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• ¡Hugo Chávez presente, Maduro presidente!
• Beware of flying on commercial airlines in racist USA
• Kamala Harris is ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden’s choice
• Justice for Sonya Massey! Disarm the terrorist police!
• Illegal sale of Palestinian land
• Protesters rally against sales of stolen Palestinian lands in Los Angeles
• Pursuing wider war: ‘Israel’ drafts Haredi Jews
• We’re still marching for Palestine at the DNC
• Cheers for a war criminal, pepper spray for protesters
• Is J.D. Vance a populist?
• Rest in power Nguyễn Phú Trọng!
• Women in Struggle repudiates right-wing violence in Venezuela
• Take Cuba off terrorism list, end U.S. blockade
• Los engaños de los beneficiaries millonarios de la Ley
• Vence la Clase Trabajadora Contra la Suiza Dairy
• Mujeres en Lucha repudia violencia derechista en Venezuela

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) – The Iranian mission to the United Nations said in a letter to the UN Security Council shared with Sputnik that an Israeli rocket strike that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh could not have occurred without the authorization and intelligence support of the United States.

“The responsibility of the United States, as the strategic ally and main supporter of the Israeli regime in the region, cannot be overlooked in this horrific crime. This act could not have occurred without the authorization and intelligence support of the U.S.,” the letter said.

The letter stated that “such a heinous crime, targeting a high-ranking official guest, is a serious infringement on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It also constitutes a blatant violation of international law, the letter said.

The Iranian mission called on the Security Council to take immediate action to ensure Israel’s accountability for its acts of aggression, including “the potential imposition of sanctions and other measures.”

“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
-Elon Musk, July 25, 2020, Twitter

Once again, as in 2002, Venezuela has been the victim of a combined media and diplomatic coup attempt, but this time with the added element of organized crime and a cyber-attack.

Millions of eligible voters cast their electronic ballots before the presence of more than 635 international witnesses including electoral experts of the United Nations, the African Union, and electoral staff of 65 countries. How many international witnesses are allowed for the USA or Canadian elections? None.

Nicolás Maduro was re-elected with 51.2% of votes (5,150,092 votes), and the far-right candidate Edmundo González lost with 44.2% of votes (4,445,978 votes). The other 8 opposition leaders received 4.6% of the total votes cast. This is the statistically irreversible results given out by the constitutional Electoral Authority (CNE) on election day, 28 July 2024, having examined and audited 80% of the votes. These results were audited 16 times.

However, the rest of the 20% votes have not yet (at the writing of this article) been released because of a massive cyber-attack. The elements of the electronic system that transmit the results to the central point were hacked over a hundred times in a most sophisticated manner that was traced to North Macedonia.

The Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, named as responsible for this cyber-attack:  Lester Toledo, Leopoldo López, and M. Corina Machado.  Furthermore, President Maduro implicated Elon Musk, considering him a far-right fanatic who has the technology to pull an attack like this and has many times denigrated Venezuela. It is alleged that Musk supported the supposed “humanitarian” invasion of Venezuela through Colombia in 2019.  He famously said “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” Musk must desire Venezuela’s lithium, apart from its oil and gold.

Ironically, in the USA there is no constitutional or other law that demands that election results be declared on Election Day. In fact, in that supposed beacon of democracy, for much of the 19th Century, it took days if not weeks for the winner to be declared.” And much more recently:

• In 2000, Bush won the presidency over Al Gore with only 537 votes; there was a delay of 37 days before the results were released and was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
• In 2021, Biden won over Trump with 51.3% of votes, (almost exactly as Maduro has won now), Trump obtaining 46.8%. There was a delay of 4 days before the final results were given out, and only certified by the Electoral College after 33 days. Trump launched 63 lawsuits contesting the results and still insists they were bogus.

Yet today, like a pack of vicious hyenas, the fascist far right – and not so far right – nations and NGOs are howling for Venezuela to release the detailed results immediately. The implication being that there is some sort of fraud or hidden trick. They DEMAND that the Electoral Authority (CNE) release the remaining votes, which the world should know are not little pieces of paper in a cardboard box. In Venezuela the vote is done electronically, the paper trail is only an added security measure to show that someone has duly voted.

President Maduro has formally asked the Venezuelan Supreme Court to settle any discrepancy about the vote, just as George Bush asked of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020.

Many of us who analyze the Venezuelan situation predicted it earlier: the far right, fascist group led by M. Corina Machado and her puppet candidate in Edmundo Gonzalez, had no electoral intention. Clue: unlike other candidates from the opposition, they refused to sign the agreement among candidates to respect the results and reject any violence after the results came in.  Because that is exactly what they planned. Even before the results were in Machado was telling her formidable social media networks that Gonzalez had overwhelmingly won the election.

We wondered why Machado insisted on traveling the country to campaign. Now the Attorney General has found out why: under the cover of campaigning, she was paying off bands of real criminals she grouped in what she called “comanditos’ (little commands). These were common criminals trained in Colombia, with the help of the Colombian narco ex-presidents of Alvaro Uribe and Duque, and gangs of organized crime, who were paid up to $150 a day to burst onto the scene the day after the elections. There was a clear plan with strategic targets laid out for every “comandito.”  It was also discovered that a great number of them were trained terrorists who arrived in Venezuela under the cover of Venezuelan migrants who were returned by plane from the USA.

Images have been flashed these past few days around the world of individuals setting fires and burning tires who are portrayed invariably as “the people” rejecting the fraud of the elections. In fact, “the people”, whether Chavistas or anti-Chavistas, peaceful people in the great majority, were snug in their homes, having nothing to do with this terrorism. What did these supposed freedom fighters do?  They looted, burned and destroyed stores, schools, clinics, food warehouses, plazas, electricity plants, PSUV headquarters, police stations, water plants, and destroyed statues.

They injured 77 members of the police and armed forces, killing one officer by a bullet to his neck, not to mention the many social leaders dragged out of their homes and assaulted. In each area they had lists of the social community leaders identified with Bolivarianism, attacked and set fire to their houses and physically beat them up, women included, threatening to kill them and anyone in the town that supported the government. The government has set a special fund to help these victims.

