February 21, 2025 ❧ Bolsonaro indicted in assassination plot, Chavez-DeRemer goes anti-union, and new horrors from CPAC

Plus: Trump wants Ukraine’s minerals, Niger moves toward democracy, and prairie dogs’ linguistic skills

What is news? A miserable pile of secrets.

AROUND THE WORLD

❧ Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, has been indicted for an alleged scheme to kill his longtime rival, incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Prosecutors say that Bolsonaro and 33 of his associates had a plan to stage a coup and remain in power after Lula’s 2022 election victory, even going so far as to assassinate two of their top political opponents—Lula by poison, and Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes by gunshot. Bolsonaro denies everything, saying on Thursday that “I don’t give a damn about prison.” But if these charges are proven and he goes to jail, it could be a big blow to the political right in Brazil, and by extension the world. (Associated Press)  

This might be the end for Latin America’s sweatiest politician. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

❧ The Trump administration is trying to use peace negotiations to bully Ukraine into giving up its natural resources to the United States. Last Wednesday, Trump’s negotiating team presented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with an agreement that would require the country to give America access to half the revenue from its valuable minerals, oil, and gas—worth hundreds of billions of dollars—in exchange for America’s past military support as it fought Russia’s invasion. Zelenskyy said it was “not clear” what the Americans were offering in return. After Zelenskyy rejected the deal, Trump went on a public tirade against him, accusing the Ukrainian leader of being a “dictator” and blaming him for starting the war with Russia, which is patently absurd. National security adviser Mike Waltz has demanded that Zelenskyy return to the negotiating table, which he now appears to be doing.

Zelenskyy has actually been open to an agreement on giving up natural resources to America—a possibility he raised with Biden—but has said it must hinge on continued military backing. But Trump seems to be seeking to align himself with whichever side of the war will result in the most profit. According to the New York Times, Putin’s emissaries have been promising Trump that American companies stand to gain through the normalization of U.S. relations with Russia, which could result from a peace deal favorable to Putin’s terms.

It’s very good that the Trump administration is attempting to broker an end to this devastating war, which has resulted in more than a million casualties. It’s always been clear that Russia has held the upper hand in this war, and a peace agreement should have been reached a long time ago. But it’s obvious that the Trump administration is only interested in brokering a deal insofar as it can be used to extract as much wealth as possible from the belligerent nations. The people of Ukraine and Russia (though especially Ukraine) have already been immiserated enough by the last three years of their country’s destruction—destruction that has been carried out, in part due to America’s scuttling of earlier peace deals to serve our own geopolitical aims. We have zero right to demand more from them.

Ukraine contains around 5 percent of the world’s total mineral resources. (Map: The Guardian)

❧ Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and several other Gulf states are constructing a counter-plan to rebuild Gaza without displacing Palestinians. This news comes as Israel has been dropping leaflets over Gaza promising its residents a “forced displacement” that would come “whether you accept it or not.” In opposition to this agenda of ethnic cleansing, the United Arab Emirates told Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday that it rejects any displacement of Gaza’s population, matching the position already taken by Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi. Both Egypt and the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar, are expected to meet soon in Riyadh to develop a counter-proposal that would rebuild Gaza, to be presented to the world at the Arab League summit on March 4. 

It’s unclear how far the Gulf leaders will take their opposition to Israel and the U.S., or what resources they’re willing to devote to Gaza. In particular, Mohammed bin Salman is notorious for saying “Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do” during a conversation with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in late 2023. His reliability, and therefore Saudi Arabia’s, is doubtful. But somebody has to stop Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu from building the “Riviera” of their dreams by expelling Palestinians from their homes, and this may be the best chance. (Al Jazeera)

❧ The military government of Niger is considering proposals for a five-year transition to civilian democracy. Since taking power in a 2023 coup that overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s junta—led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, formerly the head of Bazoum’s presidential guard—has faced widespread international criticism for its authoritarian tendencies and crackdown on dissidents. Until recently, they haven’t really done much to address those concerns, focusing instead on kicking the French and American militaries out of Niger. 

Now, the country has concluded a five-day “National Refoundation Conference” in the capital of Niamey. The consensus of the various committees was that a five-year transition period was needed, in which all existing political parties would be dissolved and no more than five new ones created, with Tiani allowed to stand as the candidate for one of them if he so chooses. There’s still a lot to be decided—what will the parties actually be, for instance?—and plenty of people think five years is too long to wait. But this is at least a step in the direction of democracy. (Actu Niger)

President Tiani in a recent TV interview. (Image: Faso7 TV via YouTube)

❧ Germany goes to the polls on Sunday, and things are not looking great. Alternative for Germany, the barely-disguised neo-Nazi party endorsed by Elon Musk, is poised to finish in second place, with the latest polls suggesting they will receive 20 percent support, doubling their tally from the previous election. That won’t be enough for them to hold a majority, and the other parties in the Bundestag have pledged not to form a governing coalition with them.

