þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg

í eilíflegum hring...

[geritsel]

Valentin Serov

[leftpress]

Donald Trump signs executive order giving police more powers

The President has signed three orders to tackle ‘public safety’ moments after he swore in Jeff Sessions as Attorney General

Mr Trump and Mr Sessions said the US faced ‘rising crime’, despite figures showing the opposite over the long term

Rachael Revesz | 2/10/2017

Donald Trump has signed three executive orders to deal with “public safety”, including handing more authority to the police.

At the formal ceremony to appoint Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, the President outlined the new mandate that Mr Sessions would have, including tackling crime, drug cartels and terrorism.

He insisted that the US faced the “threat of rising crime” and that “things will get better very soon”.

“I am directing the Department of Justice to reduce crimes and crimes of violence against law enforcement officers,” he said.

“It’s a shame, what has been happening to our great, our truly great, law enforcement officers. That is going to stop today.”

One of the executive orders seeks to “define new federal crimes, and increase penalties for existing federal crimes, in order to prevent violence” against state and federal police.

In 2016, a total of 135 police officers were killed in the US, a five-year high, according to a report from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Around half of them – 64 officers – were fatally shot while on the job, including 21 who were killed in an ambush-style attack. The number also includes traffic accidents and job-related health issues, for example, heart attacks while working.

No mention was made by Mr Trump of the hundreds of people who die at the hands of law enforcement every year.

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[thesoundofrust]

How do you want your police state, fam?

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) is currently investigating several individuals who are protesting against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline at near the Native American Standing Rock reservation, media reported, citing an activists’ attorney.

According to The Guardian newspaper, Lauren Regan, a civil rights attorney who has actively provided legal support for protesters, said that three individuals, including a Native American, have been approached by JTTF officers. In each case, the officer came without a subpoena, but instead with a request for a voluntary interview, Regan added.

All three individuals were contacted in the weeks following US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the newspaper added.

While the motive behind the investigations is not known, the attorney regarded the approaches as “outrageous,” “unwarranted,” and “unconstitutional,” noting that the mere implication of non-violent demonstrates in a domestic terrorism investigation was “unfathomable,” The Guardian reported.

Since April 2016, hundreds of peaceful demonstrators have gathered at the site in solidarity with the Standing Rock tribe to protest the completion of the pipeline.

On January 24, Trump signed an executive order to advance the construction of the Dakota Access, an action which was

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Philippines: 8 killed in armed conflict; CPP wants talks, says defeating NPA a 'Duterte pipedream'

At least eight were killed in clashes between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) since the rebels ended their unilateral ceasefire last February 1, according to military reports.

There were two deaths from the rebels, five soldiers, and one civilian.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on Thursday said President Rodrigo Duterte’s bid to end their insurgency will fail, and advised him to rethink his decision to terminate the talks.

Duterte should not have gone as far as ending the talks despite the resumption of armed conflict, CPP founder and now National Democratic Front (NDF) chief political consultant Joma Sison said in a statement.

In a statement on Thursday, the CPP condemned what it claimed was government’s “all-out war” against the NPA, and said it is bound to fail.

“Defeating the NPA is a Duterte pipedream. Other regimes before him have tried and failed,” the CPP said.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

'Down with U.S. regime, long live U.S. people': Thousands rally in Iran celebrating Islamic Revolution

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets of Tehran to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and denounce US President Donald Trump’s recent statements regarding the Muslim state.

Footage showed people trampling on pictures of Trump in a central Tehran street, where marchers carried banners reading: “Thanks Mr. Trump for showing the real face of America.” The crowd was also seen burning US and Israeli flags. Israel is Washington’s main ally in the region, while Iran has been supporting Palestinians in their dispute with Israel. Chanting out provocative slogans and burning flags are common practices at mass demonstrations in Iran.

However, some Iranians held banners that said “Down with the US regime, Long live US people” and “Americans are welcome to visit Iran,” showing gratitude to the demonstrators who took to the streets of America to protest Trump’s executive order barring entry to the citizens of seven Muslim countries, including Iran. Yesterday, a US Court of Appeals upheld an injunction blocking enforcement of the ban, but the case will likely continue to be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court.

