Federal and state officials in Minnesota have announced murder and stalking charges against Vance Boelter, the man accused of assassinating Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home, as well as for shooting state Senator John Hoffman and his wife. Authorities say Boelter visited the homes of two other lawmakers on the night of the killings and had a hit list that included Planned Parenthood centers and the names of more Democratic politicians. One of the names on that list was Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss how the shootings have shaken his state, the risk of spreading political violence, and his own friendship with Hortman. “Right up until we lost her, she was fiercely fighting for people,” says Ellison, who faults President Trump for exacerbating political tensions. “We must stop political violence.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Tory leader says the quiet part out loud, admitting that both Israel and Ukraine are fighting for the West

If you have spent the past 20 months wondering why British leaders on both sides of the aisle have barely criticised Israel, even as it slaughtered and starved Gaza’s population of more than two million people, you finally got an answer last week.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the quiet part out loud. She told Sky: “Israel is fighting a proxy war [in Gaza] on behalf of the UK.”

According to Badenoch, the UK – and presumably in her assessment, other western powers – aren’t just supporting Israel against Hamas. They are willing that fight and helping to direct it. They view that fight as centrally important to their national interests.

This certainly accords with what we have witnessed over more than a year and a half. Both the current Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and its Tory predecessor under Rishi Sunak, have been unwavering in their commitment to send British arms to Israel, while also shipping weapons from the United States and Germany to help with the slaughter.

Both governments used the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri in Cyprus to carry out surveillance flights to aid Israel with locating targets to hit in Gaza. Both allowed British citizens to travel to Israel to take part as soldiers in the Gaza genocide.

Neither government joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, which found more than a year ago that Israel’s actions could “plausibly” be considered a genocide.

And neither government proposed or tried to impose alongside other western states, as happened in other recent “wars”, a no-fly zone over Gaza to stop Israel’s murderous assault, or organised with others to break Israel’s blockade and get aid into the enclave.

In other words, both governments steadfastly maintained their material support for Israel, even if Starmer recently toned down rhetorical support after images of emaciated babies and young children in Gaza – reminiscent of images of Jewish children in Nazi death camps like Auschwitz – shocked the world.

Coded language

If Badenoch is right that the UK is waging a proxy war in Gaza, it means that both British governments are directly responsible for the huge death toll of Palestinian civilians – running into many tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands – from Israel’s saturation bombing.

It also makes it indisputable that the UK is complicit in the current mass starvation of more than two million people there, which is indeed what Badenoch went on to imply in the coded language of political debate.

In reference to Starmer’s recent, and very belated, criticism of Israel’s starvation of Gaza’s entire population, she observed: “What I want to see is Keir Starmer making sure that he is on the right side of British national interest.”

According to Badenoch, Starmer’s implied threat – so far entirely unrealised – to limit the UK’s active collusion in the genocidal starvation of the people of Gaza could harm Britain’s national interests. How exactly?

Her comments should have startled, or at least baffled, Sky interviewer Trevor Phillips. But they passed unremarked.

Badenoch’s “proxy war” statement was also largely ignored by the rest of the British establishment media. Rightwing publications did notice it, but it appeared they were only disturbed by her equating the West’s proxy war in Gaza with the West’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Or as the opposition leader put it: “Israel is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the UK just like Ukraine is on behalf of western Europe against Russia.”

A column in the Spectator, the Tory party’s house journal, criticised her use of “proxy war” to describe Ukraine, but appeared to take the Gaza proxy war reference as read. James Heale, the Spectator’s deputy political editor, wrote: “By inadvertently echoing Russia’s position on Ukraine, Badenoch has handed her opponents another stick with which to beat her.”

The Telegraph, another Tory-leaning newspaper, ran a similarly themed article headlined: “Kremlin seizes on Badenoch’s Ukraine ‘proxy war’ comments.”

Related wars

The lack of a response to her Gaza “proxy war” remark suggests that this sentiment actually informs much thinking in western foreign policy circles, even if she broke the taboo on articulating it publicly.

To reach an answer on why Gaza is viewed as a proxy war – one Britain continues to be deeply invested in, even at the cost of a genocide – one must also understand why Ukraine is seen in similar terms. The two “wars” are more related than they might appear.

Despite the consternation of the Spectator and Telegraph, Badenoch is not the first British leader to point out that the West is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine.

Back in February, one of her predecessors, Boris Johnson, observed of western involvement in the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine: “Let’s face it, we’re waging a proxy war. We’re waging a proxy war. But we’re not giving our proxies [Ukraine] the ability to do the job.”

If anyone should know the truth about Ukraine, it is Johnson. After all, he was prime minister when Moscow invaded its neighbour in February 2022.

He was soon dispatched by Washington to Kyiv, where he appears to have strong-armed President Volodymyr Zelensky into abandoning ceasefire talks that were well advanced and could have led to a resolution.

Offensive frontiers

There are good reasons why Johnson and Badenoch each understand Ukraine as a proxy war.

This weekend Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, echoed them. He told Fox News that Russian president Vladimir Putin was not wrong to see Ukraine as a proxy war, and that the West was acting as aggressor by supplying Kyiv with weapons.

For years, the West had expanded Nato’s offensive frontiers towards Russia, despite Moscow’s explicit warnings that this would cross a red line.

With the West threatening to bring Russia’s neighbour Ukraine into Nato’s military fold, there were only ever likely to be one of two Russian responses. Either Putin would blink first and find Russia boxed in militarily, with Nato missiles – potentially nuclear-tipped – on his doorstep, minutes from Moscow. Or he would react pre-emptively to stop Ukraine’s accession to Nato by invading.

The West believed it had nothing to lose either way. If Russia invaded, Nato would then have the pretext to use Ukraine as a theatre of war to bleed Moscow, both economically with sanctions and militarily by flooding the battlefield with western weapons.

As we now know, Moscow chose to react. And while it has indeed been bleeding heavily, Ukrainian forces and European economies have been haemorrhaging even faster and more heavily.

The problem isn’t so much a lack of weapons – the West has supplied lots of them – as the fact that Ukraine has run out of conscripts willing to be sent into the maw of war.

The West is not, of course, going to send its own soldiers. A proxy war means someone else, in this case Ukrainians, does the fighting – and dying – for you.

Three years on, the conditions for a ceasefire have dramatically changed too. Having spilled so much of its own people’s blood, Russia is much less ready to make compromises, not least over the eastern territories it has conquered and annexed.

We have reached this nadir in Ukraine – one so deep that even US President Donald Trump appears ready to bail out – precisely because Nato, via Johnson, pushed Ukraine to keep fighting an unwinnable war.

Full-spectrum dominance

Nonetheless, there was a geopolitical logic, however twisted, to the West’s actions in Ukraine. Bleeding Russia, a military and economic power, accords with the hawkish priorities of the neoconservative cabals that run western capitals nowadays, whichever party is in charge.

The neoconservatives valorise what used to be called the military-industrial complex. They believe that the West has a civilisational superiority to the rest of the world, and must use its superior arsenal to defeat, or at least contain, any state that refuses to submit.

This is a modern reimagining of the “barbarians at the gate”, or as neoconservatives like to frame it, “a clash of civilisations”. The fall of the West would amount, in their view, to a return to the Dark Ages. We are supposedly in a life-or-death struggle.

In the US, the imperial hub of what we call “the West”, this has justified a massive investment in war industries – or what is referred to as “defence”, because it is an easier sell to domestic publics tired of the endless austerity required to maintain military superiority.

Western capitals profess to act as “global police”, while the rest of the world sees the West more in terms of a sociopathic mafia don. However one frames it, the Pentagon is officially pursuing a doctrine known as US “global full-spectrum dominance”. You must submit – that is, let us control the world’s resources – or pay the price.

In practice, a “foreign policy” like this has necessarily divided the world in two: those in the Godfather’s camp, and those outside it.

If Russia could not be contained and defanged by turning Ukraine into a Nato forward base on Moscow’s doorstep, it had to be dragged by the West into a debilitating proxy war that would neutralise Russia’s ability to ally with China against US global hegemony.

Acts of violence

That is what Badenoch and Johnson meant by the proxy war in Ukraine. But how is Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian civilians through saturation bombing and engineered starvation similarly a proxy war – and one apparently benefitting the UK and the West, as Badenoch argues?

Interestingly, Badenoch offered two not entirely compatible reasons for Israel’s “war” on Gaza.

Initially, she told Sky: “Israel is fighting a war where they want to get 58 hostages who have not been returned. That is what all of this is about … What we need to make sure is that we’re on the side that is going to eradicate Hamas.”

But even “eradicating Hamas” is hard to square with British foreign policy objectives. After all, despite the UK’s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organisation, it has never attacked Britain, has said it has no such intention, and is unlikely to ever be in a position to do so.

Instead, it is far more likely that Israel’s destruction of Gaza, with visible western collusion, will inflame hotheads into random or misguided acts of violence that cannot be prepared for or stopped – acts of terror similar to the US gunman who recently shot dead two Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC.

That might be reason enough to conclude that the UK ought to distance itself from Israel’s actions as quickly as possible, rather than standing squarely behind Tel Aviv.

It was only when she was pushed by Phillips to explain her position that Badenoch switched trajectory. Apparently it wasn’t just about the hostages. She added: “Who funds Hamas? Iran, an enemy of this country.”

Cornered by her own logic, she then grasped tightly the West’s neoconservative comfort blanket and spoke of a “proxy war”.

‘Bracing’ truth?

Badenoch’s point was not lost on Stephen Pollard, the former editor of the Jewish Chronicle. In a column, he noted of the Sky interview: “Badenoch has a bracing attitude to the truth – she tells it as it is, even if it doesn’t make her popular.”

The “bracing” truth from Badenoch is that Israel is as central to the projection of western power into the oil-rich Middle East as it was more than a century ago, when Britain conceived of Palestine as a “national home for the Jewish people” in place of the native Palestinian population.

From Britain’s perspective, Israel’s war on Gaza, as Badenoch concedes, is not centrally about “eradicating Hamas” or “getting back the hostages” taken during the group’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Rather, it is about arming Israel to weaken those, like Iran and its regional allies, who refuse to submit to the West’s domination of the Middle East – or in the case of Palestinians, to their own dispossession and erasure.

In that way, arming Israel is seen as no different from arming Ukraine to weaken Russian influence in eastern Europe. It is about containing the West’s geostrategic rivals – or potential partners, were they not viewed exclusively through the prism of western “full-spectrum dominance” – as effectively as Israel has locked Palestinians into prisons and concentration camps in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

This strategy is about averting any danger that one day Russia, China, Iran and others could unite effectively to oust the US and its allies from their heavily fortified hilltop. Alliances like BRICS are seen as a potential vehicle for such an assault on western dominance.

Whatever the rhetoric, western capitals are not chiefly concerned about military or “civilisational” threats. They do not fear being invaded or conquered by their “enemies”. In fact, their reckless behaviours in places like Ukraine make a cataclysmic nuclear confrontation more likely.

What drives western foreign policy is the craving to maintain global economic primacy. And terrorising other states with the West’s superior military might is seen as the only way to ensure such primacy.

There is nothing new about the West’s fears, nor are they partisan. Differences within western establishments are never over whether the West should assert “full-spectrum dominance” around the globe through client states such as Israel and Ukraine. Instead, factional splits emerge over which elements within those client states the West should be allying with the closest.