Germany is still on track for a major lurch to the right, though. The center-left Social Democrats, who currently hold the most seats in government, are poised for a shellacking while the center-right Christian Democrats are expected to finish in first, putting Friedrich Merz—a conservative businessman who’s recently been cozying up to Trump—in the chancellorship. If there’s any silver lining, the Left Party has experienced a membership surge in recent months and has made gains in the polls among voters hoping for a vibrant left-wing opposition to the major parties’ rightward shift on immigration. (YouGov)

The final projections from YouGov on how many seats each party will win.

AROUND THE STATES

❧ An ICE prosecutor in Texas has a self-proclaimed “fascist” Twitter account. This news comes courtesy of investigative journalist Steven Monacelli, who tracked down the identity of the person behind an account called “GlomarResponder.” Among other disgusting things, the account has posted (or re-posted) that “It is our holy duty to guard against the foreign hordes,” that “America is a White nation” and “All Blacks are foreign to my people,” that “I’m not a commie, I’m a fascist,” and even that “feeding migrants into tree shredders” would soon be “the moderate position.” 

Sadly, this is fairly typical of the racist filth that’s flooded Twitter (er, “X”) since Elon Musk took it over. But more interestingly, some of the “GlomarResponder” posts indicated the user was a government official—they talked about being “in a courthouse wating [sic] on warrants,” and wrote that they “can confirm” a list of cities where ICE would soon be arresting and deporting people. Eventually, Monacelli was able to link the “GlomarResponder” posts to one ICE official in particular: Assistant Chief Council James Rodden, who had used some of the same images as the anonymous account on his personal Facebook and been in a Texas courthouse at the time “GlomarResponder” posted about “waiting on warrants.”

The same Marine Corps Raiders skull flag appears on both Rodden’s personal account and “GlomarResponder.” (Image: Texas Observer)

As of writing, Rodden still has his job at ICE, and is scheduled to handle future court cases. But as Monacelli points out, his conduct likely violates the rules of the Washington, D.C. bar, where he got his legal license. There’s an obvious public interest in getting him disbarred as soon as possible, and at least one Texas representative has called for a full investigation. But more broadly, this shows that calling ICE and the Trump deportation agenda “fascist” is not an exaggeration. At least some of the people involved call themselves fascists, and fantasize about killing immigrants when they think they can get away with it. The old lyric about how “some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses” has never been more apt. This is what we’re up against as a nation, and it’s the kind of white supremacist politics we have to crush out of existence. (Texas Observer)

Rodden also presents himself as a literal skinhead, which seems a little on-the-nose.

(Image: San Antonio Current)

❧ Lawmakers in Maryland have introduced a bill that would require landlords to have a valid reason for evictions. As it stands, Maryland state law is one of the friendliest in the country to landlords, and the most hostile to tenants. Not only does it contain no protections against unreasonable evictions (except when racial, religious, or gender discrimination can be proved), but it actually forbids local governments from enacting such protections. But a new piece of legislation, called the Good Cause Eviction bill, would change that. It has both a Senate and a House version, and would reverse the old ban on pro-tenant legislation at the local level, allowing cities to restrict the reasons for eviction to a narrow set including “disorderly conduct” and “habitually failing to pay rent.” This is obviously a good idea—and even better, it’s expected to pass both houses, which could provide a useful model for other states. (Maryland Matters)

❧ West Virginia Republicans have introduced legislation to bring back corporal punishment in public schools. Twenty-three states still allow teachers to use physical pain to discipline misbehaving children, despite evidence that it not only doesn’t work but negatively affects the victims’ mental health. West Virginia’s bill authorizes teachers and principals to administer “moderate corporal punishment, subject to rules and policies adopted by the State Board of Education and county boards of education.” It doesn’t explain what counts as “moderate.” But even a little bit of violence directed at children is too much. And keep in mind, this is the same Republican Party that claims library books are an unacceptable threat to children’s well-being! (WV News)

In other news, West Virginia has named this man its state superintendent.

❧ Gray wolves are returning in California after almost a century of near-extinction due to hunting. Twelve wolves were captured and released into the wilds of northern California this week by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Outfitted with tracking collars that allow biologists to track their movement, diets, and health, the state and local conservation groups are hoping that the program can once again allow the species to thrive. Right now, there are only seven known packs of gray wolves in the state, but scientists hope they can help that number grow. (Desert Sun)

THIS WEEK IN DYSTOPIA

Headline: Jalopnik

Motorcades: They’re not just for presidents anymore! 

Thanks to a new app unveiled for use in New York and Los Angeles called “Protector,” anyone with a few thousand dollars to spare can hire their own squadron of armed guards to escort them wherever they want. With just a few clicks, you can customize everything from the car your protectors drive to the outfits they wear (Will you choose “tactical casual” or “business formal”?) Whether you’re a jet-setting executive afraid of getting Luigi-ed, a drug kingpin, or just a regular schlub seeking a brief taste of what it feels like to be powerful and important, Protector is here for you!

