General

Wikileaks: USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network”

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https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1888072129327083979

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives. The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN. Bourgault’s IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted. IN has at least six captive subsidiaries under unrelated names including one based out of the Cayman Islands. Since 2008, when electronic records begin, more than 95% of IN’s budget has been supplied by the US government (thread follows)

 

Ye Tweets on Jewish Power and on Jews Hating White people

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Another Ye Tweet:

STRAIGHT WHITE AMERICANS GET BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING THE JEWS TEACH BLACK PEOPLE TO HATE WHITE PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY HATE WHITE PEOPLE WHILE THE JEWS CONTROL NIGGAS WITH MISEDUCATION AND CONTROL OF THE BANKS THE JEWS PLAY VICTIM WHEN THEY ARE THE TRUE EARTHLY HIDDEN POWER AND OPPRESSORS

https://x.com/kanyewest/status/1888300344050163941

Kanye embarks on a new antisemitic spree on X, saying, ‘I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments’

“ELON THEY KICKED ME OFF OF INSTAGRAM SO HAPPY YOU BOUGHT X,” Ye tweeted early in his spree.

Kanye West seen in Los Angeles, May 13, 2023. (MEGA/GC Images)
By Philissa Cramer 

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, flooded the social network X with antisemitic comments early Friday morning, in a repeat of the spree that cost him his fashion deals and public esteem two years ago.

In dozens of tweets to his 32 million followers, Ye praised Hitler [“soooo fresh“], called himself a Nazi and said antisemitism was “just some bulls–t Jewish people made up to protect their bulls–t.”

He also emphasized that he was unrepentant and in control of his faculties. “AMY JEWISH PERSON THAT DOES BUSINESS WITH ME NEEDS TO KNOW I DONT LIKE OR TRUST ANY JEWISH PERSON AMD THIS IS COMPLETELY SOBER WITH NO HENNESY,” he wrote in all caps, adding, “IM NEVER APOLOGIZING FOR MY JEWISH COMMENTS.”

The spree was reminiscent of what happened in October 2022, when Ye made a string of antisemitic comments on TV, Twitter and Instagram. He was soon booted off the social media platforms and was invited back to Twitter the next month, as Elon Musk took over the platform, but was once again suspended. He was reinstated again in 2023 as Musk rebranded Twitter as X. Ye also dined with Donald Trump and Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and Holocaust denier, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate during this period.

 

 

JTA: 34 liberal Jewish groups sign statement defending DEI as an ‘invaluable tool’

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34 liberal Jewish groups sign statement defending DEI as an ‘invaluable tool’

The statement comes at a time when DEI is under fire from the Trump administration and within some Jewish communities.

Dozens of liberal Jewish groups have signed a letter defending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives at a time when such efforts are under fire from the Trump administration, and after some Jews have accused DEI programs of fueling antisemitism.

“Jewish tradition teaches of the Divine spark in every person [except Palestinians],” the statement begins. “As Jewish groups that are committed to protecting and advancing the safety and security of our community, we know we have an invaluable tool to leverage: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.”

The statement, led by the Union for Reform Judaism, is the latest by a coalition of Jewish groups vocally opposing signature Trump administration policies. It follows letters against his immigration crackdowns and against the barring of transgender girls from women’s sports.

The letter says DEI is an outgrowth of the civil rights movement and of fights against the institutionalized American antisemitism of the mid-20th century. And it pointed to federal agencies canceling Holocaust remembrance activities. [“The Pentagon’s intelligence arm has issued a memo pausing any activities related to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Black History Month, LBGTQ+ Pride Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day, among other “special observances,” according to a defense official who confirmed the authenticity of the memo.”] in order to accord with a ban on DEI programs.

The statement also acknowledges that opposition to DEI isn’t limited to conservatives. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, some Jews have argued repeatedly that DEI is to blame for the widespread protests against Israel on campus. For example, the journalist Dara Horn wrote that DEI targets “people in our society [who] have too much power and too much privilege” — which plays into antisemitic tropes about Jews wielding too much control.

