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U.S Attorney  Markenzy Lapointe speaks at news conference
Further

Surreal: U.S. Attorney In Charge of Trump Almost Shooting Is Haitian-American and We Are Here For It

Because things right about now can always get weirder, it turns out the Florida U.S. Attorney handling the case of the latest sick white guy inspired by hateful GOP lies about pet-eating Haitians to go hiding in the bushes to take down Trump with an AR-15 is one Markenzy Lapointe - the first Haitian-born American lawyer, and first black guy, to serve as a U.S. Attorney. We love the smell of irony and karma in the morning.

The alleged "assassination attempt," though the perp didn't fire any shots, took place at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course a couple of days after both lying authoritarian scumbags on the GOP presidential ticket re-iterated their claims that "illegal aliens" from Haiti are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, which is def speaking truth to power and house-pets except it's all racist fiction. The migrants are here legally, and no pets have been harmed or consumed in the making of this absurd campaign lie.

That hasn't stopped the two white boys with shit for brains from doubling down on what Vance already conceded on TV is a tall ugly tale, which has now seen Haitians being terrorized, schools receiving at least 33 bomb threats and Springfield officials having to evacuate schools, cancel "CultureFest" and close multiple city offices. After Vance admitted to "creating" his own furry lies, he tried also charging that immigrants are spreading HIV and TB too. Nope. More faux hillbilly lies - about his own constituents, yet.

#OHNoYouDont, said the Ohio-based Red, Wine, and Blue that's organized against the hate and fear. They've now been joined by Lapointe, Haitian-born U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and lead prosecutor of Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon after a Secret Service guy spotted his gun in the bushes where he'd waited 12 hours to claim his 15 minutes of tawdry fame, hopefully taking a moment to thank Trump for revoking gun restrictions for people with mental illness.

Lapointe, 55, was born in Port-au-Prince. He came to the U.S. as a 16-year-old who spoke no English with his mother, a street vendor with no formal education and four other kids; they all shared a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Liberty City. Lapointe worked through high school and skipped his graduation to begin boot camp after signing up for the Marines. A reservist, he was called up to serve in the Gulf War - "I felt a tremendous debt to America (as) an immigrant" - before earning finance and law degrees at Florida State.

Lapointe was nominated by Biden in 2022 and has worked with Jack Smith on the classified documents case; he calls his journey "surreal" and "blessed." Trump might not agree on the blessed part, but he's already fundraising on the latest alleged effort to get rid of him, charging, "There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us." We can relate. For now, we can also savor the fact of a Haitian immigrant whose job is both to protect and prosecute him. One sage: "Sweet like justice, Karma is a queen."

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sign saying Justice for Juan" in Spanish
News

Honduran Environment and Anti-Corruption Activist Juan López Killed

Environment and anti-corruption activist Juan López was killed in Tocoa, Honduras on Saturday in the latest attack on environmental defenders in the country.

López, who had long received death threats but continued to speak out, was gunned down by motorcyclists while leaving church.

Honduran leaders have denounced his killing as murder and vowed to prosecute the perpetrators. No one has yet been arrested. López had in recent days called for the resignation of Adán Fúnez, Tocoa's longtime mayor, for alleged involvement in organized crime and drug trafficking, according to Contrecorriente, an investigative media outlet.

López, a local councilor and member of the Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (CMDBCP, in Spanish), had long defended forests and rivers from threats posed by mining and hydroelectric companies. He is the fourth CMDBCP member to be killed since last year.

"We condemn the vile murder of Juan López, a renowned defender of common and public goods, councilor of the municipality of Tocoa, a great human being, a great historical fighter, a dear friend," Angélica Álvarez, Honduas' acting human rights minister, wrote on social media. "We demand justice, investigation, and prison for his cowardly murderers."

Honduran environmentalist Juan López works at his home in Tocoa, Honduras, in September 2021. López was killed on September 14, 2024. (Photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images)

López was a member of the ruling Libre party, which has held national power since President Xiomara Castro, a leftist, took office in January 2022. However, he wasn't afraid to call out corruption in his own party.