[tw-koreanhistory]

Nearly $6 million flowed from chaebol to far right groups over three years

Alongside blacklist, government also put together whitelist of groups that received financial support

The investigative team of Special Prosecutors has learned that the Blue House received money from South Korea’s four largest chaebols (Samsung, the Hyundai Motor Company, SK and LG) to fund pro-government demonstrations by conservative and far-right organizations such as the Korean Parent Federation (KPF) and the Moms Brigade.

An executive from Samsung’s Future Strategy Office personally attended all the fundraising meetings, which were organized by the Office of the Blue House Senior Secretary for Political Affairs, to discuss the amount of funding and the organizations to support.

Former Blue House Chief of Staff Kim Ki-choon (currently under arrest) was also closely involved, urging the leading chaebol to provide financial support to these organizations.

Special Prosecutor Park Young-soo is weighing the option of charging Kim and others with abusing their power by implementing not only a blacklist for suppressing those on the left but also a whitelist for supporting those on the right.

[proletarianfeminism]

The suggestion that Trump protected the countries with which he does business [from the refugee ban] is preposterous. The reality is that his highly selective list reflects longstanding U.S. policy: Indeed, Obama restricted visa rights for these same seven countries, and the regimes in [Saudi Arabia] and [Egypt] have received special U.S. protection for decades, long before Trump. Beyond U.S. support for the world’s worst regimes, what primarily shapes Trump’s list is U.S. aggression: Five of the seven predominantly Muslim countries on Trump’s list were ones bombed by Obama, while the other two (Iran and Sudan) were punished with heavy sanctions. Thus, Trump is banning immigrants from the very countries that the U.S. government — under both Republicans and Democrats — has played a key role in destabilizing and destroying. It is critical to recognize and fight against the unique elements of Trump’s extremism, but also to acknowledge that a substantial portion of it has roots in political and cultural developments that long precede him. Immigration horror stories — including families being torn apart — are nothing new. As ABC News noted last August, “The Obama administration has deported more people than any other president’s administration in history. In fact, they have deported more than the sum of all the presidents of the 20th century.” And the reason Trump is able so easily to tap into a groundswell of anti-Muslim fears and bigotry is because they have been cultivated for 16 years as the central fuel driving the war on terror. There are factions on both the center-left and right that are primarily devoted to demonizing Muslims and Islam. A government can get away with bombing, invading, and droning the same group of people for more than 15 years only by constantly demonizing and dehumanizing that group and maintaining high fear levels, which is exactly what the U.S. has done under two successive administrations.

Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Culmination of War on Terror Mentality but Still Uniquely Shameful (via proletarianfeminism)

[ithelpstodream]

[thesoundofrust]

PAY ATTENTION

[gazanarchive]

Mahmoud Al Obaidi | b. 1966 Iraqi.

[micdotcom]

The ACLU received $24.1 million in online donations this weekend

In a typical year, the American Civil Liberties Union gets about $4 million in online donations. 

But over this past weekend, the organization received $24.1 million from online donors, six times what it normally receives in a whole year.

By the end of the night on Sunday, the group had received a total of $24,164,691 from 356,306 people over the weekend — many from people who had never donated to the ACLU before. Read more

[thesoundofrust]

Get ready for the L, el trumpo.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

US soldiers shoot and kill 8-year-old girl in Yemen

While the media attention has been focused on the death of one US serviceman who was killed during a raid in Yemen, one of the most tragic casualties of the assault ordered by President Donald Trump was an eight-year-old girl.

The raid took place over the weekend, as US forces attempted a “site exploitation” attack that attempted to gather intelligence on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the extremist group behind several high-profile terror attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in two years ago.

Though the United States hailed the operation as a success, reports from Yemen would seem to indicate that the price paid by Yemeni civilians and non-combatants was extraordinarily high.

According to medical sources on the ground cited by Reuters, 30 people were killed by US soldiers, at least ten of them women and children in what appeared to be a case of disproportionate force utilised by the American commando unit who were sent in to retrieve intelligence.

