January 24, 2025 ❧ “Mass deportations” begin, More tax cuts for the rich, and Rubio pushes regime change in Venezuela

Plus: Israel assaults the West Bank, Turkey negotiates with the Kurds, Corbyn questioned by police, and a cannon for salmon

For our British readers: “News, innit?”

AROUND THE STATES

❧ If you make a Nazi salute at a presidential inauguration, you won’t lose your job in the administration. But if you criticize the guy who made that Nazi salute, you could lose your job reporting the weather. That’s exactly what happened to meteorologist Sam Kuffel, who worked for Milwaukee’s CBS 58. The channel fired her after she made two Instagram posts calling out Elon Musk for making what appeared to be a Sieg Heil gesture at a rally on Monday. The posts were tagged by a local conservative radio host, Dan O’Donnell (who has ironically spoken many times against “cancel culture”) and Kuffel was fired shortly after. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Kuffel’s offending posts, screenshotted by O’Donnell. This is exactly how any right-thinking person should respond to an open display of fascism by a public figure! 

PETITION

Firing Kuffel intimidates Americans from speaking their mind when they see signs of creeping fascism. If people fear that they will lose their jobs over social media posts, they will be silent even when they feel morally compelled to speak. Her case is important not just because it is an injustice to her, but because it is dangerous for employers to punish employees for reacting to signs of Nazism with outrage. As a rule, employers should not punish employees for ordinary political speech off the clock, and free speech is a vital principle of a healthy society. Kuffel's firing is an outrageous infringement on that principle.

We have created a petition on Change.org demanding that CBS 58 give Kuffel her job back, as well as an apology and back pay.

❧ Speaking of creeping fascism, Trump’s immigration roundups have begun around the country, and they’ve already led to the arrest of multiple American citizens. As of Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported having arrested 538 undocumented immigrants and that hundreds have already been deported. Trump administration spokesperson Karoline Leavitt tweeted a photo of men being led in shackles onto a plane bound for Guatemala. The White House said that ICE was arresting “illegal immigrant criminals,” including “a suspected terrorist, four members of the Tren de Aragua gang, and several illegals convicted of sex crimes against minors,” but provided no further details. 

Several undocumented men wearing shackles and being led onto a “deportation flight” to Guatemala. (Photo: The White House, via Newsweek)

This accounts for maybe a dozen of the people who have been arrested. We can assume that the hundreds of others who have been arrested probably did not have violent criminal records, or the administration would have mentioned it. As USA Today reported last week, it’s often very difficult for immigration enforcement to determine which immigrants have criminal records at all. There’s reason to suspect that federal law enforcement knows very little about the people it is rounding up. In Newark, ICE raided a fish market without a warrant and arrested multiple American citizens, one of whom was a military veteran. But the mass roundup of undocumented immigrants is outrageous enough on its own. The vast majority of people living unauthorized in the United States are not violent criminals, as the Trump administration seeks to portray, but ordinary people.

In fact, they commit less crime on average than native-born citizens! We can expect more disturbing scenes in the weeks and months to come. This week, the administration lifted restrictions on carrying out arrests at churches and schools, meaning that children and families will surely be targeted. At a time like this, it is incumbent upon all of us to look out for and care for our neighbors who are in need of help.

FIGHTING BACK

In Arizona, mutual aid groups are drilling on anti-raid tactics. 

As Carolina Cuellar and John Washington report for Arizona Luminaria, the community organizers at the Josefina Ahumada Worker Center in Tucson aren’t just standing around waiting for Trump’s ICE agents to come to them. Instead, they’ve been offering undocumented workers, mostly in the construction industry, training on how to resist and evade deportation raids. The main tactic seems to be getting inside a building—in an orderly way, so government agents can’t say anyone tried to run—and using the constitutional right to refuse them entry unless they have a warrant. They’ve got it down to a science, with stopwatch drills:

[A] siren started blaring from a red and white megaphone. The laborers were expecting the piercing sound, and knew exactly what to do: immediately turn on their heels and quickly — and calmly — walk across the parking lot and enter into the worker center’s main office. “40 segundos, muy bien,” Tony called out, praising the group for quickly getting inside, as the last man entered and closed the door behind him. They had just conducted another Border Patrol raid simulation… Thirty, 35 seconds is what they’re aiming for, Tony explained. He said that anything slower could compromise more people.