The last three weeks brought scandal to the party after a video from 2013 emerged in which Carlos Zelaya, a Libre lawmaker and Castro's brother-in-law, and Fúnez, the Tocoa mayor, who's also a party member, are seen negotiating with alleged drug traffickers. Zelaya and Fúnez were trying to boost Castro's 2013 presidential campaign, which was unsuccessful.

Carlos Zelaya resigned office amid the scandal. He is the brother of Castro's husband, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, who led the country from 2006 until 2009 and serves as her principal adviser. There have also been calls for Castro herself to resign.

Amid the national fallout, the video leak also led to debate in Tocoa, a city of more than 100,000 in the country's north, just inland from the Atlantic Ocean. López denounced Fúnez and called for him to resign as Carlos Zelaya had.

It's not clear which of López's political enemies may have ordered his death, but his safety was known to be at risk. He understood that it came with the work he did. He had long fought for the preservation of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers and the Carlos Escaleras nature reserve.

"If you start defending common interests in this country, you clash with major interests," López told Agence France-Presse in 2021.

"If you leave home, you always have in mind that you do not know what might happen, if you are going to return," he added.

Last year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights moved to establish protections for 30 CMDBCP members including López, who reported threats by a gang member, a local businessperson, and a mining company representative. Two men on motorcycles appeared near his home in recent months, the commission reported, according to Reuters.

Ismael Moreno, a well-known Jesuit priest and social reformer, called for an international commission to work alongside Honduran prosecutors to investigate López's killing, given the lack of public confidence in the country's institutions, Contrecorriente reported.

The vast majority of global attacks on environmental defenders take place in Latin America, according to a report released last week by Global Witness, a watchdog group. In 2023, Honduras, despite its relatively small population, tied for third in the world in the number of defenders killed, at 18, behind only Colombia and Brazil.

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Ellen MacInnis
News

As Steward CEO Defies Subpoena, Nurses Testify to Horrors of Private Equity Hospitals

The obscenely rich CEO of Steward Health Care, a for-profit network formed with private equity backing, violated a subpoena on Thursday by declining to testify at a Senate hearing on how mismanagement of the now-bankrupt hospital system harmed patient care.

But in Ralph de la Torre's absence, members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee did hear from nurses who witnessed firsthand how Steward's prioritization of shareholder payouts and lavish executive compensation left its hospitals in dire straights, with badly insufficient staffing and resources.

Ellen MacInnis, a longtime nurse at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston, said in response to a question from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) that hospital conditions are "noticeably different" under private equity ownership.

"After Steward took over," said MacInnis, the hospital began "violating agreements" it made with nurses and "laid off all the nursing assistants on our maternity floors."

When Murphy said that "the purpose" of hospitals under Steward's ownership was apparently to "make the owners filthy rich," MacInnis responded, "Yes, absolutely."

Earlier in her testimony, MacInnis offered what she described as an "egregious and appalling example" of the incompetence and cruelty of Steward's management: "The failure of Steward to ensure a supply of bereavement boxes, which are the cases used to carry the remains of deceased newborns to the morgue."

"Instead, staff were expected to transport these remains in banker's and shipping boxes," said MacInnis. "To compensate for this indignity it was left to our own nurses to go online and purchase appropriate containers on Amazon."

The "most tragic example," MacInnis said, was the death of a 39-year-old mother "simply because the embolism coil that would have saved her life had been repossessed by another unpaid vender."

Watch the full hearing:


Steward has faced close scrutiny from lawmakers since it filed for bankruptcy in May after de la Torre and his private equity partners raked in massive sums of cash—making the for-profit network a stark example of private equity's parasitic impact on the U.S. healthcare system.

The Senate HELP Committee, led by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), voted to subpoena de la Torre in late July after he refused to voluntarily appear before lawmakers.

The Steward CEO's defiance of the panel's subpoena led Sanders to announce Thursday that he "will be asking the committee to report a resolution to authorize civil enforcement and criminal contempt proceedings against Dr. de la Torre requiring compliance with the subpoena."