‘Rogue’ policy

The question of alliances has been particularly fraught in the case of Israel, where the far-right and religious extremist factions in the government have a near-Messianic view of their place and role in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many of those closest to him have been trying for decades to manoeuvre the US into launching an attack on Iran, not least to remove Israel’s main rival in the Middle East and guarantee its nuclear-armed regional primacy in perpetuity.

So far, Netanyahu has found no takers in the White House. But that hasn’t stopped him trying. He is widely reported to be deep in efforts to push Trump into joining an attack on Iran, in the midst of talks between Washington and Tehran.

Over many years, British hawks look like they have been playing their own role in these manoeuvres. In the recent past, at least two ambitious British government ministers on the right have been caught trying to cosy up to the most belligerent elements in the Israeli security establishment.

In 2017, Priti Patel was forced to resign as international development secretary after she was found to have held 12 secret meetings with senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, while supposedly on a family holiday. She had other off-the-books meetingswith Israeli officials in New York and London.

Six years earlier, then-Defence Secretary Liam Fox also had to step down after a series of shadowy meetings with Israeli officials. Fox’s ministry was also known to have drawn updetailed plans for British assistance in the event of a US military strike on Iran, including allowing the Americans to use Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian ocean.

Unnamed government officials told the Guardian at the time that Fox had been pursuing an “alternative” government policy. Former British diplomat Craig Murray was more direct: his sources within government suggested Fox had been conspiring with Israel in a “rogue” foreign policy towards Iran, against Britain’s stated aims.

Crime scene

The West’s behaviours are ideologically driven, not rational or moral. The compulsive, self-sabotaging nature of western support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza is no different – though far grosser – than the self-sabotaging nature of its actions in Ukraine.

The West has lost the battle against Russia, but refuses to learn or adapt. And it has spent whatever moral legitimacy it still had left in propping up an Israeli military occupier bent on starving millions of people to death, if they cannot be ethnically cleansed into Egypt first.

Netanyahu has not been the easy-to-sell, cuddly military mascot that Zelensky proved to be in Ukraine.

Support for Kyiv could at least be presented as taking the right side in a clash of civilisations with a barbarous Russia. Support for Israel simply exposes the West’s hypocrisy, its worship of power for its own sake, and its psychopathic instincts.

Support for Israel’s genocide has hollowed out the West’s claim to moral superiority for all but its most deluded devotees. Sadly, those still include most of the western political and media establishments, whose only rationale is to evangelise for the belief system over which they preside, claiming it to be the worthiest in history.

Some, like Starmer, are trying to moderate their rhetoric in a desperate attempt to protect the morally bankrupt system that has invested them with power.

Others, like Badenoch, are still so enthralled by the cult of a superior West that they are blind to how preposterous their rantings sound to anyone no longer rapt in devotion. Rather than distance herself from Israel’s atrocities, she is happy to place herself – and the UK – at the crime scene.

The scales have fallen from western publics’ eyes. Now is the time to hold our leaders fully to account.

• First published at Middle East Eye.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

As part of our Memorial Day special, we continue our interview with Ohio death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his story that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. LaMar talks about his case, conditions in solitary confinement, and his work with musicians and others to raise awareness about his case as he fights to stop his pending execution scheduled in 2027.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

As part of our Memorial Day special, we speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. “I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it,” says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence. LaMar was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. On January 13, 2027, the state intends to execute him, after subjecting him to three decades in solitary confinement. LaMar’s lawyer, Keegan Stephan, says his legal team has “discovered a lot of new evidence supporting Keith’s innocence” that should necessitate new legal avenues for LaMar to overturn the conviction.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner.

On the White House schedule, there was no advance notice of the call and no record afterwards. The White House log is blank for Trump’s entire morning while the press were told he was at lunch between 11:30 and 12:30.

Putin went public first, making a statement to the press which the Kremlin posted at 19:55 Moscow time; it was then 12:55 in Washington. Click to read.

Trump and his staff read the transcript and then composed Trump’s statement in a tweet posted at 13:33 Washington time, 20:33 Moscow time. Click to read.

If Secretary of State Marco Rubio and General Keith Kellogg, the president’s negotiator with the Ukraine and FUGUP (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, Poland), were consulted during Trump’s prepping, sat in on the call with the President,  or were informed immediately after the call, they have remained silent.

The day before, May 18, Rubio announced that the Istanbul-II meeting had produced agreement “to exchange paper on ideas to get to a ceasefire. If those papers have ideas on them that are realistic and rational, then I think we know we’ve made progress. If those papers, on the other hand, have requirements in them that we know are unrealistic, then we’ll have a different assessment.” Rubio was hinting that the Russian formula in Istanbul, negotiations-then-ceasefire, has been accepted by the US. What the US would do after its “assessment”, Rubio didn’t say – neither walk-away nor threat of new sanctions.

Vice President JD Vance wasn’t present at the call because he was flying home from Rome where he attended Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass. “We’re more than open to walking away,” Vance told reporters in his aeroplane. “The United States is not going to spin its wheels here. We want to see outcomes.” Vance prompted Trump to mention the Pope as a mediator for a new round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, first to Putin and then in public.

Kellogg is refusing to go along. He tweeted on Sunday: “In Istanbul @SecRubio  made it clear that we have presented ‘a strong peace plan’. Coming out of the London meetings we (US) came up with a comprehensive 22 point plan that is a framework for peace. The first point is a comprehensive cease fire that stops the killing now.”

FUGUP issued their own statement after Trump’s call. “The US President and the European partners have agreed on the next steps. They agreed to closely coordinate the negotiation process and to seek another technical meeting. All sides reaffirmed their willingness to closely accompany Ukraine on the path to a ceasefire. The European participants announced that they would increase pressure on the Russian side through sanctions.”

This signalled acceptance with Trump of the Russian formula, negotiations-then-ceasefire, and time to continue negotiating at the “technical” level. The sanction threat was added. But this statement was no longer FUGUP. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was omitted; so too Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Italian, the Finn and the European Commission President were substituted. They make FUGIFEC.

Late in the Paris evening of Sunday French President Emmanuel Macron attempted to keep Starmer in Trump’s good books and preserve the ceasefire-first formula. “I spoke tonight,” Macron tweeted, “with @POTUS @Keir_Starmer @Bundeskanzler  and @GiorgiaMeloni  after our talks in Kyiv and Tirana. Tomorrow, President Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditional ceasefire proposed by President Trump and backed by Ukraine and Europe.” By the time on Monday that Macron realized he had been trumped, the Elysée had nothing to say.

By contrast, Italian Prime Minister Meloni signalled she was happy to line up with Trump and accept Putin’s negotiations-then-ceasefire. “Efforts are being made,” Meloni’s office announced, “for an immediate start to negotiations between the parties that can lead as soon as possible to a ceasefire and create the conditions for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.”  Meloni claimed she would assure that Pope Leo XIV would fall into line. “In this regard, the willingness of the Holy Father to host the talks in the Vatican was welcomed. Italy is ready to do its part to facilitate contacts and work for peace.”

For the time being, Putin’s and Trump’s statements have put Rubio, Kellogg and the Europeans offside. Decoding the two president’s statements shows how and why.

President Putin’s Statement

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76953 

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening.

Our colleagues asked me to briefly comment on the outcome of my telephone conversation with the President of the United States.This conversation has effectively taken place and lasted more than two hours. I would like to emphasise that it was both substantive and quite candid. Overall, [1] I believe it was a very productive exchange.

First and foremost [2], I expressed my gratitude to the President of the United States for the support provided by the United States in facilitating the resumption of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine aimed at potentially reaching a peace agreement and resuming the talks which, as we know, were thwarted by the Ukrainian side in 2022 [3].

The President of the United States shared his position [4] on the cessation of hostilities and the prospects for a ceasefire. For my part, I noted that Russia also supports a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis as well. What we need now is to identify the most effective [5] ways towards achieving peace.

We agreed with the President of the United States that Russia would propose and is ready to engage with the Ukrainian side on drafting a memorandum [6] regarding a potential future peace agreement. This would include outlining a range of provisions, such as the principles for settlement, the timeframe for a possible peace deal, and other matters, including a potential temporary ceasefire, should the necessary agreements [7] be reached.

Contacts among participants of the Istanbul meeting and talks have resumed, which gives reason to believe that we are on the right track overall [8].

I would like to reiterate that the conversation was highly constructive, and I assess it positively. The key issue, of course, is now for the Russian side and the Ukrainian side to show their firm commitment to peace and to forge a compromise that would be acceptable to all parties.

Notably, Russia’s position is clear. Eliminating the root causes [9] of this crisis is what matters most to us.

Should any clarifications be necessary, Press Secretary [Dmitry] Peskov and my aide, Mr Ushakov [10], will provide further details on today’s telephone talks with President Trump.

Keys to Decode

1. This is a qualifier, meaning there are serious differences on the details — Putin asked Trump to pause, halt or cease all arms deliveries to the Ukraine, including US arms shipped through Israel, Germany, and Poland. This is a bullet Trump hasn’t bitten, yet.

2. Putin has made a firm decision to give Trump the “peace deal” he has asked for and wishes to announce at a summit meeting. In their call Putin was mollifying Trump’s disappointment at the failure of their plan to meet when Trump was in the Middle East. A Russian source comments: “Whatever concessions have to be made will be made only by Putin and only to Trump. The Europeans are trying to hog the headlines and turn their defeat into some sort of victory – Trump won’t let them have it and Putin won’t either.”

3. Putin does not publicly admit the mistakes he made with Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Medinsky in March 2022 at Istanbul-I. They have now been corrected at the  consensus decision-making session with the military and intelligence chiefs (May 14 Kremlin session) and then on May 16 in Istanbul with Admiral Igor Kostyukov of the GRU seated on Medinsky’s right with General Alexander Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defence. For more details, click to listen.

Source: https://ria.ru/20250516/peregovory-2017151081.html
At top left, 2nd from left, Fomin, then Kostyukov (obscured) and then Medinsky.

4. Soft qualifier. This means Putin did not agree with several of Trump’s points relating to intelligence sharing, arms deliveries, Ukrainian elections.

5. Future tense. Putin suggested to  Trump that he stop Kellogg and FUGUP encouraging Zelensky. Putin made an especially negative remark about the role played by Prime Minister Starmer.

6. This is a Russian lesson in escalation control. By putting the memorandum of understanding in Russian hands to initiate, Putin returns to the key parts of the December 17, 2021, draft treaty which President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken summarily dismissed. Placing agreement on these terms first, before a temporary ceasefire, and making that ceasefire conditional on ceaseforce (halt to battlefield intelligence sharing and arms re-supply), Putin has invited Trump to choose between the US and FUGUP; between Zelensky and an elected successor;  and between his personal negotiator advisors, Steven Witkoff and General Kellogg.

7. Reiteration of the formula, negotiations first, then ceasefire.

8. Qualifier repeated – see Key 1.

9. This phrase refers to the European security architecture and mutual security pact of December 2021, as well as to the two declared objectives of the Special Military Operation — demilitarization and denazification.