This is an example of what the organizers call “radical hospitality,” and it can be replicated anywhere in the country where Trump’s deportation agenda is a threat. If you’re in a border state—or even a city with an immigrant population—and you don’t already have a similar program, it might be time to give some serious thought to starting one. 

In troubled times, a laminator is a surprisingly good weapon. 

(Photo: John Washington for Arizona Luminaria)

❧ The Republican candidate for North Carolina’s state supreme court is trying to win his election by having legal votes thrown out. Jefferson Griffin, an appeals court judge, lost last fall’s election to Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs by just over 700 votes. But the North Carolina GOP has backed his effort to have the election result overturned by invalidating more than 60,000 ballots—mostly from voters who did not fill out their Social Security number or driver’s license number on their voter registration applications. Though, most of the voters have been registered for decades. And even if they weren’t, North Carolina doesn’t require voters to have a Social Security number or driver’s license to vote anyway. This is a pretty blatant attempt at election theft, which the ACLU describes as evidence of “democratic backsliding” in North Carolina. But there is still a chance the Supreme Court, which leans 5 to 2 Republican, will rule in Griffin’s favor. (NC Newsline)

❧ A healthcare company is telling hospitals they’re not allowed to fix their own equipment. Terumo Cardiovascular isn’t the most famous company, but it’s an important one, since it makes lifesaving “heart-lung machines”—devices that temporarily replace the functions of the human heart and/or lungs, allowing people to stay alive during intensive surgery. Now, the company is trying to prevent hospital workers from repairing or doing maintenance on those machines, even when they’re fully qualified to do it. They’re refusing to teach doctors and nurses how to do the repairs, and instead pushing hospitals to pay for “direct servicing” from the company itself—which will drive healthcare costs up, and could even threaten someone’s life if a machine breaks down and the technician doesn’t arrive in time. It’s just more evidence that the for-profit healthcare system is deeply evil, and needs to go ASAP. (404 Media)

If Terumo gets its way, these will be as hard to fix as the McDonald’s ice cream machine. (Image: HeartValveSurgery.com)

AROUND THE STATES

❧ The Turkish government is reportedly in talks with Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), to end the decades-old conflict between the Turkish government and the persecuted Kurdish minority. Since the 1980s, Öcalan’s separatist group has sought independence from Turkey and engaged in guerilla war tactics to achieve it, resulting in a brutal response from the Turkish government, which designates them as a terrorist organization. Since 1984, around 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Now, both sides appear open to dialogue for the first time in nearly a decade. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said there was “significant progress” in negotiations while Öcalan said he had “the capability and will to make the necessary positive contribution.” According to the Turkish press, Öcalan may even call for the PKK to disarm or withdraw its armed members from Turkey, depending on what Erdoğan offers for the Kurdish people in return. If all goes well, an announcement is expected on Feb. 15. (Kurdistan 24)

A pair of Kurdish soldiers carry the image of Öcalan, who has been in prison since 1999. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

❧ Already getting busy on destabilizing South America, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has recognized González Urrutia as the “rightful” president of Venezuela. González was the main opponent to Nicolás Maduro in the country’s last election, which was marred by widespread fraud allegations and the imprisonment of anti-Maduro protesters.

But it’s important to remember that, even though the Maduro government is pretty clearly dictatorial, Marco Rubio doesn’t oppose dictatorship as such; in fact, he loves El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who’s just as authoritarian as Maduro himself. Rather, this is about the Trump administration’s desire to overthrow Venezuela’s government and get access to its rich oil reserves on favorable terms, which Trump himself has openly talked about before. 