A hearing on the proposed contempt resolution is scheduled for next week.

"There's no incentive for a for-profit company that's looking to get every dime out of the hospital and all the services to add more nurses."

As The American Prospect's Maureen Tkacik noted last week, Steward "entered bankruptcy with $8 billion in debt while its CEO siphoned out more than a quarter-billion dollars and blew most of it on an epic midlife crisis, featuring a new wife 29 years his junior, a 500-acre ranch for her prizewinning racehorses, a $77,000-a-month detail for her security while traveling between the couple’s far-flung mansions, an Amalfi Coast wedding choreographed by Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton’s wedding planner, and not one but two yachts."

Just ahead of Thursday's hearing, The Wall Street Journal reported that Steward paid out $790 million in dividends to shareholders years before filing for bankruptcy. Much of the $790 million went to the private equity giant Cerberus, which owned Steward between 2010 and 2020.

Nurses' testimony at Thursday's hearing made clear that such avarice came at the expense of healthcare workers and patients.

"There's no incentive for a for-profit company that's looking to get every dime out of the hospital and all the services to add more nurses," Audra Sprague, a former nurse at the newly shuttered Nashoba Valley Medical Center, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee during Thursday's hearing.

"They don't care how your day is," Sprague continued. "They're not there to actually help patients, they're there to make money."

After the hearing adjourned, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) held a press conference alongside nurses and other advocates in front of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Markey, a vocal critic of Steward, applauded the bravery of healthcare workers fighting for their patients in the face of private equity greed.

"Their courage," said the Massachusetts senator, "is matched only by Dr. de la Torre's cowardice."

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A man walks past the Springfield City Hall
News

'Blood Libel': Critics Say Trump-Vance Racist Attacks Stoking Chaos in Springfield, Ohio

For the second consecutive day on Friday, schools in Springfield, Ohio were forced to close after receiving bomb threats as the city remained at the center of a political firestorm after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, his running mate Sen. JD Vance, and other prominent Republicans have spread unproven rumors and racist smears about Haitian migrants in the city.

A spokesperson for the school district said Perrin Woods Elementary School, Snowhill Elementary School, and Cliff Park High School were among the public buildings that were forced to evacuate, and Roosevelt Middle School administrators closed the school for the day based on information received from the Springfield Police Department.

Other city business also ground to a halt as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Ohio License Bureau Southside received emailed threats.

Police said they were working to determine the source of the threats. On Thursday, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said the nature of the bomb threat that came in via email made clear it was a "hateful response to immigration in our town."

But hours after Rue said that it was "frustrating when national politicians, on the national stage, mischaracterize what is actually going on and misrepresent our community," Vance persisted in spreading bigoted misinformation on the social media platform X.

The junior senator from Ohio repeated a claim that "there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases" in Springfield due to an influx of Haitian migrants, about 12,000-15,000 of whom have moved to the city in recent years and have received a warm welcome from many employers.

Authorities have said reports of a rise in diseases in Springfield are false, as are claims—also spread widely by politicians including Vance and Trump, that Haitian immigrants have been stealing and eating people's pets in the city.

Condemning Vance's latest diatribe, John DiLillo said that if Springfield suffers actual violence following the threats, "it will be his fault."

Trump also continued attacking the Haitian community on Friday, saying in a speech that immigrants have "descended upon" the town and "destroyed the way of life."

Republican lawmakers and activists have frequently said they support "legal immigration" and aim to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants into the U.S.—a topic Trump quickly pivoted to on Friday when asked by a reporter why his campaign continues to focus on Springfield. The majority of Haitian people in Springfield are authorized to be in the U.S., with some benefiting from the Temporary Protected Status program.

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie warned against reducing the Trump campaign's outlandish lies about Haitian people in Springfield—ones that have also been spread by neo-Nazis—to an election season meme.

"What they're doing is called a blood libel," said Bouie. "It is smearing a group of people with the accusation that they are killing, in the case of Jews in medieval Europe, killing children, in the case of Haitian immigrants in 2024 United States, killing pets and eating them... And the purpose and the point of a blood libel is to incite violence... to drive people to commit violence against others out of fear, anger, and hatred."