10. Following Putin’s statement, Ushakov added: “other details of the telephone conversation. Among other things, Putin and Trump touched upon the exchange of prisoners of citizens of the two countries: the format of ‘nine nine’ is being worked out. The leaders also discussed their possible meeting and agreed that it should be productive, so the teams of the presidents will work out the content of the summit between Russia and the United States.”

President Trump’s Statement

Tweet source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114535693441367601

Trump followed in a stumbling speech in the Rose Garden in which, referring to the morning telephone call, he said “they [Putin] like Melania better.”

Just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. I believe it went very well. Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire [1] and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. [2] The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later. Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic “bloodbath” is over, and I agree [3]. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED. Likewise, Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on Trade, in the process of rebuilding its Country.

Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately. I have so informed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland, during a call with me,[4]  immediately after the call with President Putin. The Vatican, as represented by the Pope [5] has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin! [6]

Keys to Decode

1. Trump accepts that negotiations should come before ceasefire.

2. This amounts to rejection of Kellogg’s 22-point term paper first decided with Zelensky and FUGUP in London on April 23 and repeated by Macron the night before Trump’s telephone call; as well as rejection of Witkoff’s term paper discussed at the Kremlin on April 25.

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76797
From left to right: Witkoff’s interpreter, Witkoff, Putin, Ushakov, Russian interpreter, Kirill Dmitriev. For analysis of the term sheets, read this.

3. Agreement with the business deal-making which Witkoff has been discussing with Kirill Dmitriev. For the deal beneficiaries on both sides, read this.

4. This list includes two Germans, both Russia haters — Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen, former German defense minister and supporter of the German rearmament plan to continue the war with Russia into the future. The British Prime Minister has been dropped by Trump, and also Polish Prime Minister Tusk. Included for the first time in this context are the Italian and Finnish representatives with whom Trump has demonstrated personal rapport. Research by Manos Tzafalias indicates that there is a substantial money interest in Finland for Trump’s associate, Elon Musk.

5. Prompt from the Catholic convert, Vice President Vance.

Vance and Rubio meeting with Pope Leo XIV on May 18. They invited the Pope to make an official visit to Washington. The last papal visit to the White House was in September 2015 on the invitation of President Obama and Vice President Biden.

6. Trump has covered his disappointment at failing to hold a summit meeting with Putin in Istanbul on the afternoon of May 16 by dismissing the negotiations which occurred without him. For details of Trump’s abortive summit plan, read this.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Helmer.

Music has always been part of my life and it was something that I started at a very young age and I came out to California to follow my career in music, as well as writing and film. I signed with Capital coming right out of college and started touring and we were opening up with Nine Inch Nails and Frontline Assembly and all these big industrial bands, and Skinny Puppy remixed one of our songs. It was amazing because we went on tour and we’re doing North American tours with all these great musicians. And from city to city, we were playing video games at the back of the tour bus, mainly Street Fighter and these other games. Now, come full circle, 30 years later, I’m directing Street Fighter.

Music was the inroads for me to not only learn about the industry coming out of school, but also as a creator and as a storyteller. And tragically, about 12, 13 years ago, we had a fire here and it wiped out my whole music studio. It wiped out my equipment, all my synthesizers and samplers. We lost about a thousand music masters. Some of my albums were being re-released with Sony, who picked up our music catalog.

So I had to restart my career. And in the middle of that, I had started writing Frost Road, and Frost Road was actually going to be a story that I was going to develop as a motion picture. And I had been boarding out the movie with Trevor Goring and then started to paint some of the images with Christopher Shy because we had worked on some graphic novels together.

My career in music really forced me to evolve as a storyteller to then move into these other mediums. And that’s why I’m here today is that I’m still going back to my music and hoping to release a new album. And a lot of my music is still in heavy rotation around the world, but I’m hoping that I can use my love of music to better inform myself as a storyteller in film and television and obviously for my books that are coming up.

It’s almost like a Phoenix allegory: a bit of your previous creative life having to die, outside of your control, and then helping to fuel the fire, so to speak, of the next stages of your career. I have to ask about Street Fighter. Who did you main on Street Fighter? Who do you like to play?

I mean, for me, it was always Honda just because of the 100-hand slap—that was an age-old joke with us. When we were on tour, we had an incident where we were going across the Canadian border. They don’t really like musicians going back and forth over to Canada. They came on the bus at four in the morning and Michael, one of the guys in my band, was sleeping below us and they were asking us for our name and our country of origin and we were having to have our tour manager hand over our passports. Michael had no idea that this was a very upset customs agent that was boarding our bus and had already evicted the other band, Frontline Assembly. So the guy asked me my name and country of origin and I responded, and then he asked Michael, and Michael was sound asleep and had no idea what was going on.

So our tour manager, Lane, kicked him because he was on the bottom bunk. We were in these bunks of these tour buses, and he kicked him and Michael’s two arms suddenly came out. We’d been playing Street Fighter, like non-stop, and Honda was always the most insane because of his 100-hand slap. And suddenly these two arms came out from the curtains in the bunk on the bottom and he just starts letting loose 100-hand slap on the customs agent thinking it was one of us on the band. The agent, he was this older African American guy, and he looks down and crosses his arms and shakes his head… Lane knew we were about to be completely hauled off the jail because they really didn’t want us there, and he just shakes his head and walks off the bus.

You’ve worked across a large number of mediums and disciplines from video games to movies and now graphic novels. How do you handle the context switching between those mediums? What are some skills or learnings that you’ve had to grow over time and what are things that you’re still working on?

It’s been a journey to move between these different disciplines and integrate them into all the stories that we love. I think as a storyteller, you have to tell the right story for the right medium. Sometimes that’s a linear medium, like a movie or a television show where it’s a passive experience where the audience is watching and has a suspension of disbelief as they’re watching you. Whereas in a video game, it’s an interactive experience and the story and the context doesn’t progress unless the audience engages with it, which is very similar to a book. A graphic novel or a comic book is the same way. The story really doesn’t progress unless you turn the page and you follow the dialogue and the characters at your own pace.

I feel, as a storyteller, you really need to look at the characters and the world that you’re telling and what aspect works for the medium that you’re working on. So if you’re working in virtual reality, it’s a much different experience because you’re having to guide the audience through an experience and knowing where to look and where to experience. In a book, obviously, your focus is on your characters and the progression of the story and what part of the story works that way.

I think I’ve had the privilege to get to work in so many different mediums because I love telling stories from music to comics to film, and it’s a different experience. If I’m doing a viral campaign for a movie and I’m doing hidden footage with a scavenger hunt and an alternate reality game, that’s a much different experience than trying to do a combat battle chatter on Call of Duty. It’s a very collaborative industry and you’re working with other creators. So not only do you have to respect your own creative goals, but also how that integrates with what the other creators you’re working with and collaborating with have in mind, and also what the audience likes because a lot of these projects take years to develop. The technology and the platforms are changing so fast that you have to look ahead to what storytelling is going to be like in two years from now and how you do that.

With the advent of AI integrating as tools and other things that are challenging creators, both in a good and a bad way, it puts the onus on us to up our game to be better at our craft and understand how we can use these tools so they don’t overpower and take over our industry.

I want to touch on the idea of continuing to collaborate, because especially in graphic novels, you’re working with illustrators and letterers and colorists and movie people. There’s a whole production line of folks and things change rapidly. I’m sure, at some point, you’ve come in with an idea or been passionate about something and have had to change that or relinquish the idea altogether. Can you talk about any challenges liks this, or how you’ve adopted some of those changes in format or technology?

When I started, I didn’t rknow how to evolve from music and video games into film. Even though the game industry, from a financial standpoint, is more successful and more engaging in the sense of larger format and other things, I was really fascinated by not only working in motion pictures, but I had also grown up with comics and graphic novels. Arkham Asylum had been one of my favorite books—you had this hand-painted book, where every panel was painted. That and Heavy Metal and a lot of these things were early influences for me and so I envisioned that if I was going to work on my own projects, that everything had to be painted.

When I first started trying to write, I didn’t know what the first step was as a creator. I had a great story. I knew I was on the right path with the story, but I didn’t know how to tell it.

I had gone to San Diego Comic-Con after meeting with dozens of artists around and online, and I would start walking down Artist Alley and not only finding artwork that inspired me and was based on the images that I had in my head, but also meeting these artists and collaborating to see what it’s like to working with other people. It’s funny because the first artists I met are now some of the largest in the industry, and it was amazing because they were all in their early days of their career.

My first book was in three acts, and so I figured Meavy Metal style, I would work with three different artists and collaborate. I had three different styles in mind. One of the artists I met with was Christopher Shy. He had been doing stuff for White Wolf. He’d been doing some of their comics in the video games, but he had never done a graphic novel. His artwork was just stunning, though, and it looked exactly like what I had in my head. It was painted. It was dreamy. It had this painterly kind of feel. It had a lot of depth. The funny thing was that Christopher and I became instant friends and I realized that this is someone I could collaborate with. We were both, in a sense, generalists. Instead of just focusing on only one craft, we all loved storytelling on a variety of different mediums.

That was really the first experience for me collaborating with an artist who could do so many different things and explore how to tell a story this way. The lettering, the painting, the composition of the shots, the writing… collaborating on that became an interesting journey. I still worked and brought in other writers to help me, and other artists to help do finishing and other things, but it really came down to this core collaboration. It’s a challenge because you’re trying to tell a sequential story in either a comic or a graphic novel where you’re not only trying to explain the dialogue and the mood and the tone, but the composition has to really further that narrative.

The thing Christopher and both learned, I think, was that it was intriguing to be able to bring people in with the visuals, but then how do we hook people on the story and the world and the characters that we’re doing? One of the most beneficial and rewarding parts of this collaboration I’ve had with Christopher now for 20 years is that we’ve been able to tell these impactful stories and use his artwork as the medium to do that, but also to create characters in these worlds that will hopefully translate into games and film.

I want to talk more about the education you do. I know it’s a big part of the campaign that’s running and it’s also part of your overall approach to giving back to the creative community. You help others develop skills for technical acting and performance capture. What has teaching others taught you about yourself?

Looking back on my career, I think I’ve had the benefit, the privilege, and the honor to work with so many amazing, talented performers and other writers and creators. I feel that all of us are learning constantly. I’m learning.

I mean, this is my first real Kickstarter on my own after what I did with Wesley Snipes and Adam Lawson on Exiled. And this is a whole new learning process for me. I feel that all of us are at different stages of bettering ourselves and our careers.

Part of my personal belief is that it’s important to share the knowledge we gain and the networking and the mentorship and to give it back to other creators. I’m not saying that I have the only way or the best way to do things. In fact, I’ve probably made more mistakes than I can imagine. But I feel that you need to make mistakes to learn. And, I mean, just because someone tells you something, it doesn’t always apply to your life in a way that you might be able to find usable or relatable, but I do like to experience things for myself with the guidance of someone who’s been through it.

Even on this campaign, Jimmy Palmiotti, who’s an amazing writer and a creator who’s had many successful campaigns, mentored me on the Kickstarter community and how to do things in a way that we’re giving back to other creators. And Chris Yates who’s now part of our team here, we’ve collaborated on a lot of ideas of saying, “How do we share all the knowledge that we’ve been accumulating to pull together these successful projects and campaigns and share that back with the community?” For this one in particular, we felt that since it’s a new intellectual property and many people might not be familiar with it, just making a poster or a t-shirt or a statue or something else is nice, but that we have other things we can give back to the community in a bigger way.

