US Military

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares128 Views

      in US Politics

      Why is Trump, the self-proclaimed ‘president of peace’, aiming to topple the Venezuelan regime?

      by

      It was a solemn pledge at the heart of Donald Trump’s “America first” appeal.A “Make America great again” (Maga) foreign policy would mean the end of military commitments that had in the past sucked the US into draining and drawn-out wars far from its own shores.Now an intense military buildup targeting the authoritarian regime of Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is stretching that commitment to the breaking point, as the White House strikes a bellicose posture that seems to mock Trump’s self-proclaimed “president of peace” image.In recent weeks, US forces have carried out at least eight strikes, killing at least 38 people, against boats in the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast that Washington said were being used for drug trafficking. The latest strike, announced on Friday by Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, reportedly killed six people on a boat allegedly being used to smuggle drugs on what was said to be “a known narco-trafficking route”.Two further strikes in the Pacific this week killed at least five people as tensions also rose between the US and Colombia over the Trump administration’s tactics against alleged traffickers.But the main focus has been Venezuela amid a buildup that has seen nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and elite special operations forces deployed off the South American country’s shores.Trump this month signaled a further escalation by authorising the CIA to conduct operations inside the country, fuelling fears that the US was trying to foment a military coup against Maduro – whom it has designated a “narco-terrorist” and for whose arrest it has offered a $50m bounty – or even prepare a ground invasion.“Action on the ground would be the least preferred option, and it certainly wouldn’t be GI Joe – it would be special ops people,” said Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA analyst and national intelligence officer for Latin America.“With technology, you don’t need to invade any more. The whole idea, I believe, is to get the Venezuelans to take him out.”Some Venezuelan analysts say local support for a coup is thin.The policy has been shaped by a Trump administration power struggle that has seen Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and acting national security adviser, triumph over Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy to Venezuela, who was sidelined after arguing for a pragmatic approach that would help secure oil deals.Maduro and other senior regime figures are said to have offered extensive concessions in an effort to end the confrontation with Washington, including offering the US a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil industry. The Trump administration has even eased some sanctions on Venezuelan oil, granting Chevron a licence to resume operating in the country and increase exports from Venezuela. But longstanding tensions have instead escalated further after Rubio pressed the case for a tough approach.“Trump had, in many conversations, meetings with different people emphasized that he really only cared about [Venezuela’s] oil,” said a US businessman with longstanding ties to Venezuela and close knowledge of the White House’s policy. “But Rubio was able to drum up this ‘narco-terrorist’ rhetoric and get Trump to pivot completely. The U-turn really reflects Rubio’s expanded influence in the administration.”Rubio, a longtime critic of Maduro’s socialist regime, won the support of Stephen Miller, the powerful White House deputy chief of staff, and Susie Wiles, the chief of staff, in persuading Trump.He did so partly by seizing on the administration’s designation of Tren de Aragua, a transnational gang of Venezuelan origin, as a “foreign terrorist organisation” that had infiltrated the US and allegedly fuelled the influx of undocumented migrants fleeing Maduro’s regime.A White House proclamation last March further identified the gang as being in cahoots with the Cartel de los Soles, a shadowy grouping of Venezuelan military figures which the administration insists is headed by Maduro and is responsible for trafficking drugs to the US. Other sources have questioned that characterisation of the cartel and Maduro’s connections to it.Experts also question Venezuela’s significance as a drugs supplier. Although the country is a conduit for trafficking, it is not a primary source for most illegal substances entering the US. Fentanyl, which is responsible for most US drug-related deaths, is mainly sourced from Mexico.There are doubts over the legality of the boat strikes – which Rubio has vociferously justified – and the military escalation in the name of combating drugs.The White House insists the actions, believed to be led by the CIA, are legal under the 2001 USA Patriot Act – passed after the 9/11 al-Qaida attacks – which affords scope for action against designated foreign terrorists, a category that now includes Maduro.William Brownfield, a former ambassador to Venezuela and ex-state department drugs and law enforcement czar, said the policy was unprecedented and vulnerable to legal challenge.“I never had anyone seriously suggest to me during my seven years as drugs and law enforcement chief that this issue could be addressed the way it is now,” he said. “I couldn’t even propose it because no one would even entertain the thought of using the military for a law enforcement mission.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUnderlying Rubio’s drive may be a mixture of ideology and political ambition. The son of Cuban immigrants, he has long denounced Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, for the financial and oil support they have provided to Cuba’s communist regime.Observers say Rubio is eyeing the Republican presidential nomination in 2028 – when Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term and where adopting a hard line on Venezuela could help secure the Cuban ethnic vote in a close primary election.Tommy Pigott, a state department spokesman, played down Rubio’s role in shaping the policy, saying in a statement: “The president is the one who drives and determines our foreign policy. It is the job of the cabinet to implement. Secretary Rubio is honored to be a part of the president’s team.”He added: “Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela; he’s a fugitive of American justice who undermines regional security and poisons Americans and we want to see him brought to justice.”But there are also wider foreign policy considerations as the US tries to revive its historical habit of treating Latin America as its back yard.“Rubio’s position is that the United States was not paying sufficient attention to the Latin American region writ large and I actually agree with that,” said Brownfield. “The Trump administration is, in fact, being fairly clear when it says that the Maduro regime is a threat to basic democratic values throughout the western hemisphere.”Angelo Rivero Santos, a Latin American studies professor at Georgetown University and former diplomat in Venezuela’s embassy in Washington, said the Trump administration was reasserting the Monroe doctrine, devised in the 19th century and which saw the US claiming Latin America as its exclusive sphere of influence.“It’s not only Venezuela,” he said. “When you look at their statements on the Panama canal, at the impositions of tariffs on Brazil, the latest spat with the Colombian government, not to mention the military presence in the Caribbean, you see a return of the Monroe doctrine.”One aim, Santos argued, was to install more Trump-friendly governments in the region similar to those of Javier Milei, Argentina’s president; Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador; and Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa.Another, said Armstrong, the former CIA analyst, was an “ultra-nationalist” projection of strength.“The message is: ‘We’re tough guys,’” he said. “Maduro, like the Cubans, has given the United States the finger and told us to go fuck ourselves, and we have failed with all of the so-called maximum pressure policy that started in Trump 1.0 and has continued and increased in Trump 2.0.”The result, he warned, could be an unpredictable sequence of events as the US tries to goad Maduro into retaliation, which could be used to engineer his downfall.“They can hit a naval target, say a coastal civilian facility, and that might be the provocation that gets Maduro to hit back and maybe do something dumb,” he said. “Then you go for big targets in Caracas, and get a form of chaos. If that doesn’t do it, you put a couple of guys in, special forces or Navy Seals, to do a snatch. Of course he’s not going to go alive. I don’t see a pretty solution.”Aram Roston contributed additional reporting More