These criminals had a specific plan. They were trained, armed, and received part of their pay in drugs. The blood tests done on every one of those caught show the presence of drugs.  In certain areas, they combined with organized bands of narco-paramilitary. The overall plan was to knock out the electricity supply to 10 states, create chaos, attack and march to Miraflores (the main government house) and capture or kill the president, and prepare the way for foreign intervention.

How do we know all this?  Firstly, because the terrorists are being rounded up, alive, without killing any one of them and they are talking. The terrorists aren’t fighting for any ideology or democracy, they are craven cowards that assault defenseless people, but when caught, fall on their knees crying and telling everything they know to the authorities. And because today:

• There are security cameras everywhere, and it seems everybody has a phone camera to catch their horrible deeds.
• There is a real Attorney General, not a vile traitor as before.
• There are now anti-terrorist laws that were previously missing to enable such violence to be dealt with through the courts.

There is a great difference today from the street violence of 2015 and 2017, “guarimbas” images of which were flashed around the world to convey that Venezuela was in chaos and should be “intervened.”  At that time, Venezuelans watched, disgusted, and astounded as the violent criminals were never arrested for assaults, arson, and deaths. The then Attorney General, Luisa Ortega, who spent years destroying the institution, gave strict orders that these street criminals were not to be arrested because they were “exercising their democratic right.” It turned out she was a mercenary traitor piling up millions of dollars the CIA gave her and is now living in great luxury in the USA where she fled when her crimes were discovered.

Following these events, the National Assembly passed modern anti-terrorist laws that now include these heinous crimes against the peace, which the Constitution did not have when it was first written in 1999.  Now, there will be no impunity; so far, there are 1,062 arrested who will go to trial. They are confessing readily with practically no promptings. It is to the great credit of the Venezuelan police and military that they have not caught these terrorists by shooting them – as it might happen in other countries that will remain nameless. No bodies, no dead terrorists: all captured alive up to now.

What would the governments of the USA, Canada or Europe do if bands of armed people set fires, assaulted and shot officials and members of the public, and terrorized their towns and cities? For sure they would be caught in a heartbeat and could very well end up being shot on sight.

President Maduro has said: we have seen this film before. The Bolivarian government under Chávez and Maduro has had since 1999, had 31 elections, and always the extreme right opposition has yelled fraud. That is, they recognize the elections when they have gained places in the National Assembly, state governments, and mayoralties. Very convenient: if they win, the elections are legitimate, if they lose, they are a fraud. This has happened over and over again but the international media never seem to pick up on this or do not want to.

We are in the presence of an attempt of the international fascist far right and the CIA to overthrow the government of Venezuela with a massive disinformation and denigration campaign to justify illegal sanctions and foreign intervention in the country.

The checkered past and crimes of Machado, poster girl of the far right, is never mentioned, her involvement in coups, her promotion of street violence in the past, her asking the USA for sanctions and military invasion against Venezuela, and right now, her collaboration with criminal gangs and narco-paramilitary groups are never mentioned. Her puppet, Edmundo González, was involved in the logistics and financing of the death squads in El Salvador’s civil war. Their hands are tainted with blood.

But this is another universe from the one in 2015 and 2017. Venezuela is strong and prepared. Its economy has diversified and grown, despite the sanctions. It no longer depends exclusively on the U.S. oil market – the whole world wants its oil. Even the USA needs Venezuelan oil for its refineries in Louisiana and Texas to keep the price of gasoline down in a crucial presidential election year.

The spectre that arises for the West is that their chickens have come home to roost: after decades of denigrating and harming Venezuela with a vicious hybrid war, Venezuela has turned to the East for its friends and allies. Russia and China have stood by Venezuela and its electoral process; Turkey, Iran, India, OPEC, and soon the Non-Aligned nations will also rally to its side as it is made clear that the purpose of the far right was not to win an election but to provoke a coup. And the “piéce de resistance” is that the BRIC, considering Venezuela a strategic partner, is poised to welcome it as a full member. This will open many more opportunities for Venezuelan development than Europe, the USA and Canada have done and who have treated Venezuela so badly for so long.

Let us rejoice in the triumph of the Venezuelan people and may they live in peace, secure in their own sovereignty.

Source: Orinoco Tribune

The assassination of Hamas Political Bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh has killed any chance for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza – on terms favorable to Palestinians – and leaves a huge political vacuum within the resistance movement.

The assassination, which took place during an official visit to Tehran for the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, coincided with 300 days of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh was the chief Palestinian negotiator in indirect months-long ceasefire talks with the Israeli delegation, among them Mossad Chief David Barnea, whose organization reportedly executed the shocking kill operation.

This targeting of the head of the political movement reflects Israel’s systematic policy of assassinating leaders who can unify ranks and deepen relations with regional and international powers. This also explains the reasoning behind Israel’s 2 January assassination of Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, the key Hamas figure managing relations between Tehran, Ankara, Lebanon, and Doha.

Haniyeh, too, was distinguished not only by his ability to bridge the vision gap between Hamas’ military and political wings but also by successfully liaising with various regional and international powers and playing a major role advancing the interests of the resistance group in its three target regions – Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and abroad.

Haniyeh’s assassination has created an urgent need to reorganize Hamas’ internal house – particularly urgent given Israel’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza – and reconcile the disparate views of its leaders, such as Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Khaled Meshaal abroad.

Today, nothing would suit Israel more than seeing Meshaal, in particular, regain the reins at Hamas. The former Hamas politburo chief, after all, controversially split up Tel Aviv’s biggest regional adversaries – the Resistance Axis – at the start of the Syrian war by turning his back on the only Arab state member of the Axis, Syria.

It has taken Hamas years to fully reintegrate into the Axis after that betrayal, which is often blamed on Meshaal and his cohorts who decamped from Damascus to Doha. It was only through tireless efforts by leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that Hamas’ relations with the regional resistance were publicly mended.

Meshaal has since suffered the indignity of being spurned by Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah leaders, so his return to the top would be manna to Israeli ears – even though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, almost successfully, undertaken to kill Meshaal in 1997.

Those were different times, though, and alliances and interests in the region have shifted many times since. Today, it is the unifying, pro-resistance qualities of leaders like Haniyeh and Arouri that pose a far bigger threat to Israel.