Some of the things that we haven’t announced yet as part of the campaign are going to happen as we hit certain stretch goals. We’re actually going to be funding other creators on Kickstarter. We’re going to be working very closely with the community to identify campaigns we believe in and help not just mentor them, but also to contribute towards those campaigns.

One of the other things that we really want to do as industry professionals is share knowledge. Some of the reward tiers you’re going to see as part of this campaign might not be for fans, but more for creators who are looking to grow their careers. We’re going to have master classes and private panels and mentoring sessions and portfolio reviews and recorded panels and meet-and-greets and other opportunities, even at things like San Diego Comic Con where creators and fans get a chance to meet with us and talk with us and ask us questions. They might not normally have that opportunity, other than on social media or public events and that kind of thing.

We felt Kickstarter was an amazing platform to not only launch an IP like Frost Road, but then to also share behind the scenes about how we’re going to continue to do it. As Frost Road is successful, we’re hoping to do many more campaigns—I feel that Kickstarter, in particular as a platform, empowers creators to explore their own creative ideas and not have the pressure of funding. It’s really getting the feedback and the interaction with the audience.

There are examples of what we’ve done already with performance capture and teaching actors in the video game industry how to move into the game industry. We teach them about the business and the performance side and the technical side. I think a lot of creators are looking at things like: How do I get my own graphic novel or comic book off the ground? How do I take an idea that I want to make into a movie and where do I start? I think a lot of that is something we really see as an opportunity through Kickstarter to give back to that community in a variety of ways.

**It’s admirable to be able to use your own time and platform to be to create opportunities for other people. You don’t know who you’re going to meet or how you’ll influence somebody else’s work or life. **

You’ve worked on a large number of properties. Are there any white whales out there that you haven’t touched yet that you’re looking to your teeth into?

As a creator, you’re always inspired by other creators and other people. This campaign is going to be the start of some special things, not just in publishing and film and games. I really see that creators across the world are disenfranchised right now—distribution is fairly broken. I don’t mean just the gatekeepers of people that fund and allow people to do their work, but the way distribution itself works is getting archaic in a sense that the way we buy books, the way we get our television shows, the way we see films, the way we interact with content is through very few gatekeepers. The way that distribution works is not very favorable or equitable to creators.

I feel that it’s stacked against the creators to not only create the content, but then to understand the business and understand how to get their work see. And, even if they do do that, then to still participate and be sustainable. My white whale, as a creator, is to really start working on the platforms and the distribution that not only help give a voice to creators, but allow them to participate in the success of what they’re putting in, all the work and sweat equity and time that we put in that we’d love. It would be unfortunate for other people to profit off of that and not see the benefits of that.

I really feel that through my journey as a creator and experiencing things firsthand, that I’ve been able to identify the pain points that many creators like myself go through—the frustrations that we see, the other people that take credit and profit from our work. I feel that my work in the game industry and technology platforms and the projects that I’ve been working on over the past several years are putting me in a position where I can give back not just on the knowledge and the education, but also the technology and the ability to help develop platforms that would be more equitable for creators and allow them to participate both creatively and financially. That’s my big hope behind all of this.

I know that all sounds lofty and big and utopian, but it really is the truth. I think that’s why I keep coming back to Kickstarter. Kickstarter’s an amazing platform in itself, one that’s empowering creators to participate and put out their work and find their community. On a larger scale, ongoing distribution for whatever the medium might be is going to be the next evolution of that. I feel that Kickstarter is going to be a foundational part of what we’re going to do to help people launch their IP and then hopefully continue to find a way to participate in the fruits of their labor.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Sam Kusek.

Poland is particularly striking in this regard, having always positioned itself as a defender against the continent’s enemies, perceived or otherwise. This messianic purpose was well on show with the exploits of King John III Sobieski in his triumphant defence of Vienna against the Ottoman Empire in 1683. The seemingly endless wars against Russia, including the massacres and repressions, have also left their wounding marks on a fragile national psyche.

These marks continue to script the approach of Warsaw’s anxiety to its traditional enemy, one that has become fixated with a nuclear option, in addition to a massive buildup of its armed forces and a defence budget that has reached 4.7% of its national income. While there is some disagreement among government officials on whether Poland should pursue its own arsenal, a general mood towards stationing the nuclear weapons of allies has taken hold. (As a matter of interest, a February 21 poll for Onet found that 52.9 percent of Poles favoured having nuclear weapons, with 27.9 percent opposed.)

This would mirror, albeit from the opposite side, the Cold War history of Poland, when its army was equipped with Soviet nuclear-capable 8K11 and 3R10 missiles. With sweet irony, those weapons were intended to be used against NATO member states.

The flirtatious offer of French President Emmanual Macron to potentially extend his country’s nuclear arsenal as an umbrella of reassurance to other European states did make an impression on Poland’s leadership. Prudence might have dictated a more reticent approach, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk would have none of that before the Polish parliament. In his words, “We must be aware that Poland must reach for the most modern capabilities also related to nuclear weapons and modern unconventional weapons.” According to the PM, “this is a race for security, not for war.”

The Polish President, Andrzej Duda, is also warm to the US option (he has been, over his time in office, profoundly pro-American), despite Tusk’s concerns about a “profound change in American geopolitics”. He was already ruminating over the idea in 2022 when he made the proposal to the Biden administration to host US nuclear weapons, one that was also repeated in June 2023 by then-Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. To have such weapons in Poland was a necessary “defensive tactic […] to Russia’s behaviour, relocating nuclear weapons to the NATO area,” he explained to the BBC. “Poland is ready to host this nuclear weapon.”

Duda then goes on to restate a familiar theme. Were US nuclear weapons stored on Polish soil, Washington would have little choice but to defend such territory against any threat. “Every kind of strategic infrastructure, American and NATO infrastructure, which we have on our soil is strengthening the inclination of the US and the North Atlantic Alliance to defend this territory.” To the Financial Times, Duda further reasoned that, as NATO’s borders had moved east in 1999, “so twenty-six years later there should also be a shift of the NATO infrastructure east.”

Much of this seems like theatrical, puffy nonsense, given Poland’s membership of the NATO alliance, which has, as its central point, Article 5. Whether it involves its protection by a fellow NATO ally using conventional or nuclear weapons, hosting such nuclear weapons is negated as a value. Poland would receive collective military aid in any case should it be attacked. But, as Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists reasons, an innate concern of being abandoned in the face of aggression continues to cause jitters. Tusk’s remarks were possibly “a signal of concern – maybe to motivate the United States, but clearly designed to play on the French and perhaps the British.”

The crippling paranoia of the current government in the face of any perceived Russian threat becomes even less justifiable given the presence of US troops on its soil. According to the government’s own information, a total of 10,000 troops are present on a rotational basis, with US Land Forces V Corps Forward Command based in Poznań. In February, Duda confirmed to reporters after meeting the US envoy to Ukraine Gen. Keith Kellogg that there were “no concerns that the US would reduce the level of its presence in our country, that the US would in any way withdraw from its responsibility or co-responsibility for the security of this part of Europe.”

Duda goes further, offering a sycophantic flourish. “I will say in my personal opinion, America has entered the game very strongly when it comes to ending the war in Ukraine. I know President Donald Trump, I know that he is an extremely decisive man and when he acts, he acts in a very determined and usually effective way.” With those remarks, we can only assume that the desire to have massively lethal weapons on one’s own soil that would risk obliterating life, limb and everything else is but a sporting parlour game of misplaced assumptions.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

We speak with death row inmate Keith LaMar live from the Ohio State Penitentiary, after the release of The Injustice of Justice, a short film about his case that just won the grand prize for best animated short film at the Golden State Film Festival. “I had to find out the hard way that in order for my life to be mine, that I had to stand up and claim it,” says LaMar, who has always maintained his innocence. LaMar was sentenced to death for participating in the murder of five fellow prisoners during a 1993 prison uprising. His trial was held in a remote Ohio community before an all-white jury. On January 13, 2027, the state intends to execute him, after subjecting him to three decades in solitary confinement. LaMar’s lawyer, Keegan Stephan, says his legal team has “discovered a lot of new evidence supporting Keith’s innocence” that should necessitate new legal avenues for LaMar to overturn the conviction.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

• President-elect Trump names decorated general Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Russia and Ukraine.
• American prisoners held in China released after diplomatic agreement between Beijing and Biden Administration.
• US economic numbers for the third quarter continue to show strong growth.
• Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire appears to hold after taking affect Wednesday.
• Governor Newsom touts Delta Tunnel project, environmentalists remain critical.
• Trump names former Immigration chief Tom Homan as new border czar. 
• Oakland airport employees rally for better wages and benefits on year’s busiest travel day. 

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – November 27, 2024 President-elect Trump names decorated general Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Russia and Ukraine. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

The implication of the Skripal evidence, revealed for the first time on Thursday, is that the attack on the Skripals was not perpetrated by Russian military agents who were photographed elsewhere in Salisbury town at the time; that the attacker or attackers were British agents; and that if their weapon was a nerve agent called Novichok, it came, not from Moscow, but from the UK Ministry of Defence chemical warfare laboratory at Porton Down.

Porton Down’s subsequent evidence of Novichok contamination in blood samples, clothing, car, and home of the Skripals may therefore be interpreted as British in source, not Russian.

This evidence was revealed by a police witness testifying at the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry in London on November 14. The police officer, retired Detective Inspector Keith Asman was in 2018, and he remains today  the chief of forensics for the Counter Terrorism Policing (CTPSE) group which combines the Metropolitan and regional police forces with the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5).

According to Asman’s new disclosure, Yulia Skripal had woken from a coma and confirmed to the doctor at her bedside that she remembered the circumstances of the attack on March 4. What she remembered, she signalled,  was not (repeat not) the official British Government narrative that Russian agents had tried to kill them by poisoning the front door-handle of the family home.

The new evidence was immediately dismissed by the Sturgess Inquiry lawyer assisting Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley), the judge directing the Inquiry. “We see there,” the lawyer put to Asman as a leading question, “the suggestion, which we now know not to be right, of course”.   — page 72.

Hughes then interrupted to tell the witness to disregard what Skripal had communicated. “If the record that you were given there is right, someone suggested to her ‘Had you been sprayed’. She didn’t come up with it herself.” — page 73. Hughes continued to direct the forensics chief to disregard the hearsay of Skripal. “Anyway the suggestion that she had been sprayed in the restaurant didn’t fit with your investigations?  A. [Asman] No, sir. LORD HUGHES:  Thank you.”

So far in in the Inquiry which began public sessions on October 14, this is the first direct sign of suppression of evidence by Hughes.

Hearsay, he indicates, should be disregarded if it comes from the target of attack, Yulia Skripal. However, hearsay from British Government officials, policemen, and chemical warfare agents at Porton Down must be accepted instead. Hughes has also banned Yulia and Sergei Skripal from testifying at the Inquiry.

The lawyer appointed and paid by the Government to represent the Skripals in the inquiry hearings said nothing to acknowledge the new disclosure nor to challenge Hughes’s efforts to suppress it.