    • 125 Shares168 Views

      in US Politics

      Portland judge rejects Trump request to allow national guard deployment

      by

      A federal judge in Portland, Oregon, on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift her order blocking the deployment of federalized national guard troops to the city, saying that she would decide the matter by Monday.The hearing in Portland and one in Washington DC are the latest in a head-spinning array of lawsuits and overlapping rulings prompted by Trump’s push to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and governors. Troop deployment remains blocked in the Chicago area, where all sides are waiting to see whether the US supreme court intervenes to allow it.The Portland district court judge, Karin Immergut, who is based in the city, had previously issued two temporary restraining orders blocking the deployment of national guards troops there, in response to a persistent but small protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.Her first order, blocking the deployment of 200 troops from the Oregon national guard, said that Donald Trump had exceeded his authority by taking federal control of the troops based on his claim that the city was in a state of war-like rebellion. Trump’s assessment, Immergut ruled, was “simply untethered to the facts”.When Trump responded to that order by sending 200 troops from California’s national guard to Oregon, and threatened to send 400 more from Texas, Immergut determined it was an attempt to evade her order, and issued a second order barring the deployment of troops from anywhere in the country to Portland.Immergut’s first order was lifted on Monday by a three-judge panel of the ninth circuit court of appeals, over the strong dissent of the only judge on the panel who lives in Portland. But because the government never appealed Immergut’s second order, it remains in effect and the deployment of troops remains blocked until she decides whether or not to lift or modify it in response to the appeals court ruling.At a virtual hearing on Friday, Immergut cited two reasons for her to delay lifting the second injunction. The first was that the appeals court did not address a central fact in her second order: that she had issued it in part because the government responded to her first order by attempting to evade it. The second was that the ninth circuit appeals court is currently considering a call from one of its judges to rehear the appeal of her first order before a larger panel of 11 judges.At the end of the hearing, Immergut said that she would decide by Monday, if not earlier.The US district judge, Jia Cobb, an appointee of Joe Biden, was hearing arguments Friday on a request from Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general, for an order that would remove more than 2,000 guard members from Washington streets.In August, Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the district – though the Department of Justice itself says violent crime there is at a 30-year low.Within a month, more than 2,300 guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling under the army secretary’s command. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist them.It is unclear how long the deployments will last, but attorneys from Schwalb’s office said troops were likely to remain in Washington through at least next summer.“Our constitutional democracy will never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand,” they wrote.Government lawyers said Congress empowered the president to control the DC national guard’s operation. They argued that Schwalb’s lawsuit is a frivolous “political stunt” threatening to undermine a successful campaign to reduce violent crime in Washington.Although the emergency period ended in September, more than 2,200 troops remain. Several states told the Associated Press they would bring their units home by 30 November, unless their deployment is extended.Among the states that sent troops to the district was West Virginia. A civic organization called the West Virginia Citizen Action Group says the governor, Patrick Morrisey, exceeded his authority by deploying 300 to 400 guard members to support Trump’s efforts there.Morrisey has said West Virginia “is proud to stand with President Trump”, and his office has said the deployment was authorized under federal law. The state attorney general’s office has asked Richard D Lindsay, a Kanawha county circuit court judge, to reject the case, saying the group has not been harmed and lacks standing to challenge Morrisey’s decision.Lindsay heard some arguments Friday before continuing the hearing to 3 November to give the state time to focus more on whether Morrisey had the authority to deploy the cuard members.“I want that issue addressed,” Lindsay said.April Perry, a district judge, on Wednesday blocked guard deployment to the Chicago area until a case in her court is decided or the US supreme court intervenes. Perry previously blocked the deployment for two weeks through a temporary restraining order.Attorneys representing the federal government said they would agree to extend the order, but would also continue pressing for an emergency order from the supreme court that would allow for the deployment.Lawyers representing Chicago and Illinois have asked the supreme court to continue to block the deployment, calling it a “dramatic step”. More

