/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>494133
You couldn't have posted this in >>493397 or >>491673 or >>493952 or >>487075?

>a meeting of ISIS groupies
yeah no thank you

>>494138
I guess I could have posted it in USApol since it covers multiple topics related to that, but I didn't. Sorry!

>>494139
You mean the White House or the IMF?

>Tim Heidecker, comedian
lolwut

Indication That Alex Pretti Was Known to Federal Agents Raises New Questions Over Protester ‘Database’
CNN reported Tuesday that Pretti, the Minneapolis nurse who was fatally shot by Border Patrol agents while acting as a legal observer and trying to help a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by one officer, was known to federal officers before his killing last weekend. About a week earlier, he had been tackled by a group of agents who broke his rib when he was protesting the detention of a community member.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/protest-database

Officers confront protesters at Texas facility as lawmaker visits father, son detained in Minnesota
As protesters moved closer to the facility in the small town of Dilley, Texas state police officers arrived on a school bus and shouted instructions for the crowd to move back. Some of the officers then deployed pepper balls, dispersing the crowd. Castro later posted a picture on social media of his visit with 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-crockett-ice-5yearold-minneapolis-27d8a75f2e51a18d97933b5ae99adf10

‘Do Your Job!’: Protesters Gather Outside Walz’s Office to Demand Criminal Charges for Trump’s Killer Agents
“We are demanding that they bring charges against the killer officers,” said Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for Minnesota, which organized the protest. “We want the identity of the officers. We know the federal government is not investigating. They are lying to the American people. They are denying us justice. It is time for the state to do their job.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/tim-walz-ice-protest

Alabama inmate activists from an Oscar-nominated film are moved to solitary, attorneys say
Sledd said she has been able to talk to Poole once since the transfer and he told her the men are being held in separate cells on an isolated and closely guardePost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Ice Storm | Chapo Trap House
Episode 1005 - Ice Storm (1/26/26)
Will and Felix talk about the horrific killing of Alex Pretti. We talk about the execution, the man Alex was, why the right despises him, the inspiring response of the people of Minnesota, and reasons to hope that we haven’t irreversibly opened the gates of Hell. We also talk about the public responses, ranging from the bizarre justifications from Mike Cernovich and JD Vance to Sohrab Amari’s attempt at aloofness to the [???] from Tom Friedman. Plus: Marie Glusenkamp Perez dealing the shittiest weed in the world.
https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/1005-ice-storm-12626

The ACLU Wants to Shrink Workers’ Speech Protections
Back in 2024, I wrote about a curious case at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was pursuing exotic legal theories that would, if adopted by the NLRB or courts, curtail the rights of workers across the country. This included the theory that the then–general counsel of the NLRB, Jennifer Abruzzo, was illegally appointed and the theory that the NLRB must defer to private arbitration proceedings even in the absence of a collective-bargaining agreement. The former theory would have invalidated a large amount of precedent established by General Counsel Abruzzo, while the latter theory would have allowed employers to limit the rights of workers to pursue unfair labor practice charges at the NLRB. The ACLU was pursuing these theories as part of a scorched-earth effort to not provide back pay and reinstatement to one of its former employees, Katherine Oh. Oh, along with her coworkers, had criticized the way certain managers treated employees and the ACLU fired her in response to those criticisms. In firing her, the ACLU claimed that Oh, who is herself nonwhite, was being racist by criticizing her likewise nonwhite bosses even though her statements contained no racial content at all. Both a private arbitrator and an NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ) have since ruled in favor of Oh and against the ACLU. The arbitrator ruled that, in firing Oh, the ACLU had violated its own just-cause termination policy, while the ALJ ruled that, in firing Oh, the ACLU had violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act. DespiPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

TYBNA

Trump says US Justice Department ‘looking at’ Ilhan Omar’s wealth
“Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me,” Trump wrote in a social media post. “Separately, a major investigation is going on with respect to the massive 20 Billion Dollar, Plus, Welfare Fraud that has taken place in Minnesota, and is at least partially responsible for the violent organised protests going on in the streets.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/26/trump-says-justice-department-looking-at-ilhan-omars-wealth
https://archive.ph/OwTM5