Rising role

Haniyeh was, by consensus, a popular Hamas leader able to straddle the breadth of the Palestinian political community, and led an exceptional career that began with the establishment of the Hamas movement in the 1970s.

He was born in 1964 in the Shati refugee camp, where he lived, breathed, and experienced the suffering of Palestinian refugees in all its painful details. Haniyeh joined Hamas early under the guidance of the charismatic founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. His memorization of the Quran before the age of 14 made him an eloquent preacher – he had a beautiful recitation voice that drew the respect and admiration of many.

Haniyeh toiled alongside Sheikh Yassin in the earliest stages of building important Islamic institutions in Gaza, including the establishment of the Islamic Society and the Islamic University. Despite his young age, Sheikh Yassin relied on him heavily and would call him one of the leaders of the future who would play a great role. Haniyeh joined the Islamic University, became the head of its student council, and then assumed a professorship there after graduation.

Having played a prominent role in the first intifada in 1987, Haniyeh was arrested alongside other Hamas leaders for three years. Although released from Israeli detention in 1991, he was deported a year later with the movement’s leaders to Marj al-Zuhur in Lebanon, where they cemented their resistance mindset before returning to Gaza in 1994.

Under the Oslo Accords, which Hamas strongly rejected, Haniyeh emerged as one of the movement’s most critical voices to politically challenge the agreement, especially in the media. He swiftly rose to become director of Yassin’s office and helped reorganize the Hamas’ security, military, and religious apparatuses in the Gaza Strip, paving the way for the Second Intifada in 2000.

After Israel’s assassination of a stream Hamas leaders, Haniyeh was elected as the movement’s Gaza leader in 2004, which marked a new chapter in the organization’s history – a phase of comprehensive resistance, which culminated in Israel’s troop withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. With a resounding victory for the “Change and Reform” platform Haniyeh led in the 2006 Palestinian elections, he became the head of the first elected Palestinian government in history.

As a government steeped in resistance doctrine that refused to recognize Israel, his administration was placed in direct confrontation with the occupation state. Haniyeh led Gaza and Hamas during three wars launched by Israeli military forces, in which he became a key target for assassination.

In 2017, Haniyeh was elected Hamas leader, succeeding Khaled Meshaal. Although forced to leave Gaza in 2019 for security reasons, he remained a powerful symbol for Palestinians in the strip and ‘abroad,’ able now to communicate regularly with heads of state, international organizations, and global media.

When Israel launched its brutal military assault on Gaza last October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly threatened to assassinate Hamas leaders – despite knowing that targeting Haniyeh would have to be done in a third country. The assassination of Haniyeh is a violation of international law on so many levels: political assassination, breaching the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations, an act of aggression, and the targeting of a diplomatically immune person. Haniyeh was an international and Islamic symbol, and his killing is the stuff that triggers wars.

But will this blow to Hamas and the Palestinian people end their resistance to the occupation and deter them from retaliating against Israel? Decidedly not. Tel Aviv has murdered countless Palestinian leaders, thinkers, politicians, and military commanders in decades past, yet the events of 7 October 2023 took place, unhindered. The resistance and the broad segment of its population that supports these sacrifices wholeheartedly are likely to transform grief into further strength and resolve.

Furthermore, they are calling – alongside West Asia’s entire Axis of Resistance – for a hard retaliation against Israel, a punishment for a heinous crime that violated global laws and conventions.

Current challenges

Hamas has a strong organizational structure that includes its Shura Council and Political Bureau – institutions that play an important role in managing the movement’s affairs and making decisions. This is in addition to the judicial bodies that ensure internal justice and control of disputes.

The killings of Haniyeh and Arouri have left a gaping vacuum in Hamas, both at the leadership level and in its coordination with regional and international allies. But the movement has also historically proven its ability to overcome crises, as demonstrated in the aftermath of an Israeli assassination rampage against most of its leaders in Gaza and the West Bank in 2003 and 2004. Hamas showed remarkable resilience by overcoming its ordeal and went on to expand its clout, develop some astounding military and strategic capabilities, and continue its resistance struggle.

Furthermore, today, Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has stand-alone capabilities, resources, and funding, having expected the deepening of Israel’s siege of Gaza and prepared for that eventuality. In recent days, messages coming from Gaza have emphasized the continuation of Al-Qassam’s military operations.

If anything, Israel’s killing of Haniyeh is interpreted by the resistance as a failure by Tel Aviv to achieve its military goals and a manifestation of deep weakness.

Hamas’ next leader?

Several prominent Hamas officials are likely replacements for Haniyeh. One is Hamas’ Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, who is Haniyeh’s deputy. Sinwar played a major role in engineering Operation Protective Edge with the Qassam Brigades and enjoys very close ties to the movement’s security and military apparatuses. Despite his presence in Gaza, which is experiencing an ongoing war, Sinwar remains a strong leadership option.

Meshaal is expected to play a pivotal role in leading the movement during this transitional period, given his prior experience as head of the political bureau until 2017. Although not a Resistance Axis favorite, Meshaal is familiar with regional political complexities and has strong relations with some key regional states, which could bridge the leadership vacuum for some time.

Although tensions with Iran remain, Meshaal was among those who established relations with Tehran and strengthened cooperation after the Syrian war. He could endeavor to overcome any current differences by emphasizing the importance of Arab and Islamic unity at this crucial juncture, displaying preparedness to continue Hamas’ confrontation with the Israeli occupation, and cleaving closely to the late Haniyeh’s policies.

Other prominent candidates include Nizar Awadallah, secretary of Hamas’ executive committee and political bureau, a leader close to Haniyeh with broad acceptance within the movement. Despite his lack of media exposure, Awadallah’s organizational competencies make him a possible choice.

There’s also Musa Abu Marzouk, a former leader and head of the International Relations Office, who reportedly enjoys deep ties with countries such as China and Russia and is widely accepted within the movement.

Khalil al-Hayya, deputy to Yahya Sinwar and head of the Arab Relations Office, is a politically decisive figure with solid relations with Iran, Qatar, Turkiye, and Egypt. Hayya played an important role in the current ceasefire negotiations, has strong ties with the Resistance Axis, and is in constant contact with Hamas operatives inside and outside of occupied Palestine.