    • 163 Shares168 Views

      in US Politics

      Daniel Lurie: the millionaire mayor who got Trump to back off (for now)

      by

      Donald Trump rarely has kind words for Democrats, especially those who stand in his way. But on Thursday the president offered something unfamiliar: a compliment.As federal agents mobilized at a US Coast Guard base in the Bay Area, Trump credited San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, for “very nicely” persuading him to stand down from a planned immigration enforcement “surge” in the city this weekend.“I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around,” Trump wrote, without hurling an epithet or nickname. “I told him, ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?’”Speaking later at a midday news conference at city hall, Lurie said it was the president who initiated the conversation: “He picked up the phone and called me.”Trump had conveyed “clearly” that he was calling off the deployment of federal troops, Lurie told reporters, clarifying that the president had “asked nothing of me” in return.It was not Lurie’s assurances alone that changed Trump’s mind. According to the president’s Truth Social post, “friends of mine who live in the area” called to vouch for the “substantial progress” San Francisco had made since Lurie took the helm in January. Trump specifically cited “great people” such as Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce who ignited a firestorm when he suggested the president should send national guard troops to his native San Francisco before apologizing and backtracking, as well as Jensen Huang, the president and chief executive of Nvidia.“They want to give it a ‘shot’,” Trump wrote, summarizing the feedback he had received. “Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!”Lurie, the 48-year-old heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, swept into city hall promising a reset for a city that had struggled with both real post-pandemic challenges – an empty downtown, an enduring homelessness emergency, an addiction crisis, repeated reports of corruption – and a caricatured portrayal by Trump and his rightwing allies as a Democratic-run hellscape awash in decay and crime. His victory over incumbent London Breed last November was widely viewed as a rebuke of San Francisco’s political status quo, and a test of whether a political newcomer and centrist pragmatist could help the city overcome its woes – and the perception that it was worse off than it was.So far, the statistics have trended in the right direction. The California governor’s office said earlier this month that San Francisco saw a 45% decrease in homicides and 40% drop in robberies from 2019 to 2025. The city is on track to have the lowest number of homicides in more than 70 years, according to a recent San Francisco Chronicle analysis.Yet looming over Lurie’s early months in office were questions over how he would fare in a showdown with the mercurial president who has made his antagonism towards the city clear for years. It’s a calculation every Democratic mayor and blue state governor has made as Trump threatens a widening federal crackdown on major US cities.At a moment when Democrats across the country are yearning for a confrontational foil to Trump, Lurie stuck to a “heads down” approach, insisting his top priority was keeping residents safe. Lurie rarely, if ever, refers to the president by name, and even when criticizing the administration, he avoids attacking Trump in personal terms. It is a stark contrast to Gavin Newsom, the California governor (and a former San Francisco mayor), who has emerged as a leading figure in the anti-Trump resistance and pillories the president daily on social media.In recent days, as tensions rose and Trump signaled he was prepared to send troops into San Francisco, Lurie carried on as he had, “laser-focused” on boosting the “greatest city in the world”. While he was firm that the city opposed a federal deployment, he refrained from criticizing the president directly. The mayor kept residents informed with a series of video messages in his signature direct-to-camera style, promising to protect the city’s immigrant communities and urging residents to protest peacefully. “While we cannot control the federal government, here in San Francisco,” he said earlier this week, “we define who we are.”The ties he has forged with Silicon Valley’s prominent leaders, as part of his mission to keep tech companies in San Francisco, appeared to have also helped defuse the situation, at least for now.At the press conference on Thursday, Lurie said he welcomed San Francisco’s “continued partnership” with federal authorities to tackle drugs and crime. He touted the city’s progress, noting that crime was down – violent crime particularly. The city had added police officers, workers were returning to the office, and downtown buildings were being leased and purchased, Lurie said he impressed on the builder turned president. The mayor’s message, too, was clear: “San Francisco’s comeback is real.”Lurie’s management of the city – and the president – has earned glowing reviews. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who represents San Francisco, said Lurie had “demonstrated exceptional leadership in his steadfast commitment to the safety and wellbeing of San Franciscans”.“I salute Mayor Lurie for standing up for our City and reinforcing San Francisco’s strength, optimism and recovery,” she said on X.Yet much remained unclear – whether Trump was calling off the anticipated national guard deployment or a ramped-up immigration enforcement effort, or whether he might send troops elsewhere in the Bay Area. The president has mentioned Oakland as another possible target – and, as ever, reserved the right to change his mind. Unlike Lurie, Oakland’s mayor, Barbara Lee, received no such call from the president, but said she was ready to “engage with anyone, at any level of government, to protect Oakland residents”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt his press conference, Lurie said he could only repeat what the president told him during their call.“Our city remains prepared for any scenario,” he said. “We have a plan in place that can be activated at any moment.”Trump’s sudden reversal came as a surprise to local leaders and advocates, as protests against the federal intervention amassed at the Coast Guard base in Alameda on Thursday morning.Rights groups and community activists have urged Lurie and other city officials to take bolder steps to defend immigrants, some calling for a state of emergency if a federal deployment takes place, a designation that could help quickly boost resources for targeted communities. Others have called on Lurie to establish “safe zones” that federal agents cannot enter and declare an eviction moratorium, since raids and fears of ICE enforcement can force people to hide out and miss work.Outside San Francisco’s city hall, local leaders and organizers were also grappling with the whiplash.“At this time, we do not know which federal agencies are being called off. We don’t know if that’s the national guard. We don’t know if it’s ICE, if it’s border patrol,” said Jackie Fielder, the San Francisco city supervisor representing parts of the city’s Mission neighborhood. She said any federal agents deputized to help Trump “carry out his mass deportation plans” were “absolutely not welcome in San Francisco”.Newsom, who has made a sport of publicly clashing with Trump, said Trump’s decision to call off the deployment was proof of the president’s capriciousness and warned residents not to take the president at his word. “Business leaders made the phone call to Donald Trump – now we know who he listens to,” the governor said at an event in San Jose on Thursday, adding: “If you think this story just ended – that it’s got a period or exclamation point – you know better.”Even as Trump boasted of his own restraint, Lurie’s instinct was the opposite: deflect attention and press ahead. Asked on Thursday whether his approach could serve as a model for other Democratic mayors facing an unwanted federal intervention, Lurie demurred, suggesting the question was better left to the political chattering class.“Every day I’m focused on San Francisco,” he said. “Heads down. How do we keep our city safe?”Maanvi Singh in San Francisco and Sam Levin in Los Angeles contributed reporting More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Pentagon names new press corps from far-right outlets after reporter walkout