"Trump and Vance are trying to start a race riot," he added.

President Joe Biden addressed the issue on Friday in a speech, saying the Trump's campaign attacks on Haitian immigrants are "simply wrong."

"It has no place in America," said the president. "He has to stop what he's doing."

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Rep. Ilhan Omar
News

Amid GOP Outrage Over Witnesses, Omar Welcomes Hate Crimes Hearing

On the eve of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about "stemming the tide of hate crimes" nationwide, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Monday commended the panel's chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, for "hosting this groundbreaking yet overdue" event.

Discrimination against Jews and Muslims has significantly increased in the United States since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and the U.S.-backed Israeli retaliation on the Gaza Strip, which critics worldwide call genocide. In May, Durbin (D-Ill.) vowed to hold a hearing "in response to the ongoing and persistent rise in antisemitism and other forms of bigotry across the country."

The committee announced last week that it had scheduled a Capitol Hill hearing for 10:00 am Tuesday to "examine how we can better protect Jewish, Arab, and Muslim Americans, and other vulnerable communities from bigoted attacks."

Durbin—who has faced calls from Republican committee members to hold a hearing focused on "the civil rights violations of Jewish students" and "the proliferation of terrorist ideology"—said at the time that "hate crimes are a threat to justice everywhere. Sadly, no community is immune from violent acts of hate. Congress cannot turn a blind eye to it."

"We must stand united against hate in all its forms and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of all Americans, regardless of their race, faith, or national origin."

Omar (D-Minn.) expressed gratitude for Durbin's broader event, saying Monday that "this vital hearing is a crucial step in addressing the alarming rise of hate crimes across our nation, particularly those targeting Muslim, Jewish, and Palestinian Americans."

"I'm glad this committee hearing will address the rise in hate felt by thousands across the country, I hope this hearing serves as a catalyst for meaningful action," she continued. "We must stand united against hate in all its forms and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality, and the protection of all Americans, regardless of their race, faith, or national origin."

Omar is an outspoken opponent of Israel's assault on Gaza and U.S. support for it. She fled war in Somalia as a child and is one of only a few Muslim members of Congress—and while in office, she has endured intense racism, sexism, Islamophobia, and death threats. Some of the hate has come from fellow federal lawmakers.

Her praise for the hearing came amid reports that some Republicans and Jewish groups are unhappy with Democrats' witnesses: Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry and Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.

Notably, when Stern was with the American Jewish Committee, he helped craft the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. He has since accused right-wing groups of "weaponizing" it in their efforts to conflate criticism of Israeli government policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry.

Describing both Berry and Stern as "at odds with Jewish communal leaders," Jewish Insider reported:

In his opening statement to the committee, obtained by Jewish Insider ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Stern will testify that "advocating for genocide against anyone of course should be robustly condemned; but the mere expression of such ideas (whether intended as such or heard as such) should be countered, not as a matter for discipline."

Stern will also say that it is a good thing that David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, did not face any disciplinary action when he spread Nazi propaganda on Louisiana State University's campus as a student in 1968. "This would have allowed him to claim the status of martyr, and changed the subject to his right to speech as opposed to the content of his hate," Stern will say.

"Berry's written testimony focuses primarily on hate crimes data and reporting, and federal enforcement of hate crimes laws," according to Jewish Insider. The outlet added that the Republican witness Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, "is set to express support for the IHRA definition."

In response to Jewish Insider editor in chief Josh Kraushaar's social media post sharing the report, Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss said, "Translation: testimony from Ken Stern and Maya Berry, who are both widely respected authorities on these issues, makes it harder to use this hearing as part of the campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian activism."

While this will be the first Senate hearing on hate crimes since last October, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has held multiple, mostly focusing on campus anti-genocide protests. Critics have argued that the lower chamber's events have pushed university administrators to enable violent law enforcement crackdowns on students demonstrating against Israel's assault on Gaza.