In the last Trump term, it was opposition leader Juan Guaidó who spearheaded the regime-change effort; now, apparently, the State Department has found a new favorite in González. But ultimately, political change in Venezuela has to come from the people themselves, from the bottom up. Given its past track record in South America, the United States has no business putting its thumb on the scale. (MercoPress)

❧ President Trump lifted sanctions on far-right Israeli settlers and others accused of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday. Hours later, the Israeli military said that dozens of Israeli civilians, some masked, had raided a Palestinian village, where they “instigated riots, set property on fire and caused damage.” This was part of a “wave of renewed violence” by Israeli settlers against Palestinians identified by the U.N., which began in response to the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of the recent ceasefire deal. “In several towns including Sinjil, Turmus’ayya, and Qalqilya,” the U.N. said, “scores of settlers torched Palestinians’ houses and vehicles, blocked roads, and threw stones. Six Palestinians were injured in Sinjil, including three children, aged between 14 and 16.” 

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has also launched a military operation in the Jenin refugee camp—one of relatively few hubs of Palestinian resistance outside Gaza. The military has destroyed and burned dozens of homes in the camp, killing at least 10 people and making the area “nearly uninhabitable” according to the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees. More than 2,000 families have been forced to flee since December.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the military is applying “lessons” to the West Bank that it learned from fifteen months of destruction in Gaza. In addition to the military methods he cites, Israel seems to have learned the lesson that they can inflict collective punishment on Palestinians with total impunity. Just as President Biden enabled wanton violence and destruction during his term, President Trump is not only enabling but encouraging more of it.

❧ In the U.K., former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his longtime associate John McDonnell were questioned by police after attending a pro-Palestine rally. The police are claiming that several protesters forced their way through agreed-upon barriers near London’s Trafalgar Square, which both MPs deny, saying they simply tried to “peacefully carry and lay flowers.” They’re just the most famous of several protesters to face police harassment over the event, as 48 were in police custody and 24 had been bailed out as of Sunday—all part of the U.K.’s crackdown against dissent on the issue of Palestine in particular. (BBC)

¡ADIÓS, EL GATO!

Corbyn has also said farewell to his cat, El Gato, who passed away this week. By all accounts, El Gato was also a socialist who shared his food with homeless cats, and he was featured on an official Labour Party calendar in 2017. He will be missed.

Can you believe the media tried to convince everyone this guy was dangerous?

(Image: Jeremy Corbyn, via Twitter)

❧ The Japanese mail system will no longer deliver live reptiles. Sending mammals and birds by mail was already banned, but until recently there was no such protection for lizards, snakes, and the rest of our scaly friends. That changed on Thursday, when a spokesperson for Japan Post announced that “shipping animals in an environment where temperature control and food are unavailable can amount to animal abuse” (no kidding!), and they’d no longer be doing it. This seems like a decision that should have come a long time ago, but hey, better late than never. (Japan Today)

You can, however, mail PICTURES of Japanese reptiles as much as you want.

(Image: eBay)

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

❧ John Ratcliffe, a former House representative from Texas, has been confirmed as the new CIA director. In hearings, Ratcliffe won over congressional Democrats by promising to keep the CIA “apolitical”—a ludicrous statement, since most of what the agency does involves meddling in other countries’ politics. He’s also an aggressive China-hawk and a proponent of warrantless surveillance around the world, which Congress didn’t seem to find nearly as worrying as they should have. There’s never been a “good” CIA director, and that isn’t going to change any time soon—but at least satirists will be able to draw this guy as a rat on a cliff, so that’s something. (The Hill)

Ratcliffe is not actually an AI-generated amalgam of every other neoconservative “intelligence community” creep, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

❧ Meanwhile, Donald Trump has ended remote work options for most federal employees. In yet another executive order, Trump directed the heads of government departments to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements” as soon as possible, revoking yet another important COVID-related protection for workers. The move appears to be calculated to make people resign and shrink the federal workforce overall, in keeping with Elon Musk’s “DOGE” goals—and Musk himself welcomes the move, saying that “If federal employees don't want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them.”

It’s also worth noting that Donald Trump is a real estate guy at heart, and “return to office” mandates in general have a lot more to do with propping up commercial real estate prices than they do with what’s best for workers and the work they do. Like everything else in Trumpworld, this will only make the rich richer at ordinary people’s expense. (NPR)

❧ Speaking of making the rich richer at everyone else's expense: A memo has been leaked to the New York Times detailing the House GOP’s plans for new tax policy in 2025. And, you’ll never believe it, but they’re planning to cut taxes for rich people and pay for it by raising them on everybody else.