      by

      After the recent departure of Pentagon reporters due to their refusal to agree to a new set of restrictive policies, the defense department has announced a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” featuring 60 journalists from far-right outlets, many of which have promoted conspiracy theories.Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted the news on X but did not provide any names.The Washington Post, however, obtained a draft of the announcement, which stated that the new reporters, who agreed to the department’s new policies, were from outlets such as Lindell TV, started by Trump ally Mike Lindell; the Gateway Pundit; the Post Millennial; Human Events; and the National Pulse.The list also includes Turning Point USA’s media brand Frontlines, influencer Tim Pool’s Timcast and a Substack-based newsletter called Washington Reporter, the Post reported.The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for the list of journalists.Parnell described the group as a “broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists”.“New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people,” Parnell wrote. “Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”The new press corps includes rightwing outlets that have promoted conspiracy theories. For example, the Gateway Pundit spread false information about the 2020 election and then settled a defamation lawsuit with two Georgia election workers it falsely accused of wrongdoing and admitted that there was no fraud in the election.Similarly, Lindell denied the results of the election and was ordered to pay $2.3m to an employee of a voting machine company who sued him for defamation.Pool, a conservative podcast host, was among the influencers who allegedly were associated with a US content creation company that was provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favor of Moscow’s interests and agenda.Pool said they were “deceived and are victims”.The journalists who turned in their press credentials earlier this month did so after the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, introduced a policy that required that they agree not to obtain unauthorized material and restricted access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.Outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Atlantic, as well as reporters from rightwing outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax, all refused to sign on to the new rules.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further,” Newsmax told Times journalist Erik Wemple.The Guardian also declined to sign the revised Pentagon press pass policy because it placed unacceptable restrictions on activities protected by the first amendment.During a White House press briefing, Pool, a member of the new Pentagon press corps, asked Karoline Leavitt to comment on the mainstream media and “their unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate [on] if there’s any plans to expand access to new companies?”In a segment on Wednesday on the rightwing television network Real America’s Voice, defense department spokesperson Kingsley Wilson thanked the show’s host, Jack Posobiec, for joining the press corps.Wilson misstated the policies that caused journalists to leave the Pentagon. She did not mention that it included a requirement that they not obtain unauthorized material.“They walked out because they refused to sign an agreement that was simple. It was common sense. It said, wear a visible press badge. Don’t go in classified spaces, stay in the correspondence corridor and follow the building’s rules,” Wilson said.“That was their right, but also their loss, because now we get to have incredible journalists like yourself who are going to be here in the Pentagon reporting on what the Department of War is doing every single day,” Wilson said. “It’s really the next generation of journalism at the Pentagon.” More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Protests erupt in New York City after Ice raids Chinatown over ‘counterfeit goods’

      by

      Hundreds showed up to protests that broke out in New York City on Tuesday evening after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids related to “selling counterfeit goods” were conducted in the Chinatown neighborhood earlier in the day and resulted in an unknown number of people being detained.Hours after federal agents descended on lower Manhattan, demonstrators were seen assembling near the 26 Federal Plaza Immigration Building where they believed detainees were taken. Many shouted chants including “Ice out of New York” and “No Ice, no KKK, no fascist USA.”Videos of the raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.“Is this worth the paycheck? Selling your soul?” one woman can be heard shouting at agents.The raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.It was unclear how many people were detained in the raid, but a witness told the New York Daily News that he saw at least seven individuals taken into custody.The Department of Homeland Security told the New York Times that the operation was “focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods”. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, said the operation was led by the Ice agency, the FBI, US border patrol and others.The Guardian has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.Murad Awawdeh, vice-president of advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition, condemned the raid to reporters on Tuesday night and said that between 15 and 40 vendors were arrested. Awawdeh also noted that least two locals were taken into custody for protesting and blocking Ice’s efforts.“You don’t see these scenes in democracy. You see them in fascist regimes,” Awawdeh told a crowd. “We need to continue to stand up and fight back.”Local city council member Christopher Marte told the City that he too was alarmed by the agents’ conduct.“The amount of weapons that they had on the street pointed at bystanders, something I’ve never seen in my life,” he said.The NYPD distanced itself from the raids, tweeting that it had “no involvement in the federal operation that took place on Canal street this afternoon”. However, onlookers noted that NYPD riot cops appeared to arrest several people protesting the Ice raid.Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, quote-tweeted the NYPD’s missive and emphasized: “New York City does not cooperate with federal law enforcement on civil deportations, in accordance with our local laws.”“While we gather details about the situation, New Yorkers should know that we have no involvement. Our administration has been clear that undocumented New Yorkers trying to pursue their American Dreams should not be the target of law enforcement, and resources should instead be focused on violent criminals,” he wrote.New York City mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo shared similar notes of criticism, with Mamdani calling the raid “aggressive and reckless” and Cuomo calling it “more about fear than justice, more about politics than safety”.Both men – and Kathy Hochul, New York governor – took aim at Donald Trump directly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“[Donald Trump] claims he’s targeting the ‘worst of the worst.’ Today his agents used batons and pepper spray on street vendors and bystanders on Canal Street. You don’t make New York safer by attacking New Yorkers,” Hochul wrote.“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop,” wrote Mamdani.“Today’s ICE raid in Chinatown was an abuse of federal power by the Trump administration,” wrote Cuomo.New York City councilmember Shahana Hanif also condemned the Ice raids in a press conference, saying that politicians across the city and the state were resolutely opposed to Ice raids.“We are against Ice’s blatantly violent tactics. Hordes of Ice agents showing up is unacceptable, immoral, unjust,” Hanif said.Ice raids with masked agents and have become commonplace in immigrant enclaves across the country as have protests against them. Protests against Ice have brought federal crackdowns to cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland.Tuesday’s Chinatown raid is not the first in the New York City area in recent weeks. A 16 October raid in midtown Manhattan was the first known raid on a migrant shelter of the current Trump administration.Notably, many Ice raids have come with documented violence. Ice has used extreme force in Chicago including pepper balling a priest, pepper-balling the inside of a journalist’s car, and body-slamming a US congressional candidate.In New York, an Ice agent was “relieved of his duties” after body-slamming a woman to the ground in an immigration court house, but was reportedly back on the job shortly thereafter.Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in Ice detention, and the agency has detained at least 170 US citizens in 2025. More