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Trucks carrying aid supplies to Gaza
News

Analysis Details How Israel's Gaza Siege 'Is Driving a Humanitarian Disaster'

Israel's "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip "is driving a humanitarian disaster," with 83% of required food aid failing to enter the embattled enclave, where the entire population is facing hunger and disease and almost half a million Palestinians are at risk of starvation, an analysis published Monday revealed.

The analysis by 15 international aid organizations noted that a record-low average of just 69 aid trucks are entering the Gaza Strip each day, compared with an already insufficient 500 daily truckloads a year ago. Additionally, the groups said that "only 17 out of Gaza's 36 hospitals remain partially functional, and "critical infrastructure such as water networks, sanitation facilities, and bread mills" have been destroyed.

"While Israeli military attacks on Gaza intensify, lifesaving food, medicine, medical supplies, fuel, and tents have been systematically blocked from entering for almost a year," the aid groups—which include ActionAid, American Friends Service Committee, CARE International, Christian Aid, Islamic Aid, Oxfam International, and Save the Children—said in a statement.

The publication highlights numerous ways that "lifesaving aid is systematically obstructed on a daily basis" in Gaza.

"These include the denial of safety, with more than 40,000 Palestinians and nearly 300 aid workers killed since last October; the sharp tightening of a 17-year blockade to a full siege, which prevents aid from entering Gaza; delays and denials which restrict the movement of aid around Gaza; tightly restrictive and unpredictable control of imports; the destruction of public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals; and the displacement of civilians and humanitarian workers," the analysis' authors wrote.

Zenab, a 33-year-old Palestinian woman pregnant with her second child, said that her pregnancy "has been the hardest time of my life."

"It was also hard to get the medication I needed," she continued. Sometimes I had to walk for hours to different pharmacies, hospitals, and health centers to see if anyone had my medication available. For me as a pregnant woman, there has been hardly any healthcare support, no proper hygiene and sanitation, and no suitable mattress to sleep on."

"I was suffering from complications during my pregnancy," Zenab added. "We didn't have enough water to drink, and had hardly any food. The doctors again told me that my pregnancy was in danger."

Among the report's key findings:

  • 83% of required food aid doesn't make it into Gaza, up from 34% in 2023;
  • An estimated 50,000 children aged between 6-59 months urgently require treatment for malnutrition by the end of the year;
  • 65% of the insulin required and half of the required blood supply are not available in Gaza;
  • Availability of hygiene items has dropped to 15% of the amount available in September 2023, with 1 million women now going without the hygiene supplies they need;
  • Only around 1,500 hospital beds in Gaza remain operational, compared to around 3,500 beds in 2023 which was already well below sufficient to meet the needs of a population of more than 2 million people; and
  • 1.87 million people are in need of shelter with at least 60% of homes destroyed or damaged as of January, yet tents for around just 25,000 people have entered Gaza since May 2024.

"There is a shortage of all humanitarian items. We are overwhelmed [with] these needs and [these] urgent requirements," said Amjad Al Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network. "People [are] starving due to the shortage of aid. One hundred percent of the population depends on humanitarian aid."

The authors of the analysis—which was released ahead of this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York—are demanding that Israel secure an immediate and lasting cease-fire. They are also calling for an arms embargo on Israel and Israeli compliance with the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion, which found that the occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately. Israel is on trial for genocide in a separate ICJ case.

"The situation was intolerable long before last October's escalation and is beyond catastrophic now."

"The situation was intolerable long before last October's escalation and is beyond catastrophic now," CARE International West Bank and Gaza country director Jolien Veldwijik said in a statement. "Over 11 months, we have reached shocking levels of conflict, displacement, disease, and hunger."

That includes dozens of children who have died due to malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of adequate medical care.

"Aid is still not getting in, and humanitarian workers are risking their lives to do their jobs while attacks and violations of international law intensify," Veldwijik added. "Aid, which is urgently required for 2.2 million people at risk of dying in the coming weeks and months, should never be politicized. We demand an immediate and sustained cease-fire, and the free flow of humanitarian aid into and throughout Gaza."

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