Asman described his career and credentials in his witness statement to the Inquiry, dated October 23, 2024. His rank when he retired from the regular police forces in 2009 was detective inspector. He was then promoted to higher ranking posts at the operations coordinating group known as Counter Terrorism Policing for the Southeast Region (CTPSE). By 2018 Asman says he was “head of the National Counter Terrorism Forensics Working Group since 2012, and was the UK Counter Terrorism Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) forensic lead.” In June 2015 Asman was awarded the Order of the British Empire (MBE) “for services to Policing.”

At page 19 of his recent witness statement, this is what Asman has recorded for the evening of March 8, 2018:

Source: Dawn Sturgess Inquiry — page 19.

Asman’s went on to claim in this statement: “At this point Yulia Skripal was described as being emotional and fell unconscious. I made notes of my conversation with DI [Detective Inspector] VN104 in one of my notebooks, and in addition this information was confirmed to me in writing the next morning. The information she provided about being sprayed at the restaurant [Zizzi] was seemingly inconsistent with the presence of novichok at the Mill public house and 47 Christie Miller Road. On hearing this, I personally wondered whether Yulia Skripal knew more about it than she had alluded to and therefore whilst being fully cognisant of the SIO’s [Senior Investigative Officer] hypothesis and the need to be open-minded continued to prioritise her property.”

The Scene of the Novichol Crime

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

The Evidence the Crime Was British

Left: Yulia Skripal in May 2018, the scar of forced intubation still visible; read more here. Centre; Dr Stephen Cockroft who recorded the exchange with Skripal at her bedside on March 8, 2018; that was followed, Cockroft has also testified, by forced sedation and tracheostomy – read more. Right: read the only book on the case evidence.  

Open-minded was not what the judge and his lawyers wanted from Asman when he appeared in public for the first time on Thursday, November 14. Referring precisely to the excerpt of Skripal’s hospital evidence, Francesca Whitelaw KC for the Inquiry asked Asman: “We can take that [witness statement excerpt] down, but this information as well, was it consistent or inconsistent with what you  had found out in terms of forensic about the presence of  Novichok at The Mill and 47 Christie Miller Road?  A. [Asman] It, I would say, was inconsistent on the basis that she said she was sprayed in the restaurant.” — page 73.

Asman was then asked by Whitelaw to comment on Yulia Skripal’s exchange with Cockroft. “My question for you is: how, if at all, this impacted on your investigations?  A. It only very slightly impacted on it…It was information to have but not necessarily going to change my approach on anything.” — page 73.

In the Inquiry record  of hearings and exhibits since the commencement of the open sessions on October 14, there have been eleven separate exhibits of documents purporting to record what Yulia and Sergei Skripal have said; they include interviews with police and witness statements for the Inquiry; they are dated from April 2018 through October 2024. Most of them have been heavily redacted. None of them is signed by either Skripal.

Neither Yulia nor Sergei Skripal has been asked by the police, by the Inquiry lawyers, or by Hughes to confirm or deny whether Yulia’s recollection of March 8, 2018, of the spray attack in Zizzi’s Restaurant is still their evidence of what happened to them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Helmer.

Janine Jackson interviewed Food Not Bombs’ Keith McHenry about criminalizing homelessness for the August 2, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Axios (3/20/24)

Janine Jackson: With wages, including the minimum wage, largely static, prices rising out of the reach of many who call themselves middle class, and rents outpacing wages in 44 of the country’s 50 biggest cities, you could be unsurprised that homelessness is at record rates. The latest federal count found 650,000 unhoused people on a single night, nearly half of them sleeping outside. The response of several localities is to criminalize the act of sleeping outside or, in some places, of having a shopping cart.

States are using their budgetary power to punish communities that don’t push people off the street, including places that have more unhoused people than shelter beds, and to arrest people who don’t have a safe space to go to.  As of October, in Florida, any city that doesn’t enforce their ban on camping can be sued, including by individual residents or businesses. “We’re going to have clean sidewalks,” said Gov. Ron DeSantis, signing the law in March.

Other places have introduced fines, so that a person who asks for a quarter can get a fine of hundreds of dollars. This is being called a “crackdown on homelessness,” as though that were an isolated abstraction, and not a broad societal failure.

Keith McHenry is an activist, author and artist, and the co-founder of Food Not Bombs. He joins us now from Santa Cruz, California. Welcome to CounterSpin, Keith McHenry.

Keith McHenry: Thank you so much for having me. This is great.

Slate (6/29/24)

JJ: Let’s start with California, and Governor Newsom’s directive to dismantle encampments throughout the state, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling that gave governments more authority to do that. Newsom says he’s directing state agencies to “move urgently to address dangerous encampments while supporting and assisting the individuals living in them.” Is that a thing that can happen?

KM: Even before Newsom’s executive order, he was giving out money to cities to clear homeless encampments. It’s called the Homeless Encampment Resolution Grants. And in Santa Cruz, $4 million was given to clear the camps around the homeless shelter. And, in fact, the management of the homeless shelter was all excited that they got the money, and that they could get rid of the homeless that were camped around them and in the neighborhood where the shelter is.

And this campaign, I think, is getting more and more aggressive, not only because of the removal of the protections from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Grants Pass v. Johnson case that went to the Supreme Court, but because it’s being driven, in part, by this organization called the Cicero Institute, which was started by Joe Lonsdale in 2016, and he is connected directly to the Central Intelligence Agency. He received funding, along with Peter Thiel, who is most famous right now for being the backer of JD Vance as the running mate with Trump, and by Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir.

So Palantir is one of the largest surveillance organizations in the United States, the private company that was created after protest of Total Information Awareness, which was a government plan after the 9/11 bombing. And they are involved in a matrix of things surrounding homelessness, including creating AI to find homeless camps.

So there’s already, since Newsom’s executive order, you can see police and people just throwing away homeless people’s belongings in these sweeps, mentioning both the Supreme Court ruling and Newsom’s executive order, basically stating that they’re going to get rid of the homeless from California.

The Nation (3/15/24)

But Joe Lonsdale’s Cicero Institute has been providing model legislation to states across the country. The one that you just referred to, with DeSantis, was one of their victories. They also got a law passed in Kentucky where you can actually use the Stand Your Ground law to shoot homeless people that are not cooperating with your eviction of them from private or public land.

So this trend is frightening, and we’re already seeing it in Santa Cruz, and this is in San Francisco, it’s across the country, and the problem is, there’s no place for anyone to go. And in Newsom’s executive order, he claims that you’re supposed to store things for 60 days; this virtually never happens with the sweeping of the camp. The camps that were swept here in Santa Cruz in the last couple of weeks, people just didn’t get their belongings back, and we had to give them pup tents and sleeping bags and blankets, just to replace the equipment that was taken by the police and public works during these really vicious sweeps.

JJ: I hear that. And Miami Beach, I understand, is one of a number of places that allow arrests if the individual declines shelter placement. And I think that kind of line makes sense for a lot of people, for whom this is just a story in the paper—the idea that, well, they were offered shelter, and maybe even offered some kind of mental health care, or some substance abuse care. And aren’t those the personal problems that are driving them to the street? What’s wrong with that solution of, “Well, we’re offering them stuff”?

KM: The reality is there is no there that they’re offering. They’re just telling the public that there is some kind of shelter space. First of all, the shelters are already full, everywhere in the country, so you have to kick a homeless person out of a shelter, and that’s what they do here in Santa Cruz, to make place for a new homeless person. So when they cleared Coral Street in front of the homeless shelter, they evicted 10, 15 people out of another shelter, and then put the 10 or 15 people into that shelter, and then it’s a net gain of zero sheltered people.

But the other thing is, a lot of people do not want to go to shelters because, for instance, the shelter here is referred to as the “concentration camp,” and that’s because you can’t have your husband or wife with you, you can’t have your pets with you….

There’s one shelter that’s being proposed in San Diego where there’s 715 people in one room on bunk beds, and you get a little plastic box to put all your belongings in. And then you have to live in—just like the shelters here—very controlled, like a minimum security jail.

In our town, you’re not allowed to walk out of the shelter into the city. You have to get a van, because they don’t want homeless people walking by housed people’s houses. And therefore you’re limited by the staff as to when you can come and go.

PBS (12/15/23)

I am very concerned with the increase in homelessness. Right now, there’s 81% of America is living paycheck to paycheck, and homelessness has already been increasing dramatically. According to HUD, it increased 12% last year. We have so many unhoused people, because of the rocky economy, that they will then be moving people into large camps outside of cities, like they did with the Japanese during World War II. I’m worried about it, because we are heading into what could potentially be a world war, and then a lot of the polite comments that can happen before war, and ideas, will just be out the window, and it’ll be okay to round up the homeless and place them in these camps, which will be presented as navigation centers, where they’ll somehow get a job somewhere in the future, or some kind of mental health help.

And here in California, they passed Proposition 1, and essentially they’re building mental hospitals, and then homeless people are becoming wards, basically, of the local county, who then controls all their Social Security benefits and everything. So it’s very tragic, and I think American people really actually do know, because so many of us have family members that are homeless, and probably struggled with their addictions, or with their having to sleep on our couch, and we’re getting tired of it. We’re all impacted directly in this, and there’s definitely solutions to ending homelessness, which is building things like single room occupancy hotels, and all the things that kept people off the streets before this catastrophe.

JJ: I just wanted to pick up on that, because I think a child would say, “Oh, people are unhoused. What about housing?” And yet, somehow, that seems like, ”Oh, no, no, no, we can’t do that. Well, we’ll put out signs, we’ll pay money to put out signs telling people, don’t give money to homeless people, but we won’t put that money into housing.”

Keith McHenry: “Millions of dollars have been spent just driving people from corner to corner, with no even slight effort, really, to house people.” (photo: KSQD)

KM: Governor Newsom here in California has spent $24 billion on homelessness. And, in the city of Santa Cruz, they gave us $14 million to help the homeless about a year and a half ago. And so far they’ve used $1 million to clean out a camp of about 400 people who had no place to go. Those people were just cleared out of the woods this weekend. So now they’re back downtown. And so millions of dollars have been spent just driving people from corner to corner, with no even slight effort, really, to house people.

And then there’s a very “Not In My Back Yard” campaign that happens. So every time there’s even a slight proposal to house some homeless people, build a building for them or open a hotel for homeless people, you end up with riots and protests, as you can see has happened in places like New York City. And then there’s the pitting of immigrants and homeless against one another, which is another divide-and-conquer tactic that is occurring, that’s also making housing homeless people very difficult.

So there’s just no policy, no national policy, no state policies, really, to resolve this, other than through criminalization.

Now, the criminalization is really dire. So, for example, in Santa Cruz, you get a $25 ticket each time you’re found camping. Of course, then they take most of your stuff when they give you that ticket. And then what ends up happening is if you fail to pay that, then you get a $350 fine for not paying your $25 ticket. And then two tickets in 30 days is a misdemeanor, and you can end up, ultimately, over time, spending months and months in jail for just the crime of being homeless.

And then each one of these tickets and late fees goes into collection. You get a job, finally, and then your wages are taken by the collection agency for your fines for having slept outside. So this is going to make ending homelessness in America much, much more dire, because more and more people will fall into that trap, because the system’s set up to be difficult.