    • 238 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Troops on the streets, Ice thuggery – and prices still climbing: welcome to Trump’s ‘golden age’ | Steven Greenhouse

      by

      In his inauguration speech last January, Donald Trump bombastically declared: “The golden age of America begins right now.” Our braggadocious president has stuck to that theme ever since, telling the United National general assembly in late September: “This is indeed the golden age of America.”With the federal government shut down for more than two weeks, the nation more polarized than at any time since the civil war, political violence growing and the job market slowing, it doesn’t feel remotely like a golden age, unless one focuses on Trump’s Louis XIV-like effort to gild as many things as possible in the Oval Office.Decoration spree aside, it in no way feels like a golden age when Trump sends the national guard into Los Angeles and Chicago to fight “the enemy within” or when he says the governor of Illinois and mayor of Chicago should be in jail for opposing his plans to deploy troops to Chicago. I doubt that the 27 Chicago police officers who were accidentally teargassed by Ice agents think it’s a golden age and ditto for the growing number of US citizens Ice has arrested.Nor does the US seem like the shining city upon a hill when Ice agents slam a 79-year-old US citizen to the ground in Los Angeles. Nor when Trump’s Department of Homeland Security posts thuggish videos of stormtrooper-like Ice agents – videos that seem more like Germany in the 1930s than any golden vision of the US as it approaches its 250th birthday.Only a huckster would boast of a golden age when his public approval ratings are deep underwater. According to a CBS/YouGov poll in early October, 58% of the US public disapproves of Trump’s performance, while 42% approve. Another poll found that 62% of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.As part of his golden vision, Trump promised good times for working-class Americans, but 74% of the US public says the economy is in poor or fair condition and nearly two-thirds oppose his signature policy of tariffs and more tariffs. In a big thumbs down for Trump, 53% of the public says his policies are making the economy worse.Candidate Trump promised that prices would begin falling on his first day back as president, but prices have continued to climb since he returned to office, partly because of the tariffs he’s imposed. What’s more, Trump’s tariff mania has created so much economic uncertainty that job growth has slowed hugely under Trump compared with under Joe Biden. According to Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, there was “essentially no job growth” in September.Trump promised blue-collar Americans he would increase manufacturing and the number of factory jobs, but factory activity has declined for seven straight months, and factory employment has fallen since April, too. There’s nothing golden about any of that.Showing Americans’ increased pessimism under Trump, a Wall Street Journal-Norc poll found in September that the share of Americans who say they have a good chance of improving their standard of living has fallen to just 25%, a record low in surveys taken since 1987.The 10 million Americans who will lose health coverage because of Trump’s One Big (Not So) Beautiful Bill Act probably don’t consider this a golden age. Likewise with the 22 million Americans whose health insurance premiums will double on average, often soaring by thousands of dollars, unless Trump and congressional Republicans extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.Scientists complain that Trump is singlehandedly ending America’s golden age of scientific research with his deep, myopic cuts – cuts that could end US leadership in medicine and other vital fields of research. At the same time, Robert F Kennedy Jr is undermining trust in vaccines, with the US seeing the highest number of measles cases since Bill Clinton was in office and signed a law establishing free universal vaccinations for children.It seems like anything but a golden age for justice when the Department of Justice indicts the former FBI director James Comey and the New York state attorney general Letitia James after Trump in effect ordered prosecutors to get them (or get fired). Nor does one feel golden about