Decades after its inception, Hamas has demonstrated that it is both a political institution and a strong grassroots movement capable of making critical decisions in the most difficult of circumstances.

The Shura Council, which has decision-making authority, will decide who leads the movement at this critical stage. Despite the great challenges facing Hamas – and its cadres on the battlefields of Gaza – it is likely to continue its resistance struggle and rearrange affairs to achieve its goals.

Source: The Cradle

“Let them show the records!” has become the buzzword to refer to Venezuela and its recent electoral process. Nothing less could be expected from those who are the supporters, on the right and “left” of a bourgeois-democratic system for which the Bolivarian Revolution has become, for the last 35 years, an enemy to be destroyed.

“Yes, let them show the details!” some shout imperatively and repeat the Organization of American States (OAS) and all those collateral organizations of the empire, which are accomplices of wars and genocides in different parts of the world. With this simple expression, cradled in a gigantic operation of media terrorism, only broken by a few alternative media spaces, the intention is to express that, as the Venezuelan ultra-right wing said several months before the election, “there is going to be fraud.”

From the indisputable victory of Nicolás Maduro by more than 700 thousand votes, and its consolidation by the National Electoral Council, which is the only body authorized to give the definitive word on what happened on July 28, the campaign of disregard of the Venezuelan popular sovereignty became a slogan. They began to repeat it like parrots, from the ultra-right, passing through the social democrats or faded “progressives,” including some presidents who, even if it is out of gratitude for all that Chávez and Maduro did for their countries, should not join the inquisitive wave. But not only that, even the butcher of a neighborhood in Colombia, the neighbor on the fifth floor in Montevideo, the concierge of that middle-class neighborhood in Sao Paulo, or the teenager in high school in any European country, to whom his Venezuelan classmate commented that Maduro “is a dictator and a murderer”; they all talked to someone about the famous “details.”

No more, no less. The world media tyranny played its hand, and the answer is what we see today. That anyone, anywhere, can take the pleasure of wanting to meddle in the internal politics of Venezuela, and that he does it, by acceptance or total ignorance, on the side of the fascist international. And furthermore, buying a lie of such depth, which is that of not wanting to recognize that in Venezuela, as in any country that has dignity and defends it, the last word is for its people, and the people have already expressed themselves in favor of Maduro’s reelection, reaffirming their loyalty to a revolutionary process initiated by Commander Hugo Chávez, also through the electoral process, in December 1998.

Of course, what is happening now is not a surprise. Especially when it comes from other similar operations, such as those who are turning the Russian Federation into the “murderers” of the  Ukrainian Nazis, generating a worldwide campaign of “Russophobia” that even led to ridiculous prohibitions and even beatings and punishments of all kinds to those who opposed such barbarity. It is worth asking ourselves, what would happen if those who are now so concerned about an election in Venezuela were to agree to condemn, with the same force, Israel for its crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people. Of course, that is another matter, but coincidentally, those who orchestrate media terrorism operations by setting foot in Kiev, in Caracas or in Tel Aviv, are almost always with the same last names, be it Elon Musk, Zuckerberg or some of their disciples skilled in launching trolls or misrepresenting realities.

Now, what bothers them so much about liberated Venezuela is that they fear that Chavismo is here to stay. Precisely, that there is within the democratic canons that the system has prepared to control and rule. However, from the very moment Hugo Chavez buried the “moribund Constitution” of the Fourth Republic, a revolutionary process of direct democracy, popular participation, and step-by-step construction of Caribbean socialism was set in motion, which has caused so much displeasure to the empire and its allies. They cannot tolerate that a country, immensely powerful in natural wealth, should be allowed to self-determine itself, and from that moment on, everything has been done to overthrow Chavismo and thus initiating a new stage of recolonization as they are already doing in Argentina and other countries of the continent. But beyond the power they are deploying to disavow Maduro’s victory, including stoking the fire of a possible coup d’état, everything indicates that the move is going to backfire. First, because of Maduro and his victory, and that the people are willing to defend it in the streets, to the last consequence. If they do not believe it, let them try and they will see what they will find. And on the other hand, Bolivarian Venezuela is not alone, it already is feeling the support of China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and almost all the countries of the Third World, Africa and Asia, since precisely the latter are reflected in Venezuela by all the evils they have also suffered, throughout centuries, by imperialism.

Furthermore, in the same way that it is necessary to reinforce the actions of solidarity with the Palestinian people, denouncing the criminal actions of Zionism, with the same strength we must also enforce the unrestricted defense of the Venezuelan revolutionary process, the triumph of Maduro and the repudiation of all those expressions that, coincide with the fascism of  Milei, the Bolsonaros or their bosses in Washington or Tel Aviv, who all want to turn the Caribbean country into a branch of the empire.

Finally, when very soon, the Venezuelan Justice, to which the reelected president has subordinated himself to, says its last word on the results, and they prove what the people celebrated for the same night of the 28th in front of the Miraflores Palace, what else will the inquisitors of the Revolution ask for then? Will they accept that there is only one reality and not the one they are trying to create by disruption, or will they continue to feed the war against a country that, like Cuba, is a true example of a different world?

The answer is well known, and that is why, in this opportunity, as in so many others, there is no middle path or “third way.” Either one is with Bolivarian Venezuela or one chooses to kneel before the murderers who stimulate internal and external violence in the country of Bolivar and Chavez.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano

Una de las tareas urgentes pendientes que tenemos en Puerto Rico, aparte de la principal que es lograr nuestra independencia y soberanía, es derogar leyes que han sido impuestas por los intereses capitalistas para robarnos nuestro patrimonio y nuestros haberes. Estas leyes, junto a la falta de fiscalización por agencias del gobierno, han ido socavando diferentes áreas de nuestra nación. Desde el entorno territorial al facilitar la compra de áreas prohibidas como zonas marítimo terrestres para construir lujosos establecimientos y residencias que a la vez que impiden el paso a las playas que por constitución pertenecen al pueblo, suponen una mayor y peligrosa erosión de las costas; hasta el impedir la adquisición de una vivienda asequible para la población boricua, que se ve forzada a emigrar.