Amongst the casualties was eight-year-old Nawar Al-Awlaki. Nawar is the daughter of US-born preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki who was the first American citizen to be assassinated in a US drone strike in 2011, decried by civil rights groups as an extrajudicial execution that denied him his right to a fair trial.

Two weeks after Anwar’s assassination, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed in another US drone strike. Abdulrahman was a US citizen said to have been born in Denver, Colorado and was a child at the time he was killed on the authority of the Obama administration.

With Nawar’s murder, it appears that no relative of Anwar Al-Awlaki is safe, regardless of whether they are children or not, or even involved in terrorism or not.

[thesoundofrust]

Forget for one second that the United States is assassinating eight-year-olds. The Al-Awlaki are Americans citizens.

Let me rephrase this: The U.S. government and the capitalists that run it do not care about their Constitution and they most especially do not care about you.

Now remember that the United States is assassinating eight-year-olds.

You are next.

[fuckyeahpainting]

Anselm Kiefer

[guggenheim-art]

Mz 199 by Kurt Schwitters by Guggenheim Museum

Size: 17.9x14.4 cm Medium: Colored and printed paper and colored and painted fabric collage with paperboard border

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, Estate of Katherine S. Dreier, 1953 © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Trump Fan Who Shot Anti-Fascist Protester Set Free While Journalists Face 10 Years in Prison for Doing Their Jobs

The far right is already moving to violently suppress antifa demonstrators—with the police's complicity.

By Ben Norton

A Trump supporter who shot an unarmed anti-fascist protester was released by Seattle, Washington police without charge. Meanwhile, at least six journalists arrested by the Washington, D.C. force face up to 10 years in prison and $25,000 fines on felony “riot” charges for covering protests at the presidential inauguration.

Massive protests were held throughout the country on January 20, the day on which Donald Trump was officially sworn in as president. In Seattle, the date coincided with a public speech by far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor of the racist website Breitbart.

Anti-Trump demonstrations began early that day in Seattle. In the evening, Yiannopoulos hosted a sold-out event at at the University of Washington. Activists from socialist organizations and other left-wing groups protested outside the hall where he was speaking, chanting “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA!”

Several minutes into Yiannopoulos’ speech, a Trump supporter shot a protester in the stomach. The victim was later identified as a 34-year-old member of the socialist union Industrial Workers of the World. He asked not to be named.

The shooting briefly disrupted Yiannopoulos’ speech. When he heard the news, Yiannopoulos falsely claimed that the victim had been a supporter of his. In reality, local media revealed it was a Yiannopoulos fan who had shot the left-wing activist.

The Seattle Times reported that the shooter had sent Yiannopoulos messages on Facebook before the event, asking for him to autograph a pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” hat. The newspaper also noted that the attacker had expressed support for Trump, Yiannopoulos and the National Rifle Association on his Facebook page.

After shooting the protester, the attacker, whom the Seattle Times did not name, turned himself in to police. He claimed he acted in self-defense and was questioned. Seattle police released him and did not charge him with any crime.

While the Trump-supporting shooter is free to walk the streets, more than 230 people mass-arrested by Washington, D.C. police at protests against the inauguration of the far-right president potentially face a decade in prison. Each has been charged felony rioting.

[tw-koreanhistory]

pdf

A recent Korean film, “National Security” (Namyoung-dong 1985 in Korean), is based on the memoir by Kim Geun-Tae, a democracy activist and former Korean politician, who was kidnapped and tortured into making a false confession by police in 1985 during the Chun Doo-Hwan regime. The release of this film renewed debate among South Koreans about the state of transitional justice in the country. 

Despite claims by those opposed to investigating past crimes such as current President Park Geun-Hye (the daughter of former South Korean dictator Park Chun-Hee), who has referred to South Korea’s truth seeking process as a “worthless scam”, this article will show that many unresolved cases remain.

[tohkb]

Rudolf Höß, the commandant of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, was executed by soldiers of the Polish People’s Army at the former site of the camp on the 16th of April, 1947, after being tried and sentenced in to death in Warsaw by the Supreme National Tribunal of the Polish People’s Republic.

[tohkb]

A military doctor of the Soviet Army examines the dire situation of starving survivors of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, January 1945.