But the statement says Jews should not give up on DEI, including because doing so would put LGBTQ Jews or Jews of color at risk.

“Some Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion champions have spoken or acted in ways that have caused us pain, including through overt expressions of antisemitism, and others have shared visions of the future that differ from our own,” it said, adding, “It is for each of us to do the work of opening the doors of opportunity for all. It is not only possible, but necessary, to advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts in a way that is truly inclusive of Jewish safety, identities, and history.”

In addition to Reform institutions, the letter was signed by groups including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the National Council of Jewish Women, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Reconstructing Judaism and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.

DEI Hires Unite!

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DEI Hires Unite!

Last week, Donald Trump unaccountably blamed DEI for the catastrophic plane crash in Washington, D.C. — a claim that was “baseless” and “without evidence,” as noted a very reasonable 1 million times by the media. Nonetheless, the usual disinformation merchants took up Trump’s smear, yipping with joy when it came out that the pilot of the Black Hawk helicopter was a woman. (Imagine, dying in the line of duty — and for just 70% of what her male counterparts were being paid!)

The family bravely refused to release her name, knowing that trolls were ready to pounce with questions about her “competence.” But then they relented over the weekend, and we found out that the pilot was Capt. Rebecca Lobach — who, by the way, was in the top 20% of Army ROTC cadets in the ENTIRE country! The Daily Beast reported that her Army career was “brilliant,” as did a friend in ROTC training with her at college. Sabrina Bell (another friend), said Lobach was “meticulous in everything she did.”

Enough said! That obviously should have ended the matter. But Trump’s relentless attacks on DEI come right on the heels of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stating, during his nomination hearings, that the military routinely lowers standards for women. With these aspersions on DEI running rampant, a strong response is needed.

Instead of suppressing inquiries into Capt. Lobach’s abilities, her family should demand an immediate and detailed investigation into her service record, her test scores and specifically, her performance on the night of Jan. 29. I’m sure we will find out that, far from getting a pass, she had to be better than her male colleagues just to reach the same point.

As MSNBC’s Joy Reid pointed out in 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s elevation to the Supreme Court provided “a great lesson for the way that black women have to over, over, OVER perform, just to get to where people who are far less intelligent … get for free.”

White guys, Reid noted, like Sens. Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham — and any white men involved in the D.C. crash, I might add — are given a free ride because “their dad … or their grandparents had their name on the building.” (Boy, if I had a nickel for every white guy I know who’s had a building named after his grandfather!) By contrast, women — especially black women! — “had to work their way [up].”

Investigators should bear in mind that Capt. Lobach was surely a victim of “mansplaining.” But as the helicopter pilot, she was in charge. (Fortunately, she was a certified sexual harassment/assault response and prevention victim advocate and would know how to handle any mansplaining.)

After all, this isn’t the first time women in the military have been falsely accused of being unqualified just because of their gender. Kara Hultgreen was one of the first two female pilots qualified to fly the $38 million F-14 Tomcat fighter jet. In October 1994, her jet suffered a crash, which, tragically, she did not survive.

Soon, so-called “whistleblowers” were faxing media organizations nasty innuendo about Hultgreen’s abilities, charging that she was unfit to fly the Tomcat, but had been promoted to fill apocryphal gender “quotas.”

Navy experts immediately defended Hultgreen from these false accusations. Her training commander, Capt. Tom Sobieck, reminded The New York Times, “We have one standard, and everyone has to meet that.”

In short order, the Navy put an end to the nonsense by releasing the result of an internal investigation: Hultgreen’s plane had crashed because of mechanical failure, not pilot error. Rear Adm. Jay B. Yakeley went on the record to confirm that the Navy had concluded that the cause was engine failure. Vice Adm. Robert Spane said: “This was a gender-neutral accident.”

On ABC’s “World News Tonight,” anchor Peter Jennings could finally announce that Hultgreen was “blameless,” labeling her critics “vicious.” “Nightline” reported that she had been “vindicated” and “cleared of blame.” A Times editorial on the Navy’s exoneration of Hultgreen suggested that her anonymous critics might want to be “gender neutral” themselves when “the next servicewoman dies in the line of duty.”