Y la más importante de estas leyes es la Ley 60 de incentivos fiscales que se otorga a millonarios extranjeros para que inviertan y se muden a Puerto Rico. Sin embargo, lo que esta ley ha atraído es a evasores de contribuciones que operan negocios muchos de ellos turbios y de criptomonedas. Han ido comprando edificios históricos y bloques enteros de residenciales públicos dejando en la calle a sus habitantes, para convertirlos en hoteles o en alquileres de corto plazo. 

Y para colmo, uno de los pocos requisitos que se les imponían a estos beneficiarios de la ley, era donar anualmente a organizaciones sin fines de lucro en PR. Pero un estudio reciente del Centro de Periodismo Investigativo de Puerto Rico, descubrió que muchas de esas donaciones eran de tipo fantasma. 

Por ejemplo, el primer párrafo del reportaje del CPI escribe sobre una de esas organizaciones, llamada Lahar: “no está registrada en Puerto Rico. Cuando se busca el nombre en Google, aparecen esencialmente dos tipos de referencia: una fundación de trabajo comunitario en India que está cerrada de forma permanente y una página para donar por medio de la plataforma PayPal a favor de “Lahar Foundation SSM”. Y sigue diciendo “Esa cuenta de PayPal muestra el logo y el nombre de una organización llamada ECETI, que responde a las siglas de Enlightened Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Se trata de un santuario en el estado de Washington, desde donde la entidad asegura que se establece contacto con extraterrestres”.

Este insulto al pueblo boricua es totalmente ignorado por este estado fallido que administra la colonia y la misma agencia gubernamental que se supone lo fiscalize, es la primera que diculpa este procer criminal. 

Pero esto es sino uno más de los motivos para la constante lucha por nuestra liberación. 

Desde Puerto Rico, para Radio Clarín de Colombia, les habló Berta Joubert-Ceci

Venezuela’s opposition and U.S. media outlets claim there was fraud in the July 28 election based on an exit poll done by U.S. government-linked firm Edison Research, which works with CIA-linked U.S. state propaganda organs and was active in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iraq.

Venezuela’s opposition has claimed that it won the July 28 election, accusing President Nicolás Maduro of “fraud”.

The supposed evidence that Venezuelan opposition leaders and their allies have cited to justify this claim is an exit poll produced by a firm that is closely linked to the U.S. government and does work for U.S. state propaganda outlets that were founded by the CIA.

A New Jersey-based company called Edison Research published an exit poll on the day of the election projecting that right-wing candidate Edmundo González Urrutia would win with 65% of the vote, compared to just 31% for Maduro.

This poll was cited by Venezuela’s far-right, U.S.-backed opposition leader Leopoldo López, as well as by billionaire oligarch Elon Musk and Western media outlets like the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.

Many polling firms inside Venezuela are run by opposition figures and are notorious for their political bias. The most respectable independent firm in the country is the pollster Hinterlaces, which estimated in its exit poll that Maduro got 54.6% of the vote, compared to 42.8% for González.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) ultimately reported that Maduro won the election with 51.2% of the vote, whereas González received 44.2%, and eight other opposition candidates got 4.6% combined. These results were close to what Hinterlaces projected, but very far off from what Edison Research claimed.

The U.S. State Department, which has backed numerous coup attempts in Venezuela, refused to recognize Maduro’s victory. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the results into question.

On the other hand, independent electoral observers said the vote was free and fair. Monitors from the U.S. National Lawyers Guild wrote that their delegation in Venezuela “observed a transparent, fair voting process with scrupulous attention to legitimacy, access to the polls, and pluralism.” They strongly condemned the opposition’s “attacks on the electoral system as well as the role of the U.S. in undermining the democratic process.”

Although Edison Research’s exit poll has been widely cited by the U.S. media to cast doubt upon Venezuela’s electoral results, it is by no means an impartial observer. In fact, Edison’s top clients include CIA-linked U.S. government propaganda outlets Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, all of which are operated by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a Washington-based organ that is used to spread disinformation against U.S. adversaries.

Edison Research has likewise worked with UK state media outlet the BBC.

In addition to Venezuela, Edison has previously conducted suspicious polling in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iraq – areas of the world that have been deemed highly strategic by the U.S. State Department and targeted by Washington’s relentless meddling.

Edison’s international research is managed by the company’s Executive Vice President Rob Farbman. He was also cited in the press release on the Venezuela exit poll and was listed as the contact for the study.

The U.S. firm’s website notes that “Farbman manages Edison’s international research with a specialization in the Middle East and Africa for clients including BBC, the Voice of America, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty”.

 

These U.S. state media outlets are a key part of what the New York Times described in 1977 as a “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A.”

The Times identified Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (as well as Radio Free Asia and Free Cuba Radio) as “C.I.A. broadcasting ventures”.

In fact, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) states on its own website: “Initially, RFE and RL were funded principally by the U.S. Congress through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)”.

When it started, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was called “Radio Liberation from Bolshevism”, before changing its name to Radio Liberation in 1956 and Radio Liberty in 1963.

This U.S. state propaganda outlet was a key tool of information warfare during the first Cold War against the Soviet Union and its allies. Today, it has continued disseminating disinformation about countries like Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, and Iran.

 

On his LinkedIn profile, Edison Research’s executive vice president, Rob Farbman, wrote that he has overseen “election polling for international clients, most recently in Venezuela, Iraq, Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia.”

Farbman added that he “manages Edison’s work with international broadcasting organizations such as the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Voice of America.”

On LinkedIn, Farbman also states that “Edison works with a broad array of commercial clients, governments, and NGOs,” although he did not disclose what those governments are.

Edison’s corporate clients include Big Tech monopolies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Oracle, which have billions of dollars of contracts with the CIA, Pentagon, and other U.S. government agencies.

 

Washington’s state propaganda outlets are overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). USAGM’s parent is the United States Information Agency (USIA).

USAGM is funded through Congress. For fiscal year 2025, President Joe Biden’s budget requested $950 million for the U.S. propaganda agency.

USAGM boasted in its Congressional Budget Justification that its audience has more than doubled in the past decade. According to the U.S. propaganda agency, Washington’s disinformation operations are “reaching 420 million people weekly in 63 languages and over 100 countries”.

On its website, USAGM emphasizes that it serves the “long-range interests of the United States.”