CounterSpin (1/13/17)

JJ: And then don’t think about helping unhoused people with food, because that’s going to be a crime too. We talked with Megan Hustings back in 2017, when people from Food Not Bombs were being arrested in Florida for serving free food to homeless people in a public park. So even the places where other people might be trying to intervene, and trying to provide some support, offer some help, they’re being told no, no, that’s also a crime.

KM: Yeah, there was just a person arrested in Dayton, Ohio, for feeding the homeless there. In San Francisco, we were arrested a thousand times. I did 500 days in jail, and ultimately faced 25 to life in prison, when the city was so frustrated they eventually framed me on things that I never did. I also did 18 days personally in Orlando, Florida, for feeding the homeless at Lake Eola Park.

Fortunately, Food Not Bombs has pushed back across the country in that regard, and we won an appeals case in Florida, which ruled that sharing free food is a First Amendment–protected right. And the Dayton, Ohio, people are using that case to defend themselves.

And then we also have found in Houston, where we were ticketed nearly a hundred times, at $2,000- a-time fines, that they could not find a jury that thought it was reasonable to convict someone and force them to pay money for feeding the homeless. So they’ve kind of generally dropped that case. So we’re having some good fortune pushing back.

But the idea that a country that’s letting their people go hungry, and I answer the Hunger Hotline, 1-884-1136, and I get calls all day long, roughly 20 a day, from seniors who have no food, who get referred to me by UnitedHealthcare or Red Cross or something, for home delivery. And the system is breaking down. And the stories I hear of these 20, 30 people, sometimes—on a good day, it’s like 10 people—it’s just heartbreaking. And those are people on the verge of becoming homeless, that have a home but have no food, and live in America. Often they’re vets that have worked their entire lives, and now they’re in this precarious position, and it is just heartbreaking.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Keith McHenry from Food Not Bombs. They’re online at FoodNotBombs.net. Keith McHenry, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

KM: Thank you so much.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

This week on CounterSpin: Dog whistles are supposed to be silent except for those they’re intended to reach. But as listeners know, the right wing has gotten much more overt and loud and yes, weird, about their intention to defeat the prospect of multiracial democracy. We unpack the latest weaponized trope—the “DEI hire”—with anti-racism educator and author Tim Wise.

(photo: Elvert Barnes)

Also on the show: Trying to help unhoused people and trying to make them invisible are different things. Keith McHenry, cofounder of Food Not Bombs, joins us to talk about the recent Supreme Court ruling that gave state authorities more power to dismantle the encampments in which many people live, with no guarantee that they will land anywhere more safe.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

A New Zealand politician and human rights activist with a strong connection to Tonga’s Democracy movement and other Pacific activism has been farewelled after dying last week aged 80.

Keith Locke served as a former Green MP from 1999 to 2011.

While in Parliament, he was a notable critic of New Zealand’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, and advocated for refugee rights.

• READ MORE: Other obituaries, reports on Keith Locke

He was appointed a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to human rights advocacy in 2021, received NZ Amnesty International’s Human Rights Defender award in 2012, and the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand’s Harmony Award in 2013.

Locke was often a voice for the Pacific in the New Zealand Parliament.

In 2000, he spoke out on the plight of overstayers who were facing deportation under the National Party government.

As the Green Party’s then immigration spokesperson, he supported calls for a review of the overstayer legislation.

Links to Pohiva
“We are a Polynesian nation, and we increasingly celebrate the Samoan and Tongan part of our national identity,” Locke said at the time.

“How can we claim as our own the Jonah Lomus and Beatrice Faumuinas while we are prepared to toss their relations out of the country at a moment’s notice?”

Locke had links to Tonga through his relationship with Democracy campaigner and later Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva, who died in 2019.

Locke defended Pohiva in 1996 when he was a spokesperson for the Alliance Party. He said he was horrified that Pohiva and two colleagues had been jailed for comments in their pro-democracy newspaper Kele’a.

He criticised the New Zealand government for keeping silent about what he described as a “gross abuse of human rights.”

In 2004, Locke called on the New Zealand government to speak out about what he called the suppression of the press in Tonga.

Locke, who was then the Greens foreign affairs spokesman, said several publications had been denied licences, including an offshoot of the New Zealand-produced Taimi ‘o Tonga newspaper.

Vale #KeithLocke, tireless and fearless campaigner for peace, justice and a sustainable future for a green planet … I’ll also remember him for friendship and commitment to independent truth publishing and OneWorld progressive bookshop. – @DavidRobie, editor, #AsiaPacificReport pic.twitter.com/SC0obJzfOA

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 21, 2024

Tribute by Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie.

‘Speak out as Pacific neighbour’
“We owe it to the Tongan people to support them in their hour of need.  We should speak out as a Pacific neighbour,” he said.

In 2007, ‘Akilisi was again charged with sedition, along with four other pro-democracy MPs, for allegedly being responsible for the rioting that took place following a mass pro-democracy march in Nuku’alofa.

“As the Greens’ foreign affairs spokesperson I went up to Tonga to support ‘Akilisi and his colleagues fight these trumped-up charges. I was shocked to find that the New Zealand government was going along with these sedition charges against five sitting MPs,” Locke said in an interview.

“I was in Tonga not long before the 2010 elections with a cross-party group of New Zealand MPs. We were helping Tongan candidates understand the intricacies of a parliamentary system.

“At the time I remember ‘Akilisi being worried that the block of nine ‘noble’ MPs could frustrate the desires of what were to be 17 directly-elected MPs. And so it turned out.

“Despite winning 12 of the popularly-elected 17 seats in 2010, the pro-democracy MPs were outvoted 14 to 12 when the votes of the nine nobles MPs were put into the equation.

“However, in the two subsequent elections (2014 and 2017) the Democrats predominated and ‘Akilisi took over as Prime Minister. I am not qualified to judge his record on domestic issues, except to say it couldn’t have been an easy job because of the fractious nature of Tongan politics.

“And ‘Akilisi has been in poor health.

‘Admirable stand’
“As Prime Minister he took an admirable stand on some important international issues, such as climate change. At the Pacific Island Forum he criticised those countries which stayed silent on the plight of the West Papuans.”

Locke said that Tonga may not yet be fully democratic, but that great progress had been made under Pohiva’s “humble and self-sacrificing leadership.”

Keith Locke was also an outspoken advocate for democracy and independence causes in Fiji, Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine, Philippines, Tahiti, Tibet, Timor-Leste and West Papua and in many other countries.

His remembrance service was held with whānau and supporters at a packed Mount Eden War memorial Hall on Tuesday.

Philip Cass is an editorial adviser for Kaniva Tonga. Republished as a collaboration between KT and Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Former Green MP Keith Locke, a passionate activist and anti-war critic once described as “conscience of the year”, has died in hospital, aged 80.

Locke was in Parliament from 1999 to 2011, and was known as a human rights and nuclear-free advocate.

His family said he had died peacefully in the early hours this morning after a long illness.

• READ MORE: Keith Locke, former Green MP, dies: Party pays tribute to leading figure in New Zealand activism
• Other Keith Locke reports

“He will be greatly missed by his partner Michele, his family, friends and colleagues. He kept up his interest and support for the causes he was passionate about to the last.

“He was a man of integrity, courage and kindness who lived his values in every part of his life. He touched many lives in the course of his work in politics and activism.”

The son of activists Elsie and Jack Locke of Christchurch, Keith was politically aware from an early age, and was involved in the first anti-nuclear and anti-apartheid marches of the 1960s.

After a Masters degree at the University of Alberta in Canada, he returned to New Zealand and left academia to edit a fortnightly newspaper for the Socialist Action League, a union he had joined as a meatworker then railway workshop employee.

He joined NewLabour in 1989, which later became part of the Alliance party, and split off into the Greens when they broke apart from the Alliance in 1997, entering Parliament as their foreign affairs spokesperson in the subsequent election two years later.

Notable critic of NZ in Afghanistan
While in Parliament, he was a notable critic of New Zealand’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, and advocated for refugee rights including in the case of Ahmed Zaoui.

He also long advocated for New Zealand to become a republic, putting forward a member’s bill which would have led to a referendum on the matter.

Commentators dubbed him variously the ‘Backbencher of the Year’ in 2002 — an award he reprised from a different outlet in 2010 — as well as the ‘Politician of the Year’ in 2003, and ‘Conscience of the Year’ in 2004.

He was appointed a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to human rights advocacy in 2021, received NZ Amnesty International’s Human Rights Defender award in 2012, and the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand’s Harmony Award in 2013.

In a statement today, Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick said Locke was a dear friend and leading figure in the party’s history, who never wavered in holding government and those in positions of authority to account.

“As a colleague and friend, Keith will be keenly missed by the Greens. He has been a shining light for the rights of people and planet. Keith Locke leaves a legacy that his family and all who knew him can be proud of. Moe mai ra e te rangatira,” they said.

“From 1999 to 2011, he served our party with distinction and worked extremely hard to advance causes central to our kaupapa,” they said.

Highlighting ‘human rights crises’
“Not only did Keith work to defend civil liberties at home, but he was vigilant in highlighting human rights crises in other countries, including the Philippines, East Timor, West Papua and in Latin America.

“We particularly acknowledge his strong and clear opposition to the Iraq War, and his commitment to an independent and principled foreign policy for Aotearoa.”

They said his mahi as a fearless defender of civil liberties was exemplified in his efforts to challenge government overreach into citizens’ privacy.

“Keith worked very hard to introduce reforms of our country’s security intelligence services. While there is much more to be done, the improvements in transparency that have occurred over the past two decades are in large part due to his advocacy and work. We will honour him by ensuring we carry on such work.”

Former minister Peter Dunne said on social media he was “very saddened” to learn of Locke’s death.

“Although we were on different ideological planets, we always got on and worked well together on a number of issues. Keith had my enduring respect for his integrity and honesty. Rest in peace, friend.”

‘Profoundly saddened’
Auckland councillor Christine Fletcher said she was also sad to hear of the death of her “Mt Eden neighbour”.

“We worked together on several political campaigns in the 1990s. Keith was a thoughtful, sincere and truly decent person. My condolences to Keith’s partner Michele, sister Maire Leadbeater and partner Graeme East.”

Peace Action Wellington said Locke was a tireless activist for peace and justice — and the organisation was “profoundly saddened” by his death.

“His voice and presence will be missed,” the organisation wrote on social media.

“He was fearless. He spoke with the passion of someone who knows all too well the vast and dangerous reach of the state into people’s lives as someone who was under state surveillance from the time he was a child.

“We acknowledge Keith’s amazing whānau who have a long whakapapa of peace and justice activism. He was a good soul who will be missed.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Vale #KeithLocke, tireless and fearless campaigner for peace, justice and a sustainable future for a green planet … I’ll also remember him for friendship and commitment to independent truth publishing and OneWorld progressive bookshop. – @DavidRobie, editor, #AsiaPacificReport pic.twitter.com/SC0obJzfOA

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 21, 2024

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Dispossession of a people is a thoroughly nasty business, and it blatantly violates one of the biblical ten commandments, one that is encoded in law around the world, namely, “Thou shalt not steal.” Those who have gained property and wealth, and their progeny who continue to profit from the dispossession of Others, would like to paint a prettier picture of colonialism.