CROOKS vs. SICKOS (Or, “What are our politicians and oligarchs up to?”)

❧ Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Labor, has already accepted anti-union “right-to-work” laws—and so has Teamster leader Sean O’Brien. In a contentious Senate hearing on Wednesday, Chavez-DeRemer was asked by Senator Rand Paul—an ideological libertarian and enemy of labor unions—whether she still supports “the aspect of the PRO Act that would have overturned state right-to-work laws.” In a shameful surrender, she replied that she did not, and said that “The right to work is a fundamental tenet of labor laws, where states have a right to choose if they want to be a right-to-work state.” That would be bad enough—but on the same day, Teamster leader Sean O’Brien, who lobbied heavily for DeRemer to get the Secretary of Labor job, also said that “right-to-work” laws might be “what works” for some states during a Fox News interview, adding that he’d like to have “conversations with the other side” about it. 

Of course, the name “right-to-work” is misleading. What these really are is anti-union laws, ones that create lower wages and worse safety conditions everywhere they’re introduced. Last year they were rightfully repealed in Michigan, and they shouldn’t exist anywhere in the country—let alone be accepted by people who are supposedly fighting on the side of the working class. This is a major betrayal. Now, the interesting question is: will rank-and-file Teamsters accept this from O’Brien and his favored nominee? Or could there be a leadership challenge in the union’s near future? (Common Dreams)

Just three people who agree on things. (Image: Sean O’Brien via Twitter)

❧ After it became clear that New York Mayor Eric Adams was being openly blackmailed by the Trump administration into collaborating with its policies, Governor Kathy Hochul has faced pressure from within the Democratic Party to remove him. But on Thursday she announced that she will not use that power for now. Instead, she says she will introduce a plan to give the state more oversight over the city’s finances and give the city more leeway to sue the Trump administration. Hochul has said that to oust Adams using her constitutional power would betray the “sanctity of democratic elections.” But it seems even more undemocratic to allow the city’s mayor, by virtue of his own corrupt self-dealing, forced to obey the whims of a president that the city largely voted against. (Gothamist)

❧ Former Representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, who were both ousted from their House seats after unprecedented campaign spending by AIPAC last year, are starting a YouTube show on the Zeteo network. It’s called “Bowman and Bush,” and promises to explore “the corruption and lobbying inside DC, and how broken the U.S. government is” from the perspective of two former insiders. Check the trailer out below:

❧ Two more of Senator John Fetterman’s staff have resigned—an occurrence so common that we may need to introduce a new recurring section to cover every time it happens. “I think the staff is probably frustrated that working in the Fetterman office means you’re just working on Israel all the time,” an ex-campaign official told the Intercept.

⚜ LONG READ:  Donald Trump and Elon Musk are continuing to gut spending to some of the most popular government programs in America. Among many others, DOGE has attacked Head Start, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Environmental Protection Agency. This week, they began to take aim at Social Security. Some have posited that by targeting spending that Americans view fondly, the right is making a “goofy misstep.” But in the New Republic, Liza Featherstone argues that making popular programs weak and ineffectual is “exactly the point.”

Most likely, their popularity is precisely what the Trump-Musk administration dislikes about them. For anti-government ideologues, it’s important that people not have good experiences with the government. Every clean energy investment in your community, every Social Security check, every child enrolled in Head Start, every improvement in air and water quality, is a threat to right-wing ideological dominance. They know it, and they want to stop Americans from having those positive associations.

❧ Oh yeah, Trump and his lackeys also keep making posts declaring him a “king.”  

Posted by the actual, literal White House

And at CPAC, organizers unveiled an effort called the “Third Term Project,” which will seek to change the constitution to allow “For Trump 2028…and beyond!” (Washington Post)

The banner for this project, displayed throughout CPAC, depicts Trump as Julius Caesar, who ended democracy in Rome and established himself as a dictator. Probably nothing to worry about. (Photo from X)

RODENT FACT OF THE WEEK

Prairie dogs are master linguists!

In a past briefing, we explored the wonders of whale language, which scientists now believe can express all kinds of information through different sequences of clicks and bellows. But did you know that the humble prairie dogs have an intricate language of their own? 

According to recent research, prairie dogs not only have “different alarm calls” for “different predator species,” allowing them to communicate whether it’s a coyote or a ferret approaching their holes, but they can get incredibly specific. So, for example, they can not only say “human coming!” with a series of squeaks, but they can express a complete sentence like “Tall thin human wearing blue shirt walking slowly across the colony.” Apparently, they can even do things like remember whether a particular human was seen carrying a gun in the past, and say that. 

Unfortunately, they have a lot of human-related threats to talk about. Nowadays, the habitat for American prairie dogs is less than one percent of what it was historically, thanks mainly to humans who have covered the American plains with parking lots and cornfields and spewed pesticide everywhere. It’s yet another example of how human society destroys animal societies before it even understands them, and why that needs to stop.

They’re discussing a newspaper that fell into the burrow over the weekend. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.

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