In 1994, Congress passed the International Broadcasting Act, which maintained U.S. government funding for these propaganda organs following the end of the first Cold War.

This legislation, the text of which USAGM has on its website, states that the work of these U.S. propaganda outlets must “be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States”, and that they are “advancing the goals of United States foreign policy”.

 

Venezuelan opposition and Elon Musk misrepresent TeleSUR charts to claim ‘fraud’

To claim there was supposed electoral fraud in the July 28 election, Venezuela’s U.S.-backed opposition used another deceptive tactic, distorting charts that were published by the Latin American media outlet TeleSUR.

In their disinformation campaign, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition got a big helping hand from Elon Musk, the billionaire oligarch and owner of Twitter (now known as X.com).

Musk has received billions of dollars of subsidies from the U.S. government while providing assistance to Ukraine’s military and aiding U.S. destabilization operations in Iran. He also is actively supporting Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

The billionaire Tesla CEO backed a far-right coup in 2019 against Bolivia’s democratically elected socialist President Evo Morales. Following the putsch, a critic on Twitter accused “the U.S. government [of] organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so [Musk] could obtain the lithium there.” The oligarch responded writing, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it”.

 

The day before the 2024 election in Venezuela, Elon Musk tweeted an enthusiastic endorsement for the South American nation’s far-right opposition leader María Corina Machado, who has repeatedly called for a U.S. military intervention to overthrow Venezuela’s government.

After the vote, Musk echoed the unsubstantiated claims of the opposition, claiming there was “major election fraud by Maduro”. As purported proof, Musk shared the suspicious exit poll from the U.S. government-linked Edison Research.

In another deception, Musk and Venezuelan opposition figures pointed to a chart from TeleSUR, a left-wing broadcaster that has been funded by numerous governments in Latin America and is headquartered in Caracas.

A graphic designer at TeleSUR made a mistake and created a misleading graph that showed the other opposition candidates with 4.6% of the vote each. In reality, there were 10 candidates in Venezuela’s presidential election, and the other eight minor opposition figures only received 4.6% combined.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1817932850664226872

Part of this confusion was due to the language used in the announcement by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE). In a press conference late on the night of the election, CNE President Elvis Amoroso reported that Maduro won 51.2% of the vote, with Edmundo González at 44.2%, and he added that “other candidates obtained 462,704 [votes], 4.6%”. (In Spanish, his exact words were: “otros candidatos obtuvieron 462.704 [votos], un 4,6%“.)

In this press conference and in its written statement, the CNE lumped the eight other candidates together. TeleSUR’s graphic designer failed to communicate that this 4.6% was shared among the eight candidates.

While this error was clearly a serious problem in TeleSUR’s broadcast, it was not proof of supposed electoral fraud.

On the contrary, international observers, such as those from the U.S. National Lawyers Guild, said they monitored an electoral process in Venezuela that was free and fair.

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1817860085508374749

https://x.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1817937280251674877

U.S. government support for Venezuela’s opposition and coup attempts

This is by no means the first time Venezuela’s opposition has cried fraud, without any concrete evidence. In response to every recent presidential election, they have made similar claims, going back to Maduro’s first successful presidential race in 2013.

Like Edison Research, Venezuela’s right-wing opposition is closely linked to the U.S. government.

U.S. soft-power organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have spent many millions of dollars funding and training opposition groups in Venezuela, including political parties, media outlets, and so-called NGOs.

Washington has sponsored numerous coup attempts in Venezuela, including one in 2002 in which U.S.-backed Venezuelan military officers briefly overthrew democratically elected President Hugo Chávez, before the people rose up, filled the streets, and restored Chávez to power.

In another coup attempt in 2019, the Donald Trump administration recognized little-known right-wing opposition politician Juan Guaidó as supposed “interim president” of Venezuela, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.

Washington proceeded to seize billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan foreign assets in violation of international law while imposing illegal unilateral sanctions and an embargo that sought to crush the country’s economy.

A Trump administration official bragged that the sanctions were like Darth Vader’s death grip on the throat of the Venezuelan economy.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration gloated in 2019 that, due to the devastating U.S. economic war, Venezuela’s oil production crashed to the lowest level in decades, starving the state of revenue it needed to fund social programs.

According to the top UN expert on sanctions, Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan, “unilateral sanctions increasingly imposed by the United States, the European Union and other countries have exacerbated the” economic crisis in Venezuela, and the “government’s revenue was reported to shrink by 99% with the country currently living on 1% of its pre-sanctions income”.

In a research paper published by the U.S. think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research, economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs estimated that U.S. sanctions caused 40,000 deaths in Venezuela from 2017 to 2018.

Trump’s neoconservative National Security Adviser, John Bolton, admitted in a CNN interview that the operation he oversaw in Venezuela was a coup attempt.

During the coup, one of Guaidó’s allies was the far-right Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado. But when Guaidó failed to even come close to power in Caracas, despite Washington’s staunch support, the extremist Machado rose to become the de facto leader of Venezuela’s opposition.

Machado was prohibited from running in the 2024 election due to the many crimes she has committed, including participating in numerous violent coup attempts; calling for the U.S. military to invade Venezuela; and lobbying Washington for, in her words, “more sanctions”, to bring about the “total financial asphyxiation” of her country.

For years, Machado has run opposition organizations funded by the U.S. government. She is so close to Washington that she was personally invited to the White House for a one-on-one meeting with President George W. Bush in 2005. (The Bush administration had supported the briefly successful military coup against Chávez in 2002, which Machado also backed.)

Machado was largely the power behind the main opposition candidate who ran against Maduro in the 2024 race, Edmundo González Urrutia. Machado campaigned for him, and on the night of July 28, she held a press conference in which she claimed, without any evidence, that they had won the election, declaring, “Venezuela has a new president-elect, and he is Edmundo González”.

Edison Research’s meddling in Georgia

Edison Research’s Executive Vice President Rob Farbman is not the only employee at the firm who has worked extensively with U.S. government propaganda outlets.

Edison Senior Advisor Nino Japaridze likewise did work for the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, RFE/RL, and Voice of America, as well as London’s BBC.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors is the U.S. government propaganda organ that was renamed the U.S. Agency for Global Media in 2018.