Sam Sullivan, a former mayor of Vancouver and former cabinet minister in the BC legislature, is the easy-to-listen-to narrator of Kumtuks, a series of historical videos which are usually interesting and informative. However, Kumtuks often presents a gussied-up narrative around the history of colonialism. Usually omitted from the discussion is that the land that settler-colonialists came into possession of was stolen from Original Peoples who had their own laws, beliefs, economies, and culture.

The Kumtuks video “1862 Smallpox Epidemic: British Columbia’s First Major Contagious Outbreak” claims to be based in the oral history of the Haida. The source given is the book Raven’s Cry (1966, 1992) by American author Christie Harris. Both versions of the book are interesting and informative for the historical perspective they shine on the Haida and the interactions they had with the Iron Men (as the Haida called the White men). The versions differ little, but the 1992 version is preferable because of the respect shown for the names and designations used by the Haida. Bill Reid, whose mother was Haida, is a renowned artist who illustrated Raven’s Cry and was a mentor to Harris. Harris also spent time with the family of Haida artist Charles Edenshaw. Harris, Reid, and Edenshaw are all deceased. So I will refer to Harris’s book to ascertain the verisimilitude of what Sullivan says in his narration.

What does Raven’s Cry indicate about Haida feelings toward the presence and behavior of the Iron Men?

Haida hostility, as well as the stormy moat around the Haida islands, discouraged American miners. Nevertheless, James Douglas, Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s western district and Governor of the little colony of Vancouver Island, advised Her Majesty Queen Victoria that it would be well to maintain a gunboat on the northwest coast to protect British rights. (p 102) [Italics added.]

Harris indicates the priority of Douglas. Douglas is not said to be protecting Haida rights. This was about colonialism: protecting rights claimed by the British, rights that presumably included sailing a gunboat in Haida waters.

The Haida did not acknowledge British rights. When the Company sent its schooner Recovery in with a group of Company miners in 1852, it was thwarted. The Haida simply waited for the white men to blast. Then they rushed in and grabbed the treasure. It was their gold. Let anyone else try to take it! (p 102)

Clearly, Douglas’s  priority was objectionable to the Haida.

The “native chiefs” objected to colonialism:

“What we don’t like about the [White man’s] government is their saying this, ‘We will give you this much land,’ ” they protested. “How can they give it when it is our own? We cannot understand it. They have never bought it from us or our forefathers. They have never fought and conquered our people and taken the land that way, and yet they say now they will give us so much land — our own land!” (p 134)

Sdast’a·aas Saang gaahl Eagle chief chief 7indansuu felt likewise:

“By what right do the King George men claim this land?” 7indansuu demanded of Governor Douglas. “There are no treaties with the tribes. There was no conquest by warriors.” (p 115)

The Raven and the First Men by Bill Reid

In a lighter vein, Harris wrote,

Unfortunately, Governor Douglas retired that year, though not before making a strong case for generous treatment of Indians, or before setting aside many reservations. The Queen had honored him with a knighthood. (p 132)

Harris generally comes across as respectful and sympathetic to the Haida, but she still seems mired in a colonialist mindset. Why is taking the land of a people and setting aside some reservations for them considered “generous”? If a thief steals my library and returns a few of the books, is the thief generous?

Because the narrative in “1862 Smallpox Epidemic: British Columbia’s First Major Contagious Outbreak” is starkly at odds with the narrative in The Smallpox War against the Haida, I turned to Swanky to discuss the different narratives. I also reached out to Sam Sullivan through the Global Civic Policy Society which produces the Kumtuks videos, but have yet to hear back.

Tom Swanky: The Police Commissioner advised a journalist that Helmcken personally had administered a procedure to 500 natives on April 26, 1862, in a context where multiple observers reported that the disease – as of that date – remained confined to just one of the People represented at Victoria and these observers believed the disease still could be contained among that one People.

However, within a few days after the disclosure of Helmcken’s program, witnesses then began reporting that some noticeable number of the natives who he supposedly had “vaccinated” were seen to have the disease. Also, within ten days of Helmcken’s vaccination program being disclosed, that is, within the time usually required for an infection to become visible, the disease suddenly exploded so that it was now no longer visible among only one People, it was everywhere. This evidence is consistent with Helmcken’s program having been all or in part, not “vaccinations” but inoculation with actual smallpox. And thereby creating the opportunity for the disease to become rooted among new Peoples and spread widely as a result of inoculation epidemics. It was because of the risk of inoculation creating epidemics that Parliament had outlawed inoculation in 1840. To administer inoculations in 1862 was a violation of British law, and so any use of the procedure would have to be concealed.

There is substantial other evidence of inoculation being used to spread the disease in the North Pacific during 1862. The Oweekeno said in 1862 that the medicine the colonists sold them started the disease. Numerous other cases can be documented where doctors administered what was advertised as a “vaccination” program, but after which the disease exploded among the targeted population. In fact, there is little to no evidence that “Douglas had Helmcken send vaccines” around the colonies. At Kamloops, the HBC post manger reported administering a procedure to the surrounding natives all summer – however, by late fall, independent observers were reporting that the indigenous residents in the Kamloops area had been virtually exterminated.

Once can draw two lessons from Helmcken’s advertised “500 vaccinations.” The first lesson is that each stage of the disease undergoing an advance – beginning with its original importation in 1862 – was accompanied by some sort of public relations campaign that subsequent events would show was misdirection by those advancing the disease. The second lesson is that historians who come to this material unaware of their own colonial predispositions, or of the phenomenon of confirmation bias, seize on the first thing they read without doing the painstaking work of then seeing how events actually unfolded.

KP: The Kumtuks video mentions numerous conflicts among the Northern First Nations and the Southern First Nations, but he omits mention of any conflicts between First Nations and settler-colonialists. Instead the colonial administration of Vancouver Island is portrayed as a peacemaker in having the Northerners towed up island past Nanaimo. In Raven’s Cry, Harris wrote:

More than ever before, futile rage against the overpowering white man turned on fellow Indians. Understandably, it turned most fiercely on the Haida, the lords of the coast. Centuries of resentment burst out, especially among the northern neighbors.

The native people raged with resentment at these white men; but the rage turned on their ancient rivals. On June 12th, a thousand Haida reinforcements arrived at Victoria. (p 117-118)

The Kumtuks video seems not in concordance with Raven’s Cry or what you have written of the oral history presented to you by knowledge keepers of The People?

TS: If a researcher is unaware of the issues concerning the means through which the Crown asserted control among many of the indigenous Peoples – which diverse knowledge keepers allege was through a smallpox assisted genocide – then the researcher is unlikely to be attuned to the challenges presented by the sources.

On the one hand, among the colonial sources are the multiple efforts at misdirection – which were an integral part of the smallpox program executed by the colonial authorities – and, after 1862, there followed the usual post-genocide or post-criminal activity of denying the shameful or wrongful thing done.

On the other hand, among the indigenous sources there is the necessity of coping with having been purposefully targeted for destruction by the colonial authorities and the incoming colonial community. For the indigenous Peoples, the post-1862 task became walking a fine line so as not to offend a community that has shown a propensity to destroy you and yet wanting to work on the political task of undoing the loss of control brought about by what is understood to have been a smallpox genocide. So, for example, one will see praise offered for Douglas – politely overlooking his smallpox policies to focus on the time before April/June of 1860 when he had set a precedent of colonial respect for indigenous customs in inter-community relations and before he had begun the process of displacing indigenous authority. In addition, in things published primarily for the benefit of a colonial audience, one will see a desire not to be offensive but to cater to the colonial mythology concerning indigenous relations.

Very early in my work, I was advised by more than one elder that if I truly wanted to learn about the teaching in indigenous communities, I would learn by listening to what elders and knowledge keepers told each other or their communities and not by asking questions for someone to tell me something – for members of the colonial community often are told what they want to hear or a version satisfying some political need.

KP: The video depicts Douglas lamenting that some Indigenous peoples did not accept the preventative measures against smallpox. However, in your book, you noted how Douglas had tried to scare Haida by warning of a fake outbreak of measles. (Swanky, p 84-86) Harris in Raven’s Cry wrote:

Alarmed at the thought of what might happen next, Governor Douglas tried to banish all the natives with a measles scare, which had often worked before. But the native people weren’t frightened by it now. (p 118)

TS: This is all just fiction by someone who is not very familiar with the actual record. Nowhere does Douglas do any such lamenting. In fact, Bishop George Hills reported that the indigenous Peoples where the smallpox first broke out at Victoria were ready to do anything asked of them. Nowhere were natives reported to resist vaccinations – at least until the problems associated with inoculation began to emerge – but there are several accounts of natives going out of their way to become vaccinated.

Douglas used the false threat of an imminent outbreak of measles in June of 1860, in conjunction with his first attempt to assert control over the autonomous indigenous Peoples operating around Victoria. Dr. Helmcken proposed this plan and the hope was that all the autonomous communities would flee and then, when they returned, they would be assigned to spaces and come under the Police Commissioner’s control. Helmcken made this proposal in the Assembly and it was reported in the newspapers. Since Capt. John, the Haida leader who led the resistance to Douglas’s policies – and some other natives – were fluent in English, they would have learned from the newspapers that the threat was part of a dishonest plan to assert control over them. There was every reason not to be frightened and to be resentful of this dishonest trick.

KP: Douglas is portrayed as a defender of First Nations. The video gives Douglas a pass for having been away on the mainland when police towed Northerners into the ocean to return home. But the Kumtuks video states that the oral history of elders tells of Douglas trying to save lives by having the Haida towed home.

TS: This is not true. In another case of what turned out to be misdirection, the Police Commissioner advised the newspapers that he and a colonial gunboat would accompany north the Haida expelled on June 11 so that they would have safe passage past their enemies in Georgia Strait. British law in 1862 was that those with the custody of smallpox carriers had a legal duty to keep a safe distance between the infected people and any nearby healthy people. On this trip north, the Cowichan fired on this convoy to keep it from leaving infected people among them, the convoy did leave infected Haida at Nanaimo, and, rather than safe passage, the Police Commission delivered the Haida to the doorstep of some enemies at Cape Mudge who could be expected to kill them. This plan failed only because the enemies of the Haida at Cape Mudge already had attacked a previous Haida convoy, became infected and were dying.

The actual oral tradition is of Douglas executing a smallpox genocide “holding hands with the HBC.” This tradition is conveyed in “The Story of Bones Bay” and the next generation of knowledge keepers was instructed in the oral tradition during a formal ceremony and pole raising in 2008. The “Story” can be found in the March 2009 edition of Haida Laas, an official publication of the Council of the Haida Nation.

KP: This brings up many questions. Why did the video mention that the police removed the Haida when Douglas was away in the lower mainland? How could he attempt to save lives from the other side of the Salish Sea? Was it an eviction or a life-saving attempt? Also, I could find no mention of the oral history of Haida elders (in either the 1966 or 1992 edition of Raven’s Cry) that testifies that Douglas was trying to save Haida lives by having them removed. After all, this is illogical at best, or at worst genocidally racist, given that 1) the video relates a Victoria newspaper editorial that settler lives were at risk from the camps, in which case gathering all Haida together without discerning who was ill or not would put some Haida potentially at risk from each other, and 2) the question of why the Northerners should be removed all the way up the long water highway, especially since the video stated that it takes 12 days for signs of smallpox to manifest and become infectious. Why send them 800 km to Haida Gwaii and not to a nearby uninhabited island of which there are many around Vancouver Island?