the attorney general Pam Bondi not only stonewalling a Senate hearing (especially when asked about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein), but insulting several senators – she called Adam Schiff of California a “failed lawyer”. In the same crude vein, a White House spokesperson slimed the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, calling him “an incompetent slob”. It doesn’t look like transparency or civility are part of Trump’s golden age.Trump can’t possibly feel golden about an August poll that found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe he is corrupt, with 45% viewing him as “very corrupt”.When Trump spoke at the UN in September, the assembled diplomats must have thought it was a dark age for US diplomacy, not a golden one, when Trump berated them by saying: “Your countries are going to hell.” The next day, Britain’s Daily Mirror ran a front-page photo of Trump with the headline: “DERANGED – World’s Most Powerful Man-Baby.”In his inauguration speech, Trump said: “From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world.” But people from many countries are giving low marks to second-term Trump. When Pew asked residents of various countries whether they have confidence that Trump will do the right thing in world affairs, in Canada 77% of respondents said they had no confidence, while 22% had confidence. In Mexico, 91% had no confidence. In Germany 81% had no confidence, while 18% had confidence. In the UK, 62% had no confidence to 37% who had confidence.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince Trump returned to office, many countries’ views of the US have soured substantially and not just because they’re livid about Trump’s tariff war. It’s harder than ever to view the US as a bulwark of democracy and freedom, considering that Trump has embraced Vladimir Putin, deployed troops to major cities, declared war on leading universities, dispatched masked agents to make mass arrests, and pushed to indict his political enemies. In Mexico, the favorability rating of the US has plummeted 32 percentage points since 2024, to just 29%, while in Canada, it has fallen 20 points to just 34% favorable. In Sweden, the US’s favorability rating is down 28 points to 19%, and in Germany it’s down 16 points, to 33%.I’m sure that many rightwing, “don’t tread on me” Americans don’t see this as a golden age. I can’t imagine they like seeing masked agents snatching people off the streets or Black Hawk helicopters descending on apartment buildings or Ice agents bashing in doors and windows. That’s not what freedom looks like.Even the country music star Zach Bryan – a navy veteran who calls himself “confused” politically – is complaining, with a new song saying Ice “is going to come bust down your door” and “the middle finger’s rising, and it won’t stop showing/ Got some bad news / The fading of the red, white and blue.”Trump, the salesman and showman, always feels the need to boast – to brag that things are the best ever under him. But his high disapproval ratings at home and abroad suggest many people think he is ushering in a dark age – an age of disinformation and division, of suppressing critics and indicting enemies, of taking one authoritarian, anti-democratic action after another.For a lucky few, it is a golden age. For the craftsmen hired to gild Trump’s Oval Office and his humongous new ballroom, it’s certainly a golden payday. As they grow ever richer, the country’s billionaires are no doubt basking in this new gilded age as Trump slashes their taxes, strips away regulations and steers deals to his buddies (like Larry Ellison, the world’s second-richest person). And Trump no doubt thinks it is a golden age for himself as he grabs ever more power, dominates the headlines, enriches himself further and decorates the White House with ever more gold.But to millions of us it feels like the opposite of a golden age as Trump takes a wrecking ball to truth, democracy and the rule of law. In declaring that it is a golden age, Trump is like the fraudster who says: “I have some wonderful, shiny gold I’ll sell you for $4,000 an ounce.” But in truth it’s just worthless fool’s gold.No one should be fooled by Trump’s delusional boasts.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump calls Colombia president ‘illegal drug dealer’ as US says it hit another ship