In 2019, Japaridze sat down for a friendly interview with U.S. propaganda outlet Voice of America, to discuss “the importance of media independence for Georgia’s democracy”.

Washington has targeted Georgia in recent years, seeking to bring the former Soviet country into the U.S. imperial sphere of influence. Since 2008, the U.S. government has insisted that Georgia and Ukraine will become members of NATO, despite opposition not only by Russia but also by Germany and France.

Washington’s pressure on Georgia greatly accelerated in 2024, when the country’s democratically elected parliament voted for a bill that required organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from outside the country to register as foreign agents.

U.S. soft-power organizations like the NED, along with other Western governments, bankroll many pro-EU “civil society” groups and pro-NATO media outlets in Georgia, which would be forced to register as foreign agents under this law.

The U.S. State Department lobbied heavily against the bill and even imposed sanctions on Georgian officials who supported it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its U.S. government ties, Edison Research published a poll in December 2023 that claimed that a staggering 90% of people in Georgia want close ties with the European Union, 80% want close ties with the U.S.A, and just 43% want close ties with Russia. This confirmed Washington’s narrative right at the moment when it was escalating its interventionist pressure campaign against the country.

Source: Geopolitical Economy Report

Kamala Harris, the current Vice President, was a California Senator, Attorney General, and San Francisco District Attorney. Harris sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and dropped out before the primaries. President Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, selected her as his running mate in the 2020 election, making Harris the first female Vice President of the United States.

Biden was searching for a candidate who was ideologically aligned with him, someone he could work with. He also felt that picking a Black woman could boost his standing, particularly with younger voters.

On July 21, President Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, choosing Kamala Harris to replace him as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate just four weeks before the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for Aug. 19.

Biden quoted Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait hangs on the wall of the Oval Office next to Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and Cesar Chavez, about maintaining “a republic.” At the time, Franklin meant preserving the slaveowners’ government. By the way, Franklin benefited financially from slave ownership by advertising the sale of enslaved people and runaways in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Biden said Harris is experienced, tough, and capable of plotting the course for the United States of America. The real question is whether the course that Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are taking is a path to a better world and future for all people.

Silicon Valley and Wall Street

Kamala Harris has many ties to finance capital, from Silicon Valley big tech (including Facebook and Google) to Wall Street billionaires. Harris led the U.S. delegation to the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, a sort of imperialist economic association for the Pacific Rim. 

Harris has been silent about her past, about mass incarceration and the plight of poor working-class people.

Today, Black, Brown, and all working-class people might be hopeful. With the constant tensions taking place in the Belly of the Beast, any change would appear to be in the favor of the working class. But is it? 

In a matter of days, the presidential candidates changed from Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden to Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. The battle for the position of the 47th President of the United States continues.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black woman — colorful, smart, and capable — is possibly the next president. That’s certainly a change.

It is contradictory that Black, poor, and oppressed peoples are being mobilized by the corporate-dominated Democratic Party that has lied and denied them repeatedly.

‘Genocide Joe’ Biden

Democrat Biden is a genocide enabler. He supported the invasion of Iraq, where more than a million Iraqis died. He enabled and praised the Israeli genocide of Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza.

In 1994, Biden sponsored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, aka the “tough on crime law,” one of the key contributors to mass incarceration. The tough-on-crime policies overly criminalized Black and Brown people who are most likely to be incarcerated. The prison population rose from 1.6 million in 1995 to 2.3 million in 2008.

According to a study done in October 2018, 48.9% of men arrested by age 23 were Black and 37.9% white. Black men were given longer sentences, and many remain incarcerated today. According to the Prison Project, over half of people in U.S. prisons are serving sentences of 10 years or more.

As of January this year, 2,241 people are on death row — 40% Black and 14% Brown. This is a crime against humanity.

What is Kamala Harris’s platform? What is her vision for a better world for poor and working-class people who make up the U.S. civilian and prison population? What is Harris’s position on global war, violence at home and abroad, homelessness, criminal justice, immigration, climate change, medical care, reparations, education, livable wages, and child care?

We can look back at Harris’ record to see where she stands on some key issues impacting the poor, working-class population.

On the death penalty

California is one of 27 states that have the death penalty. In 2014, a California U.S. district court judge issued a ruling that could have eliminated the death penalty in the state. Attorney General Harris appealed the ruling and the lower court ruling was overturned.

Death row inmate Kevin Cooper, convicted of murdering four people in 1985, was one of many names of individuals District Attorney Harris tried to keep in prison even though there was evidence that he was innocent. In 2004, two days before his scheduled execution, an appeals court stayed his execution and ordered DNA testing, which was inconclusive. 

When Harris was California’s Attorney General (2011-2017), she opposed DNA testing for Cooper. Cooper’s lawyers had asked the state to approve additional DNA testing that could exonerate him. Harris’ Attorney General office did not take up the case, and evidence from the crime scene was never re-examined while Harris held state office. Cooper, 66 years old, remains imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison on death row. 

On arresting parents of children who miss school

In 2011, District Attorney Harris pushed for and saw the passage of a statewide anti-truancy law that allowed district attorneys to file charges against parents whose children were consistently missing school without a valid reason. Under the law, some parents were arrested by local law enforcement and faced harsh penalties. 

In 2013, Cheree Peoples, a mother from Orange County, California, faced a challenging situation with her 11-year-old daughter Shayla, who was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia, a debilitating disease. This condition caused Shayla to frequently miss school due to her chronic pain and hospitalization requirements.

In April 2013, the police showed up at her home, handcuffed Cheree, put a jacket over her pajamas, and escorted her out where news cameras were waiting. The police booked her, enforcing the truancy program that then-District Attorney Kamala Harris initiated. Cheree Peoples was shocked that all of this happened because of a miscommunication between her and the school over Shayla’s days of absence.

It is not hard to surmise that this plan to use the criminal justice system to solve social problems is not the answer. This plan was going to criminalize mothers of color, mothers with disabilities, mothers of children with disabilities, and mothers who might be housing insecure or homeless. 