I expect much the same will happen after a thorough investigation of Capt. Lobach’s handling of the Black Hawk.

CORRECTION: Five months after Hultgreen’s crash, an anonymous informant sent the real report to the Navy Times, which posted it on the internet. It turned out the accident was entirely Hultgreen’s fault. The Navy investigation found that she overshot the approach, and in trying to correct, stalled out the left engine, then became confused and lost awareness of flight indicators, didn’t inform her back-seat partner of the problem, and failed to eject in time.

Admittedly, that was a setback. But consider that it took five months for the truth to emerge — and, five months from now, Trump will probably have already been impeached again. He needs to be humiliated PRONTO. DEI hangs in the balance.

Plan B?

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What’s Plan B? Let the Israelis kill all 2 million Gazans (or what’s left of the) and then the West Bank Palestinians?

NYTimes: Top Trump administration officials on Wednesday walked back elements of President Trump’s proposal to “take over” Gaza and drive out the Palestinian population, insisting that he had not committed to using U.S. troops to clear the territory and that any relocation of Palestinians would be temporary.

Meanwhile, Israel is destroying Palestinian enclaves on the West Bank

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Basically unreported in the West. “Mirroring the “fire belt” strategy that Israel has employed in Gaza since October 7 — involving the concentrated and repetitive bombing of small areas that destroy entire residential blocks.”

Trump seems to think it would be great if Palestinians were removed from the West Bank: “On Monday, Trump responded to a journalist’s question during a briefing in Washington about whether he would support the annexation of the West Bank by Israel, saying that he “won’t comment” on the topic, although adding that Israel was “very small in terms of land” compared to the rest of the Middle East, comparing it to a pen’s size on the surface of a desk. “That’s not good,” he said.”

Mondoweiss: Curfews, demolitions and airstrikes: Israel expands West Bank offensive to Tulkarem, Jordan Valley

Palestinains say life has been “paralyzed” as Israel expands its military operations to Tulkarem and the northern Jordan Valley. Ground troops have been deployed, imposing curfews and carrying out home demolitions, forcibly displacing thousands.
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Israeli soldiers block an empty road in the northern West Bank
Israeli soldiers close down a road in the northern Jordan Valley, following a shooting at a nearby checkpoint that killed two Israeli soldiers and injured at least eight others. February 04, 2025. (Photo by Mohammed Nasser/ apaimages)

Israel intensified its offensive in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, extending military operations from the city of Jenin to include Tulkarem and its adjacent refugee camp as well as the town of Tammoun near Tubas, which overlooks the Jordan Valley.

Early on Tuesday, Israeli forces pushed hundreds of troops into Tulkarem, imposing a total curfew on the city while raiding the Tulkarem refugee camp. Israeli forces reportedly demolished several houses and forced residents to leave, while Israeli drones launched multiple airstrikes on locations within the town of Tammoun, including twice within a single hour, as Israeli troops imposed a total curfew on the town.

Israel’s escalation on Tuesday came following a shooting attack carried out by a Palestinian man on an Israeli military base adjacent to the Tayaseer checkpoint in the northern Jordan Valley. The shooter infiltrated the base and took control of a watchtower before opening fire at troops inside the base, according to Israeli reports. The shooting resulted in the killing of an officer and a soldier and the wounding of eight others. The attacker was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers on site.

Israeli forces tightened closures on checkpoints across the West Bank following the shooting, restricting movement in and out of cities, including Nablus and Ramallah, and delaying transportation for hours in several locations.

Dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” Israel launched its ongoing offensive in the northern West Bank in mid-January. Israeli war minister Israel Katz has stated that Israel will later expand its offensive to the rest of the West Bank. The offensive has so far killed 29 Palestinians within the span of two weeks while displacing thousands. According to local authorities, 90% of the population of the Jenin refugee camp and 75% of Tulkarem refugee camp has been forced to leave under Israeli bombardment.