Funding deal begins to unravel as Senate Democrats vow to oppose DHS bill over Alex Pretti shooting in Minnesota
Six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year have been signed into law by President Donald Trump. Six more are awaiting action in the Senate, despite a revolt from House Democrats and mounting calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment.
https://apnews.com/article/senate-democrats-homeland-security-funding-government-shutdown-f727fa0f3865990f191d4d5770e04752

Feds yank contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton after Trump tax leak
The Department of the Treasury said Monday that it is canceling all contracts with Booz Allen Hamilton after a former contractor who worked for the consulting firm leaked tax information belonging to thousands of people, including President Trump.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/treasury-department-booz-allen-hamilton-trump-tax-leak/

As LA maternity wards close, patients are giving birth in ERs: ‘There’s no system to care for these women’
Los Angeles county has seen at least five maternity wards close since 2023 and 16 since 2014. As these maternity wards have shuttered, the county has seen a rise in emergency room visits and admissions from people for labor and delivery. From 2016 to 2023, Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

Episode 517: Sex, Lie, and Videotape (TrueAnon )
We talk through a series of court cases featuring the enigmatic Kyrsten Sinema, Betar USA, and the surge of ICE agents in the Twin Cities and beyond.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-517-sex-148853040

The Right to Abortion in Puerto Rico Is Under Threat
Abortion is legal in Puerto Rico … for now. But Governor Jennifer Gonzalez recently signed a law establishing legal personhood of a fetus from the moment of conception. The law gives the fetus similar personhood rights as an unborn child. For example, the mother can claim the child to get financial benefits or name it as her heir. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the United States in 2022, several measures to restrict abortion have been introduced in Puerto Rico, though none had previously succeeded. Abortion remains technically protected under the right to privacy in the island’s Constitution. However, feminist groups and activists are mobilizing and are warning that laws like this threaten abortion rights. On December 22, the Coalition Aborto Libre Puerto Rico (Free Abortion Puerto Rico) called for a pañuelazo (a mass demonstration for abortion rights, specifically in Latin America, where activists gather to publicly raise and wear green bandanas) in rejection of this law. Building off the Marea Verde movement in Latin America for abortion rights, protesters called for the protection of women rights and denounced how the state is dismantling immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights.
https://www.leftvoice.org/the-right-to-abortion-in-puerto-rico-is-under-threat/

On the Minneapolis General Strike: Now is the Time of Praxis
People have taken to the streets. The city of Minneapolis has declared a strike—the first general strike in decades. It is a victory for our organizational capacity and shows that we are not outnumbered, merely out-organized. How many children will the soldiers of the Epstein regime kidnap before people rise up in arms? This number remains to be known. But we can know this: the sleeping bear of labor has awoken from its slumber.The people, the masses, the working members of this nation, are sickPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Thousands rally against immigration enforcement in subzero Minnesota temperatures
The protests are part of a broader movement against President Donald Trump’s increased immigration enforcement across the state, with labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy urging Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and even shops. The faith leaders gathered at the airport to protest deportation flights and urge airlines to call for an end to to what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-ice-immigration-protest-unions-faith-leaders-edc6c4884f8cc26be9ad34a28d82a7a5

Federal judges reject DOJ motion to detain arrested Minnesota protesters
U.S. District Judge Laura M. Provinzino wrote in her order for two of the protesters, Nekima Valdez Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Louisa Allen, that Justice Department lawyers failed to “demonstrate that a detention hearing is warranted, or that detention is otherwise appropriate.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-judge-rejects-doj-motion-detain-arrested-minnesota-protesters-rcna255666

US measles cases surpass 400 with infections in 14 states: CDC
The CDC said on Friday that a total of 416 cases have been reported in 14 states, including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Only three measles cases this year were from international visitors, CDC data shows.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/us-measles-cases-surpass-400-infections-14-states/story?id=129415270

California suing Trump administration over Sable oil pipeline restart
The lawsuit is the latest turn in a dispute between Houston-based Sable and California officials over a drilling project off the coast of Santa Barbara that was shut Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