On police killings

As Attorney General of California, Harris passed the buck on police killings. An example is the case of Anaheim Police Officer Nick Bennallack, who was involved in the fatal shooting of two unarmed men — Bernie Villegas and Manuel Diaz — in 2012. He remained on the force for years and went on to kill again in 2014. The City of Anaheim spent several hundred thousand dollars in lawsuit payoffs over Bennallack’s conduct. 

Harris’s office said it wouldn’t investigate the case, that it was a local matter. They did not push for police accountability, which could have prevented more killings down the line.

“She neglected a lot of cases,” says Genevieve Huizar, the mother of 25-year-old Manuel Angel Diaz, one of the men killed by Bennallack in 2012.

Bennallack, cleared of killing three unarmed individuals over eight years, fatally shot 30-year-old Daniel Ramírez III on April 4, 2019. There is a petition on Change.org to fire Officer Nick Bennallack immediately for killing four unarmed men.

In 2014, Harris spoke out against the bill requiring the attorney general’s office to conduct independent investigations into police shootings. Harris said it would take away prosecutorial power from local district attorney offices, but local district attorney offices were not taking on cases involving police shootings.

On protesters rights

On July 24, tens of thousands of protesters went to D.C. to show their support for the people of Palestine, to rally for a ceasefire, and to express the feeling of betrayal over Netanyahu’s visit to D.C. A protester asked why both parties in the U.S. Congress invited Netanyahu, who is causing genocide in Gaza, to speak. Protesters were pepper sprayed and arrested. 

Kamala Harris, in a statement, condemned the protest and said that the protesters were despicable, unpatriotic, and hate-fueled. An observer said, “All the fear-mongering around anti-Semitism is pretty wild because there were more Jews at this demonstration than I’ve ever seen. So many Jews wearing their JVP [Jewish Voice for Peace] or Jews for ceasefire shirts … pretty amazing.”

Who really rules

If Harris were to become the 47th president of the United States, she would make history as a woman of color. That, however, wouldn’t change who rules, the ruling class with the military-industrial complex at the top.

In the 2020 presidential election, about 60% of people voted, often feeling like they only had two options. It seems that no matter who you pick, the other choice is deemed much worse, whether you lean Republican or Democrat. However, it’s important to remember the 40% who didn’t vote, including those who are poor, homeless, incarcerated, or previously incarcerated, either choosing not to vote, or were unable to make it to the polls, or justifiably believed that their vote doesn’t count.

In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton received approximately 65.8 million votes nationwide, while Donald Trump received about 63 million votes. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million. Despite losing the popular vote, Donald Trump won the presidency by securing a majority in the Electoral College (304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227). The 2.8 million vote difference is the largest in U.S. history, where the popular vote winner did not become president.

The Electoral College has overturned 33% of presidential elections in this century, from the 2016 Clinton-Trump election to the 2000 Gore-Bush election, in which Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote.

Isn’t it time to abolish the Electoral College?

Voting can’t bring real change; it’s more like expressing what you want. If all the masses of poor and oppressed people find a way to vote their conscience, values, and beliefs, change will come. In some states, there are alternatives to the Republican and Democratic Parties on the ballot. If you are voting, look for them. 

Check out the Dr. Cornel West / Dr. Melina Abdullah campaign at cornelwest2024.com

And Jill Stein’s campaign at jillstein2024.com

Also the Claudia De la Cruz / Karina Garcia campaign at votesocialist2024.com

Send a message to the world!

Defeat capitalism, colonialism, & imperialism! Stand for socialism, democracy, compassion, and working-class unity!

End the death penalty and death by incarceration! Free all political prisoners!

Free Palestine! Free Haiti! Free ‘em all!

Justice for Sonia Massey

Thursday, August 1, 6 pm
Meet 6 pm @ 247 Dallas Court (Orleans & Dallas)

March 6:30 pm to BPD Headquarters
601 E. Fayette Street

Rallies and demonstrations were held across the U.S. on July 28 to protest the police murder of Sonya Massey in Springfield, Illinois. The 36-year-old Black mother of two children was shot in her own home by the white Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson on July 6.

Massey had called 911 to report a possible intruder but was killed instead by a uniformed intruder with a badge. She pleaded with the deputies, saying, “Please don’t hurt me.”

“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” said Massey. Grayson responded by firing three shots at the unarmed woman. The pig then ordered that no medical assistance be given to the dying woman.

Hundreds rallied in New York City’s Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan. Speakers denounced the foul, racist murder.

Three days before, on July 25, people marched from there to Times Square. Police tried to stop the demonstrators and arrested at least one.

Among the speakers in Washington Square was Linda Sarsour. She linked the police murders of Asian, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx people in the United States with the U.S.-financed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Erica Ford reminded listeners of the murders committed by New York City cops. Among the hundreds killed in New York were:

• Eleanor Bumpurs, killed for owing $394 in rent
• Amadou Diallo, who was trying to show police his identification when they shot at him 41 times
• Sean Bell, whom the police shot 50 times on what was supposed to be his wedding day

Terrorists in blue uniforms

It was only because of decades of struggle and the Black Lives Matter movement that Sean Grayson was fired and charged with first-degree murder. Even though Grayson can be seen on his body cam video shooting Sonya Massey, the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police claimed he was “fired without cause.”

That’s more proof that police departments across the U.S. are terrorist organizations. Grayson was so volatile that he was hired and fired by several police departments and discharged from the U.S. Army for “misconduct.”

There was also a demonstration in Newark, New Jersey. One of the event’s organizers was People’s Organization for Progress Charman Larry Hamm.

Hamm was skeptical that justice would be served in this case. “Even though he has been charged, that doesn’t mean he’s going to be convicted, and if he is convicted, that doesn’t mean he’s going to get the sentence that he deserves,” the POP leader said.

Sonya Massey was a descendant of the shoemaker and former Underground Railroad conductor William Donnegan, who was lynched during the 1908 Springfield race riot. Donnegan, who was 80 years old at the time of his murder, had made shoes for Abraham Lincoln. He died in St. John’s Hospital on Aug. 16, 1908, the same hospital where Sonya Massey died. 

The 1908 pogrom in Springfield, in which 16 people died, was a catalyst for the founding of the NAACP in 1909.

More than a century later, there are more than a thousand people killed every year by police across the United States. Police killed 1,352 people in 2023 and 763 people so far this year; that’s 56 more compared to the same period last year.