The memo outlines several proposals, including reducing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, eliminating the inheritance tax for millionaires, and re-introducing many loopholes that the wealthy have used to avoid paying taxes. They also plan to strip $80 billion from the Internal Revenue Service—funding that was provided specifically for them to go after wealthy tax cheats. Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that, put together, these cuts will cost the government $1.2 trillion in revenue. 

But never fear! Republicans have a plan to pay for it. They plan to introduce cuts to Medicaid, repeal green energy subsidies, and cut the Child Tax Credit, tax subsidies for students, and deductions for mortgage owners. They seek to introduce cuts to food stamps, welfare, and disability payments, and reduce the number of low-income people who can claim these benefits by preventing the poverty line from being raised with inflation. To make matters worse, they also plan to enact Trump’s 10-percent tariff on all imports, which—as Stephen Prager has written about for Current Affairs—will amount to a regressive tax that hits the poorest Americans hardest. We’ll say it again: We love right-wing populism, don’t we, folks?!

❧ So, your tax dollars may not go towards funding a social welfare state. But if the fossil fuel industry has its way, they may soon go towards something even better… Bitcoin! As Freddy Brewster reports for the Lever: 

A Bitcoin advocacy group pushing President-elect Donald Trump to stockpile massive amounts of cryptocurrency and state-level efforts to do the same is run by fossil fuel operatives fighting to eliminate environmental regulations, including the author of the Project 2025 proposal to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency.

If the group has its way, governments will use taxpayer dollars and workers’ retirement funds to buy and hold billions of dollars in largely unregulated, volatile assets that would boost energy demands and accelerate climate destruction.

By stockpiling Bitcoin, governments would boost legitimacy and demand for Bitcoin, likely contributing to a massive increase in Bitcoin prices — and forcing taxpayers to foot an ever-larger bill. Such a price surge would offer major payoffs for the small group of people who own the majority of Bitcoin, the first and most recognizable kind of cryptocurrency. Just 2 percent of accounts own more than 90 percent of the total Bitcoin currently in circulation.

❧ And in miscellaneous GOP depravity, House Republicans wouldn’t subpoena a January 6 witness because they’d apparently been sexting her. According to leaked internal communications reviewed by the Washington Post, Republicans had wanted to subpoena Cassidy Hutchinson—the former White House aide who testified to the House January 6 committee about Donald Trump’s role in the riots that day—and cross-examine her about her account. But members of Representative Mike Johnson’s staff advised against it, pointing out that a subpoena could end up exposing the existence of “sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors” with Hutchinson, something that “multiple colleagues” in the House had apparently raised concerns about. The party of family values, everybody! 

FISH FACT OF THE WEEK

“Salmon cannons” help fish migrate over dams!

Hydroelectric dams are very important sources of clean energy. But they are not without their drawbacks. One of the biggest is that they get in the way of migratory fish—including salmon, who swim up stream each summer to mate and lay their eggs. But scientists have developed a solution: using a “salmon cannon” to launch them over the dams that obstruct their passage. The technology was originally developed by a farmer who wanted an efficient way to transport apples from trees without damaging them. He developed a long pneumatic tube that used air pressure to suck them up and transport them harmlessly to the ground.

In 2014, a company, fittingly called Whooshh Innovations, began using this same idea to assist obstructed salmon. It essentially works like a water slide, sending the fish on a frictionless ride from one body of water to another. They go hurtling at unprecedented speeds of up to 22 miles per hour (for reference, the fastest human track runner, Usain Bolt, has been recorded at top speeds of just over 23 mph). In early days, salmon cannons required a human operator—a sort of aquatic carny—to load the fish up for their ride. During migration season, they’d sometimes send anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 through the chute per day. But newer models allow the fish to swim into the tube on their own.

And while the phrase “salmon cannon” invokes the idea of weaponry, the Guardian reported in 2019 that, “from the fish’s perspective it’s a completely smooth ride and it actually feels to them like they’re in the water. And that’s why when they come out the exit they just swim away. They swim in, they slide, they glide, and they swim off. There’s no shock to their system.”

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t covered by the National Unusual Weapons Association!

Art by Aidan Y-M from Issue 44 of Current Affairs Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2023

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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