JOHN KIRIAKOU—As a progressive American voter, and a truly independent one at that, I’m not optimistic about the next four years. Abortion is of primary importance to me. So are the environment, workers’ rights, health care and education. I support easier immigration and an easier and quicker path to citizenship. Donald Trump will likely destroy all of that.

With that said, I believe that there are two areas where Trump is right.  One is his support for a less interventionist foreign policy. The other is criminal justice reform. Trump issued a lot of pardons when he was president. He issued a lot of commutations. And he worked to do something about the sentencing disparities between white people convicted of crimes compared to people of color. At least there was that.

MARGARET KIMBERLEY—In the end, it is the Neocons who usually win in this and other administrations. It is unlikely they had to do very much convincing to Biden, who as Barack Obama’s vice president was in charge of the policy which used Ukraine to counter Russia. The 2014 coup against Ukraine’s elected president and the subsequent sabotaging of the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements all led to the current moment. In 2022 Ukraine baited the Russians by attacking the Donbas and daring them to leave that region unprotected after years of provocations and many civilian deaths.

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MARK GRUENBERG—Ben Hurley, an Australian who left Falun Gong after a dozen years as a member, reported four years ago that even then—three years after his initial blog about it—he got reports from once-scared members.

“The stories express a mix of excitement and terror,” Hurley wrote on the Religion and Ethics website after the Australian Broadcasting Corp. ran its own exposé of Falun Gong. “Excitement that they can now listen to pop music, or eat sashimi, or have a beer, or have sex, or take up a hobby, or hang out with non-believers—without feeling filthy and unworthy.

“And lingering terror as they face up to their living god, and attempt to banish him from their minds and out of their lives.”

That living god is Falun Gong’s founder, Li Hongzhi. “A number of people labored over the decision to contact me before finally plucking up the courage because they believed that Li could read their minds,” Hurley wrote.

EDITOR—Israel Genocide Tracker is an X account created in May that scans social media and gathers data on Israeli soldiers from previous posts they had published boasting about their actions in Gaza. It then creates a profile for each soldier, including personal information such as their name, age, family origin, and army unit. According to TRT, which cited Israel’s Channel 12 News, multiple soldiers have expressed concerns over the account. “I’m afraid they could Google my name and find it there,” one soldier told Channel 12.

RAINER SHEA—The next step will be to mobilize the types of leftists who view themselves as “antifa” warriors fighting the new Hitler. Like how the feds turned MAGA activists into FBI assets and then orchestrated a break-in, they’ll manipulate these left elements into pursuing other adventurist activities, potentially of a more violent nature.

This new false flag will need to be more spectacular than the last one, because for it to succeed, it will have to create real fear. January 6 was in large part a circus, where people were taking selfies in the Capitol and dressing up in goofy costumes.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Rubio will be a suitable addition to the list of sadistic manipulators who have served in that role before him, joining the likes of Antony Blinken, Mike Pompeo, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger as the next soulless manipulator to lead the US State Department in pressing the imperial boot into the throat of the global south.

DEMOCRACY NOW!—We are joined by U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, who says Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Facing accusations of antisemitism from Israeli and U.S. officials, Albanese is in New York to present her report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” which finds that Israel’s genocide is founded on “ideological hatred” and “dehumanization” and “enabled through the various organs of the state,” and recommends that Israel be unseated from the United Nations over its conduct. She argues that Israel’s attacks on U.N. employees, including the killings of at least 230 U.N. staff in Gaza, its flagrant violations of U.N. resolutions and international law and the unique status of “the first settler-colonial genocide to be ever litigated before [an international] court” justify this measure. Israel’s continued impunity, Albanese warns, “is the nail in the coffin of the U.N. Charter.”

MEE—What is the link between Zionism, capitalism and the American empire? Fresh off the back of a deeply toxic, all consuming US election – one in which the issue of Palestine and the war in Gaza was largely ignored – we examine what it means to survive a system intent on silencing and marginalising dissenting voices. Despite the key role the Biden Administration has played in arming and supporting Israel, a position opposed by the majority of Americans, few political voices were interested in challenging or even speaking about this policy. A policy which mirrors the US’ own bloody history of colonialism, empire and exploitation. An environment in which voices who challenge the status quo have fewer and fewer platforms to express their dissenting views.
This week on The Big Picture Podcast, Mohamed Hassan sits down with human rights attorney, legal scholar and professor at Rutgers University Noura Erakat.

EDITOR—The story continues to fall apart. After an impassioned denunciation of “violent and intolerable antisemitism” supposedly victimising the Maccabi football fans, who, as events have shown, may have had ulterior plans for their trip to Amsterdam, the city mayor is now forced to denounce her own opportunistic statements claiming a “pogrom” had taken place.