On Monday, the Israeli army detonated an entire residential block composed of 21 apartment buildings in Jenin, mirroring the “fire belt” strategy that Israel has employed in Gaza since October 7 — involving the concentrated and repetitive bombing of small areas that destroy entire residential blocks.

Tulkarem raid displaces thousands

In Tulkarem, life has been “paralyzed,” says Mu’men Hamed, a resident of Tulkarem and member of Jadayel, a local cultural association that has shifted its work to first response and humanitarian assistance ever since Israel intensified its military crackdown in Tulkarem in the wake of October 7, 2023.

“There is no commerce in the streets; shops are closed, schools are closed, too, and streets are empty of residents,” Hamed told Mondoweiss. “Only Israeli soldiers are present.”

“People are confined to their homes and can’t go to work or open their businesses. We as local associations try to get food, medicine, and blankets to the most needy families, but it’s extremely difficult to reach some places, especially the Tulkarem refugee camp,” Hamed went on.

“The most difficult part is the displaced people who have been forced out of their homes in the Tulkarem camp. They are in the thousands with no place to go,” he said. “About ten associations in the city are trying to find places to accommodate them, but it’s not easy to find enough apartments for free, let alone the ability to meet their basic needs. It’s hardest with families with children and the elderly or the sick.”

Hamed said that even Tulkarem’s city center, which is usually a vibrant commercial area, is paralyzed. “Although people are still allowed to leave the city and come back, most people stay at home, bracing for the home demolitions to expand from the camp to other parts of the city. We are expecting the worst.”

West Bank assault expands to northern Jordan Valley

Tammoun, a busy town that is considered a services and trade hub for the northern Jordan Valley, has been turned into “a ghost town” by the Israeli offensive, according to Tammoun’s mayor, Sameer Bisharat.

“The occupation has imposed a strict curfew on all of Tammoun, even using airstrikes to warn people against leaving their homes. Today alone, there were six warning strikes,” Bisharat told Mondoweiss on Tuesday. “One of them hit a location only 50 meters away from where two children were walking, but fortunately none of them were hurt.”

“The people of Tammoun are mostly farmers, and their lands are to the east of the town on the slopes of the Jordan Valley. They’re now being prevented from reaching their lands, and the marketplace in Tammoun is paralyzed, so the surrounding towns and villages are lacking a vital market for their necessities, including food,” Bisharat explained.

“I am going around the town with an ambulance team, and the only voices we can hear are our own,” he pointed out. “Ambulance crews are forced to ask permission from the occupation army to reach any place in the town, and the permit takes hours to be granted.”

“We are also facing difficulty in delivering food and other basic needs to homes due to the occupation’s restrictions on movement in the town,” Bisharat added.

Israeli forces have also engaged in demolitions and the displacement of several cities throughout the town, replicating the tactics the Israeli army has employed in Jenin over the past several weeks. “The occupation forces have destroyed the outside wall of a school and forced 20 families to leave their homes,” Bisharat explained. “We have accommodated them in other houses in the town, but we fear that more families will be displaced in the coming days.”

Bisharat expressed concern for the future of Tammoun, a once-vibrant town overlooking the Jordan Valley that has now been thrown into uncertainty. “I witnessed many raids carried out by the occupation army in my life, but none like this one,” he explained. “This time, the occupation seems determined to destroy life in the town and displace its population, just like in the rest of the West Bank. I am very worried about the near future.”

The attacks on the West Bank come as Israel and Hamas began the second round of talks over the ceasefire deal in Gaza on Tuesday, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with U.S. president Donald Trump in Washington. Analysts have speculated the U.S. might give a green-light to Israel to intensify its war on Palestinians in the West Bank, in preparation for its full annexation, in exchange for Israel holding the ceasefire deal in Gaza.

On Monday, Trump responded to a journalist’s question during a briefing in Washington about whether he would support the annexation of the West Bank by Israel, saying that he “won’t comment” on the topic, although adding that Israel was “very small in terms of land” compared to the rest of the Middle East, comparing it to a pen’s size on the surface of a desk. “That’s not good,” he said.