      by

      Donald Trump on Sunday accused Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being an “illegal drug dealer” and threatened to immediately cut US funding to the country as the defense secretary confirmed in a social media post an attack on a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that US forces had attacked another vessel, this time associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group. Hegseth, in a post on X, said “three terrorists were killed” in the operation which was “conducted in international waters”.“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are – they will be hunted, and killed.”In a post on Truth Social just hours earlier, Trump blamed the South American leftwing leader for encouraging the mass production of illegal drugs, saying he “does nothing to stop it, despite large-scale payments and subsidies from the US”.“Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately,” Trump wrote, “or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”.The remarks come after Petro said the US committed “murder” following a strike on an alleged drug boat in Colombian territorial waters in September.Posting on X on Saturday, Petro said: “US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” adding “we await explanations from the US government.”The threat to cut off aid marks the latest point of tension between the two nations, despite historically, Colombia being one of the United States’s closest allies in Latin America.The victim of the strike was identified by Petro as Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman from the coastal town of Santa Marta. He was allegedly killed when US forces fired at his boat on 15 September.“Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing,” Petro wrote. “The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.”But Trump has continued to justify the necessity for these ongoing boat attacks, despite his administration offering little information about the vessels or the identities of those on board.On Thursday, the US moved to send two survivors of the most recent strike – the sixth since early September – overseas instead of seeking long-term military detention for them.“The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution,” Trump said.The strike targeted a semi-submersible vessel which the president said “was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.” Two crew members were killed and experts said the decision to repatriate the survivors meant the US military would avoid complex legal questions surrounding the detention of suspected drug traffickers. This was the first recorded instance of there being survivors, an official told NBC.“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump posted in the aftermath of the attack.So far, at least 29 people have been killed in strikes the administration upholds are targeting drug traffickers, raising alarm among some legal experts and Democratic lawmakers, who question whether they adhere to the laws of war.Currently, the US is building up a prominent military presence in the Caribbean and bordering coastlines, one that includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 jets, and the authorization of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.Colombia is the recipient of the largest amount of US aid to any country in Latin America and former president Joe Biden designated the nation as a major non-Nato ally in 2022. While Congress allocated $377.5m for foreign assistance for the country in 2024 with similar projections for 2025, there were restrictions put in place out of concern for Petro’s policies and his efforts to counteract the drug trade.In September, the Trump administration asserted that Colombia was failing to cooperate in the drug war, adding them to a list of other nations for the first time in almost 30 years.More recently, they said they would revoke Petro’s visa while he was in New York for the UN general assembly after his “reckless” actions at a pro-Palestine protest. Petro had urged US soldiers to “disobey Trump’s order”, and “not point their rifles at humanity”.In reaction to Trump’s most recent accusations and funding cuts, Petro responded in a post on X saying: “I respect the history, culture, and people of the USA. They are not my enemies, nor do I feel them as such.”He added at the end: “The problem is with Trump, not with the USA.” More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Major highway in California to shut down as US marines fire live artillery over it