The Year of the Billionaire Tax
In 2025 alone, the six richest men in the country (and world) became $476 billion richer. During that year, the Trump regime cut back Medicaid — the federal medical assistance program relied on by over seventy million Americans, including four out of ten children — in order to bankroll lowering taxes for the rich. The bulk of the cuts are expected to hit Medicaid programs following the 2026 midterm elections, and they will hit ordinary Americans hard. Donald Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act will raise out-of-pocket costs dramatically and kick millions of people off insurance, many of them children, as well as nearly a third of young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. For California’s state medical assistance program, Medi-Cal, federal cuts are expected to drain $100 million over the next five years, potentially collapsing the state’s health care system. That means millions of people losing coverage and families needing to make hideous choices between food, housing, and medicine, as so many are already forced to. It means hospitals and clinics closing and tens of thousands of health care jobs evaporating. For a state already struggling with vast inequality and a homelessness crisis, it would have a catastrophic impact. Fun fact: there are 214 billionaires residing in California worth a collective $2 trillion. If you carved out just 5 percent of that hoarded wealth for public use, you could fill the Medi-Cal gap and fund the state’s health care system. That’s precisely what a proposed ballot initiative aims to do.
https://jacobin.com/2026/01/california-billionaire-tax-thiel-newsom

Israel Is Turning the Yellow Line Splitting Gaza into a Physical Barrier
The Israeli military is turning the yellow line that demarcates the more than half of the Gaza Strip it occupies and controls into a physical border. Analysis of satellite imagery by Forensic Architecture shows that the Israeli military has begun constructing earth berms—large, raised mounds of earth—in areas along the yellow line to create a physical separation between the Palestinian population forced to live in the western half of the enclave, and Israeli forces who occupy the eastern half. Israeli troops withdrew to the yellow line after the so-called ceasefirePost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Trump administration weighs naval blockade to halt Cuban oil imports
“Energy is the chokehold to kill the regime,” said one person familiar with the plan who was granted anonymity to describe the private discussions. Deposing the country’s communist government – in power since the Cuban revolution in 1959 – is “100 percent a 2026 event” in the administration’s eyes, this person added. The effort would be justified under the 1994 LIBERTAD Act, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, this person added. That law codifies the U.S. embargo on Cuban trade and financial transactions.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/23/trump-administration-weighs-naval-blockade-to-halt-cuban-oil-imports-00744708

Nah.
Lincoln was essentially trying to catch the momentum of a simultaneous real revolution (the revolution of the slaves and abolitionists) up into the US conflict with the secessionists. The Lincoln faction weren't absolute good guys per se, but there would be absolutely no reason to root for the Confederacy, and Lincoln himself was a positive historical actor which is why he was ultimately assassinated by a long-time friend of his close acquaintance Simon Wolf, and replaced by people who made more and more capitulations to the former slave-holding class.

Simon Wolf was actually arrested at one point by Union forces under the suspicion that, through B'Nai B'Rith, Wolf had been engaging in treason and aiding the Confederacy. Simon Wolf's Masonic lodge also pledged loyalty to Albert Pike, a confederate general and Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction.

The Confederacy actually could have won militarily, which would have been the worst possible outcome. At multiple times during the war, they had the upper hand. Supporting them would have been an extremely bad idea.

>>493997
>The Confederacy actually could have won militarily
That seemed true at the time but they could have only won their independence, realistically. More than that would have been too much to swallow and lead to more explosive contradictions.

>>494029
Them winning independence would have been a win for them, which would be bad. Lincoln would still probably get assassinated, and the success of the secession would mean a massive, militarized expansionist chattel slave state to the south of the US whose influence would likely be greater than that of the defeated south. The betrayal of the Union victory after the war ultimately came from capitulations by Lincoln's successors, which would probably still have happened even if the north lost, it would just be in an even worse position.

Slavery was living on borrowed time at that point and was being replaced worldwide by capitalist production. American historians sometimes call the Civil War the Second American Revolution, emphasizing that the First American Revolution had largely skipped over the South in its effects. The Second American Revolution simply concluded unfinished business. Even if the Confederacy had won the war the relentless march of materialist development would have ended slavery eventually. The North's economic system proved superior at industrial warfare and this capacity was only going to improve over time.

I wonder when tankies will start drooling over Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

R.i.p to a great mind, he will be missed

Rest in power brother. I'm glad he didn't disgrace his legacy like Chomsky in his last years. He rightfully stopped giving interviews while he was dealing with dementia.

