end!" he said.

Last week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the UN could take Israel before the ICJ over its laws targeting UNRWA.

The UN, said Guterres, cannot remain indifferent to "actions taken by Israel, which are in direct contravention of the obligations of Israel under international law. They must be reversed without delay.”

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