      by

      A celebration marking the US marines’ 250th anniversary will shut down a major freeway artery through southern California on Saturday as the military plans to fire live 155mm artillery shells over the site.The California highway patrol announced the closure at 6am Saturday, saying it would shut down an approximately 17-mile (27km) stretch of Interstate 5 for four hours near Camp Pendleton, a 125,000-acre (50,585-hectare) base in Oceanside in north-western San Diego county. The closure will remain in effect from 11am to 3pm.The event in question will include a live-fire amphibious capabilities demonstration at Red Beach, according to a statement from the US marine corps. JD Vance, a former enlisted marine who served in Iraq, is scheduled to speak to at least 15,000 marines, sailors, veterans and families expected to attend. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth will also deliver remarks.“The capabilities demonstration will feature integrated Navy and Marine Corps operations across air, land and sea,” the Marines’ statement said.The US Marine Corps insisted that the event will comply with established safety protocols, and “no public highways or transportation routes will be closed”.The CHP said in a statement that the military event will involve “live ammunition being discharged by the federal government over the freeway” and made the call to temporarily close a portion of the freeway due to the safety risk and distractions to drivers.Earlier in the week, California governor Gavin Newsom had decried the plans to fire live rounds over Interstate 5, calling it an “absurd show of force” and “totally uncalled for ”.On Saturday morning, Newsom was concerned that the stunt could put Californians in harm’s way. “Flying live rounds over a busy highway without coordination between state, federal, and local partners isn’t just wrong – it’s dangerous,” Newsom posted on social media.The criticism underscored the growing tensions between Donald Trump and the California governor, who has frequently called out decisions by the president’s administration.This celebration was granted no exception from Newsom’s ire. “Using our military to intimidate people you disagree with politically doesn’t make you look strong,” Newsom said. “It makes you look weak. It’s reckless, it’s disrespectful, and yet another action beneath the office of the presidency.”Earlier in October, the navy hosted the president aboard an aircraft carrier off the coast of Virginia to celebrate the same military anniversary. Trump turned that event into a political rally.This show of force coincides with No Kings rallies and marches being held across the US, including several locations in California, aligning behind a message that the nation’s slide into authoritarian rule under Trump needs to stop.Newsom cautioned those participating in the rallies: “I urge our nation to use this weekend’s No Kings marches as a declaration of independence against the tyranny and lawlessness currently running this country. Use your voice. ACT PEACEFULLY. Protect yourself and your community. THERE ARE NO KINGS IN THE UNITED STATES.”In a statement to the New York Times, a spokesperson for Vance, William Martin, said Newsom was misleading the public about the safety risk for the event on Saturday. He said it was routine training.“If Gavin Newsom wants to oppose the training exercises that ensure our Armed Forces are the deadliest and most lethal fighting force in the world, then he can go right ahead,” Martin said.Matt Rocco, the California department of transportation spokesperson, said: “This is all because of the White House-directed military event, that for the safety of the public, we need to shut down the freeway since they’re sending live ordnances over the freeway.”Rocco said the I5 closure could cost up to another two hours of trip time for those commuting between San Diego and Los Angeles. The freeway carries 80,000 travelers and $94m in freight through the corridor daily, according to the governor’s office. Passenger rail services running parallel to the I5 have also been canceled for the afternoon. More