The speeches I've seen by him were instrumental in radicalizing myself, he was an amazing speaker. RIP.

>>493986
You trying to recruit me for some kind of pirates gambit in southeast Asia OP?

>>493987
>recruit
yes
>south east asia
No. In the Chagos Archipelagos area.

>>493990
I had to look at a map. That is the definition of middle of nowhere.

>>492423
Another schizophrenic, especially concerning about “kids these days”.
Kids nowadays are very tame in terms of “perversion”.
If anything, it was only recently that CP and teenage wife husbandry was globally outlawed

One great thing about AI, that I didn't realize but is totally obvious now that it's happening, is that using AI at work will generate slop, that slop will lower the productivity for entire industries. Yay.

every technology contains both a liberatory and reactionary potential in it. LLMs, diffusion models, and machine learning can become powerful weapons in the hands of the masses if used for propaganda, or for weapons targeting and tracking systems, and embodied AI in military robots and drones, that the masses can use to destroy their class enemy. Conversely, this technology in the hands of the imperialist oppressors is basically satanic, they're using it to create digital concentration camps, lockouts and control grids.

Nuuk is pretty close to the Arctic Circle, I imagine they get something like 18-hour-long nights around this time of year. Long time to go without power.

ICE memo allows agents to enter homes without judicial warrant: Whistleblower complaint
"Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose," the May 12, 2025, memo signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons stated, according to the anonymous whistleblower complaint, which included a copy of the memo.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/ice-memo-allows-agents-enter-homes-judicial-warrant/story?id=129436766

House approves homeland security bill despite Democrats’ opposition over ICE
The 220-207 vote, with seven Democrats joining nearly all Republicans, came amid mounting outrage over its heavy-handed and violent tactics in Minnesota and elsewhere. Democrats’ opposition to the DHS funding measure had grown in recent weeks since an Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, in Minneapolis earlier this month.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/22/democrats-ice-funding-bill

Anti-ICE protest at Minnesota church leads to arrests but no charges for journalist Don Lemon
A prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people involved in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church have been arrested, Trump administration officials said Thursday, even as a judge rebuffed related charges against journalist Don Lemon.
https://apnews.com/article/justice-department-minnesota-church-disruption-bondi-ed084f5005187f58eabe0cc627d1862b

Jury acquits former Uvalde school officer in first criminal trial tied to Robb Elementary shootingPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

PCV demands answers from the government over the presence of the CIA chief in Venezuela
The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) demanded that the government leadership provide clear and transparent explanations regarding the presence in the country of the Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe, whom it described as “a nefarious figure for the peoples of the world,” and whose visit — the Party denounced — has not been officially communicated to the Venezuelan people. This was stated by Oscar Figuera, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the PCV, when presenting the conclusions of the 19th Plenum of the Central Committee, which met last Saturday, 17 January, to assess the country’s economic, political, and social situation — a situation marked, he said, by the recent U.S. military aggression and the establishment of direct tutelage over the Venezuelan state. “The presence of the highest representative of the CIA in Venezuela is evidence of the changes taking place to guarantee the interests of big capital and U.S. imperialism,” Figuera stated. He added that Ratcliffe is an official who, according to information reported in the media, “is closely linked to the military operation of 3 January, to the aggression against our country, and to the killing of a significant number of Venezuelan and Cuban military personnel.”
https://www.idcommunism.com/2026/01/pcv-demands-answers-from-government-over-the-presence-of-cia-chief-in-venezuela.html

This Billionaire Landlord Bullied Journalists Into Deleting Negative Coverage of Him
A billionaire landlord bullied an outlet into deleting unflattering coverage of him and unsuccessfully pressured several others, including Novara Media. Sunday Times rich-listed John Christodoulou, who is British-Cypriot but resides in the tax haven of Monaco, and is worth a reported £2.6bn, falsely told LandlordZone he had repaid the £263,555.69 he owed tenants of two Hackney properties. Christodoulou wrote to the industry publication, which had 605,000 unique visitors in the year to April 2024, asserting that the 16 court-mandated repayment orders had been settled since LandlordZone published its article about them in April. “Given that the article cPost too long. Click here to view the full text.