TS: Most serious people recognize that Douglas’ 1862 smallpox policies in the ordinary course would have been considered as criminal offences under British law. That is, everyone recognizes that it was easily foreseeable that his policies would increase dramatically the native death toll. Douglas’ apologists are left to contend that his policies – and these additional deaths – were justified because the presence of smallpox among even one of the autonomous Peoples operating in the Victoria area constituted an emergency threatening the colonial population. On examination, this turns out to be another case of misdirection. The Police Commissioner planted the theory of an emergency in the newspapers at Victoria and Douglas planted the theory at New Westminster. Douglas already had used the concept of an emergency in 1860 to justify his first attempt to assert control over the autonomous Peoples operating in the Victoria area, rather than to deal through the existing native leadership as British policy usually required. The theory of an emergency would be advanced again in a bizarre way when colonists advanced the disease to the Nuxalk and Tsilhqot’in territories.

However, there was never any emergency that constituted an existential threat to the colonial community – vaccine was readily available from San Francisco or the Catholic missions in Oregon, and most of the colonial population already had been vaccinated before the theory of an emergency had been raised. The threat to the colonial community was economic. The fear in the colonial community was that prospective miners or settlers would stay away because ordinary human beings prefer not to witness suffering on a grand scale.

If the Douglas administration had wanted to decrease the death toll from smallpox in 1862, it would have carried out the three control measures that it advertised in the newspapers: vaccinations, a pest house for isolating carriers and sanctuaries to quarantine the disease among infected communities. Instead, the administration perverted each control so that it became another means by which the disease would spread.

KP: The character of James Douglas is wrapped up very much in the colonial history of Vancouver Island and British Columbia and the attempts to extinguish Indigenous title. There are plenty of quotations that attest to Douglas being a morally centered person, but they are several quotations that point to a racist streak. Few humans are white or black. In To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia (UBC Press, 2022), the contributors have varying viewpoints on Douglas. Keith Thor Carlson, Canadian research chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History at the University of Fraser Valley captures the lack of consensus in his piece, “‘The Last Potlatch’ and James Douglas’s Vision of an Alternative Settler Colonialism,” pointing out that Douglas is less racist than others. This is neither laudatory or condemnatory. Nonetheless, relying on quotations seems to contravene the admonition that actions speak louder than words. Overall, Douglas appears lauded by contemporary academia, cultural depictions, and wider society. With the emerging acceptance of First Nations oral history, will a purported genocidaire such as Douglas continue to elude an honest rendering of history?

TS: In his correspondence with the colonial office in London, Douglas freely refers to the Haida as barbarians and savages. He seems an average representative of the British colonial culture in the North Pacific, which culture imagines anglo-saxons as a superior race – to use Dr. Helmcken’s words. However, it is a distraction to use “race” as a point of departure when seeking to understand the transition of sovereign authority that accompanied colonialism in the North Pacific. The problem facing Douglas and the colonists was to dispossess the indigenous Peoples of their communal or “national” resources through the most cost-effective means. Douglas and others make frequent references to the “great number” of natives occupying strategic locations, pointing to the projection of overwhelming political power that is inherent in great numbers. The implicit motive for this genocide, then, is not reducing another race per se, but reducing the native voice and the capacity of native authority to defend the integrity of its sovereign control.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

Sent via email

District Attorney Alvin Bragg
New York County District Attorney’s Office
One Hogan Place
New York, NY, 10013

Dear District Attorney Bragg,

We, the undersigned press freedom and civil liberties organizations, write to ask that you drop the disorderly conduct charge (Section 240.20, Subsection 6) pending against photojournalist Stephanie Keith, who was documenting a vigil when she was unjustly arrested  by New York City police on the evening of May 8, 2023. Her prosecution would set a harmful precedent of prosecuting reporters simply for doing their jobs and documenting matters of public importance. 

Leading up to her arrest, Keith was photographing a vigil organized to commemorate the May 1 killing of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was choked to death on a New York subway train. Keith had been documenting demonstrations around New York in the wake of Neely’s death, with some of her coverage published in Brooklyn Magazine.

Around 8 p.m., Keith was near the northwest corner of East Houston Street and Lafayette Street when NYPD Chief of Patrol John M. Chell can be seen in a video of the arrest grabbing Keith’s arm. Chell can be seen forcefully pushing her into two officers in jackets marked “NYPD Community Affairs,” while yelling “lock her up.” Keith— who was wearing a press badge and was holding a camera— can be heard saying “Please don’t.” The photojournalist was then handcuffed and taken to the 7th Precinct, and then the 9th, where she was issued a court summons. 

Later that evening, Chell said during a press conference that Keith “interfered” with three arrests before officers arrested her. However, Keith was simply doing her job and photographing police action and that evening’s vigil. No video has been released showing any alleged interference.

We are gravely concerned by the charges facing Keith. All of the videos of Keith’s arrest show that she was behaving professionally and trying to photograph events, and do not show her interfering with the police. Keith is an award-winning photojournalist whose clients have included Getty Images, Reuters, The New York Times, and Bloomberg. This year, she was part of the New York Times team nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for their breaking news coverage of a fire in the Bronx. Keith was not at the vigil to participate in a protest or interfere with police but to perform the public service of documenting the news, as she’s been doing her entire career. 

Our organizations document cases of press freedom violations both in the United States and globally. Our research shows that arresting reporters is a crude form of censorship: it stops journalists from documenting current events, and protracted legal proceedings to dismiss baseless charges create financial and time pressures for reporters. It is disappointing and concerning to see these tactics being deployed in New York City. 

Furthermore, the prosecution of reporters in the United States is exceedingly rare, according to the non-partisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which maintains data on press freedom violations across the country. Prosecuting Keith would send a chilling message to journalists in New York City and beyond, and indicate to the wider public that New York City believes that members of the media can be prosecuted simply for doing their jobs. 

We understand that your office does not usually take part in summons prosecutions, but we consider this to be an exceptional case. We urge you to dismiss the disorderly conduct charge against Keith and ensure that journalists working in New York City will not face punitive retaliatory measures from the city’s police.

Sincerely, 

Committee to Protect Journalists  

Freedom of the Press Foundation 

New York Publishers Association

Coalition for Women in Journalism

National Press Photographers Association

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Reporters Without Borders 

Online News Association 

The Deadline Club, NYC Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists

National Coalition Against Censorship

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

“We strongly condemn the arrest of freelance photojournalist Stephanie Keith, who was doing her job and trying to document matters of public importance,” said Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s U.S. and Canada program coordinator. “New York authorities should drop any charges against Keith relating to yesterday’s arrest and show restraint in their crowd control tactics. Arresting reporters is a crude form of censorship and limits the public’s ability to access information about current events.”  

Keith was covering protests over the recent killing of Jordan Neely on the New York subway. In a video of her arrest posted on Twitter, an officer holding her arm can be heard saying, “Lock her up,” before two other officers take her arms. Keith is heard responding, “Please don’t.” In those news reports, Keith can be seen wearing her press pass and holding a camera.

The Daily News reported that Keith faced charges of disorderly conduct and interfering with three arrests. New York City Police Department Chief of Patrol John Chell said during a press conference that Keith “interfered” with three arrests before officers arrested her. CPJ was unable to immediately determine whether she had been formally charged.

When CPJ emailed the NYPD public information office, a representative said Keith had been released with a summons and declined to confirm whether she had been charged.

If charged and convicted of disorderly conduct, Keith could be sentenced to 15 days in jail and a fine of up to $250. Interfering with arrests is charged as a Class A misdemeanor of obstruction of governmental administration and is punishable by up to one year in jail.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Progressives rejoiced last year when Democrat Keith Ellison won a tight reelection race for Minnesota attorney general against a police-backed opponent who attacked him as being “soft on crime.”

In the same election cycle, Ellison’s ally Mary Moriarty won election as Hennepin County attorney, installing a reform-minded prosecutor in Minneapolis about three years after the city’s police murdered George Floyd. Moriarty, previously the chief public defender for Hennepin County, took office in January and implemented reforms with a focus on correcting failures in the juvenile justice system.

Now, three months into their terms, Ellison and Moriarty are no longer on the same side of the reform platform they once shared.

Late last month, Moriarty’s office issued new guidance on prosecuting children, which was designed to keep as many kids as possible out of the adult criminal system. Before issuing the guidance, Moriarty’s office chose not to charge two teenage brothers accused of murder as adults.

Last week, Ellison’s office intervened in the juvenile murder case. His office described the juvenile charges as “inappropriate” and requested that the governor take the case away from Moriarty’s office and assign it to him. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who was reelected along with Ellison and Moriarty last November, assigned the case to Ellison on Thursday — pitting the two would-be reformers against each other.

The affair has become a tense point in what was once a roundly promising trajectory for reforms in Minnesota. In 2022, Ellison endorsed Moriarty, who, like him, faced a police-backed opponent. And Ellison’s popularity was propelled in part by his handling of the prosecution of the cops who killed Floyd, and his campaign for reelection celebrated his record on reform.

A source involved in the jurisdictional dispute, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive private deliberations, said Ellison told Moriarty he needed to appear tough on crime for his next reelection campaign. Ellison also has a tour planned for this spring to promote his upcoming book on ending the cycle of police violence. Some Minnesota political operatives suspect he’s mulling a run for governor. (Ellison’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the remark.)

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“It’s ironic that for decades no one has questioned the exercise of prosecutorial discretion when that discretion has been used to ramp up penalties or to look the other way.”

Mary Moriarty, a longtime Hennepin County public defender, is interviewed at her offices on Oct. 25, 2019, in Minneapolis.

Photo: John Minchillo/AP

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

The post A Conversation With Keith Lamar, From Death Row in Ohio appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eric Mann.

Keith Ellison is no stranger to fending off political attacks from both parties. On Wednesday, he extended his streak and defended Democrats’ undefeated statewide mandate in Minnesota, stretching back to 2006. With 100 percent of precincts counted, Ellison won reelection as Minnesota’s attorney general by a little over 20,000 votes.

This year, Ellison found himself caught between his reputation as a progressive attorney general who doggedly pursued lawsuits against corporate criminals, and a Democratic party attacked — despite the bona fides of its tough-on-crime president — for failing to uphold an ambiguous notion of law and order.

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Daniel Boguslaw.

“Jim Schultz and his wealthy backers, like the police union, are spending millions of dollars to sow division and fear.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

Retired Gen. Keith Alexander, a highly connected former intelligence agency official who once oversaw mass surveillance programs, is the latest high-profile executive to be accused of taking advantage of the “meme stock” craze to defraud ordinary investors.

Alexander, a current board member for Amazon who previously served as the head of U.S. Cyber Command and as director of the National Security Agency under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, allegedly misled investors through a pump-and-dump scheme that enriched him with at least $5 million.

In a securities lawsuit filed in April, investors in IronNet, a cybersecurity company co-founded by Alexander after he left the Obama administration in 2014, claim that the former general gave false promises of government contracts and inflated revenue numbers, all while selling off his shares in the company.

SPAC fraud has become a feature of pandemic-era investing.

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Lee Fang.