November, 15 2018, 11:00pm EDT
Just Released - JVP Stands Up to Canary Mission With Powerful Video
Because if you’re a liar and a cyber-troll, the world should know
WASHINGTON
ewish Voice for Peace released a scathing new video today fighting back against the shadowy website Canary Mission.
"We've gotten one too many calls from distraught students who worry about their future internet footprints. Canary Mission is clearly backed by money and people with technology we can't fight on their level. But we can fight a moral battle. And the morality behind stalking and trolling students and calling them racist and antisemitic because they support Palestinian rights is unconscionable" - Rebecca Vilkomerson, Executive Director
The Canary Mission website, which maintains a blacklist of people who defend Palestinian human rights, has bullied and slandered thousands of students and professors, making egregious claims based on very little fact. Canary Mission has threatened the careers and reputations of those listed, and tries to intimidate and dissuade people from speaking out for Palestinian rights.
Canary Mission particularly targets Arab and Muslim students, pulling on anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tropes. For Palestinian students, inclusion on the blacklist can prevent them from visiting their families. Indeed, it was recently confirmed that the State of Israel is using this slanderous and unverified blacklist as a tool in determining who can enter Israel, and that the FBI was using Canary Mission as a basis for questioning students of color in the U.S.
Some of the blacklist's funders and supporters - including members of the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. - were recently revealed by Al Jazeera's censored documentary The Lobby.
Watch Jewish Voice for Peace's new video here: https://youtu.be/NK3e2zJzGno
Jewish Voice for Peace is a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine. JVP has over 200,000 online supporters, over 70 chapters, a youth wing, a Rabbinic Council, an Artist Council, an Academic Advisory Council, and an Advisory Board made up of leading U.S. intellectuals and artists.
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At Least 32 Casualties in Fiery North Sea Collision Between Oil Tanker and Cargo Ship
Advocates expressed concern for wildlife as emergency crews completed rescue and firefighting efforts.
Mar 10, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
British emergency workers on Monday were responding to a collision between an oil tanker and a cargo ship off the eastern coast of the United Kingdom in the North Sea.
At least 32 casualties were "brought ashore in Grimsby," a port town in Lincolnshire, reportedThe Guardian, and the two ships were believed to be a U.S.-flagged tanker called the MV Stena Immaculate and a cargo vessel called the Solong, which was headed for Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed the vessels on fire and surrounded by thick black smoke.
The oil tanker collision in the north sea is really significant - major damage to both ships Seems like a cargo tanker just flat-out rammed at full speed into the side of the stationary (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRPj...) 49,7629 tonne capacity on the oil ship (!) www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03...
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— Ketan Joshi (@ketanjoshi.co) March 10, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Gimsby East, told the BBC that a "massive fireball" was seen erupting around the time of the collision.
"They must have sent a mayday out—luckily there was a crew transfer vessel out there already," said Boyers. "Since then there has been a flotilla of ambulances to pick up anyone they can find."
Boyers toldSky News that "a haze and a smog" had been reported off the coast on Monday.
"It's been very foggy, and the fog has never lifted. So I would imagine that at that time, when the accident took place, that there would have been fog," said Boyers. "Having said that all these vessels now... they've got every, every bit of kit that's known to man about how to navigate and radars and everything. So it's a very, very unusual and tragic accident."
His Majesty's Coastguard, the U.K. maritime agency, reported that an alarm was raised about the crash about 10 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire at 9:48 am local time.
The Solong appeared to have struck the oil tanker when it was anchored, according to tracking data.
The BBC reported Monday morning that all members of the Stena Immaculate crew had been accounted for and were safe; it was not clear whether there were still people in the Solong's crew who still needed to be located.
Climate campaigners have warned against continued oil extraction in the North Sea; in January, advocates celebrated as grassroots campaigners and groups won a lawsuit stopping two fossil fuel projects by Shell and Equinor from moving forward there.
David Steel, manager of the Isle of May National Nature Reserve, noted that the disaster happened just as seabirds' breeding season is about to begin.
"Seabirds pouring back into the North Sea as they head to colonies down east coast," said Steel, "and this is a breaking headline we didn't need today."
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How the GOP Spending Bill Would 'Hand a Blank Check to Elon Musk'
One top Democrat called the seven-month continuing resolution a "power grab" that "further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people."
Mar 10, 2025
House Republicans this week are aiming to pass a seven-month government funding bill that Democrats said would effectively preempt any congressional effort to rein in billionaire Elon Musk as he works in concert with President Donald Trump to eviscerate federal agencies and fire government employees en masse.
The continuing resolution (CR), which would avert a looming shutdown and keep the government funded through September, calls for increasing military spending while cutting or declining to fund key programs involving rental assistance, public health, and other critical areas.
Politicoreported that the bill would boost military spending by roughly $6 billion and slash non-military funding by $13 billion.
"The bill, for instance, does not renew $40 million in fiscal 2024 funding for more than 70 programs that help children and families," the outlet noted. "Most had been requested by Democratic senators, but not all: Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith previously secured $250,000 for a group that works to prevent child abuse in her home state of Mississippi and GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski requested more than $5 million to help fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse in Alaska."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that the legislation "is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people."
DeLauro continued:
By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire. Elon Musk and President Trump are stealing from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farms to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. They have made it harder for Americans to get their Social Security benefits; shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved American families $21 billion; fired 6,000 veterans and reportedly plan to make it harder for veterans to access benefits by firing an additional 80,000 VA employees; laid off hundreds of workers who build and maintain critical nuclear weapons; and shut down medical research labs. House Republicans' response: hand a blank check to Elon Musk.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, echoed DeLauro's criticism of the Republican bill, calling it a "slush fund continuing resolution that would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk more power over federal spending—and more power to pick winners and losers, which threatens families in blue and red states alike."
"Instead of turning the keys over to the Trump administration with this bill," said Murray, "Congress should immediately pass a short-term CR to prevent a shutdown and finish work on bipartisan funding bills that invest in families, keep America safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent."
In a fact sheet released over the weekend, Murray's office noted that full-year government funding bills typically provide "scores of specific funding directives for key programs and priorities" that constrain the executive branch.
But under the GOP continuing resolution, the fact sheet observes, "hundreds of those congressional directives fall away," giving the Trump administration broad discretion to "reshape spending priorities, eliminate longstanding programs, pick winners and losers, and more."
"Under this CR, the Trump administration could—for example—decide not to spend funding previously allocated for combatting fentanyl, the SUPPORT Act, and other substance abuse and mental health programs, or specific NIH priorities like Alzheimer's disease and vaccine research—and instead steer funding to other priorities of its choosing," the document states. "It could also pick and choose which Military Construction, Army Corps, or transit improvement and expansion projects to fund without direction from Congress."
A similar fact sheet released by DeLauro warns that the CR "provides a blank check to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the amount of $4 billion, enabling Elon Musk to direct contracts to Starlink and SpaceX (companies owned by Musk) at a time when unvetted and unchecked SpaceX employees have burrowed in the FAA (the same Federal agency that regulates SpaceX), with no requirement for public transparency, fair competition, or congressional approval."
"This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires," said DeLauro.
The Republican bill is expected to get a House vote as soon as Tuesday evening. In a post to his social media platform on Saturday, Trump praised the CR as "very good" and demanded lockstep unity from his party, which has willfully ceded the power of the purse in the opening weeks of the president's second White House term.
Trump's call for "no dissent" from Republicans stems from the party's narrow majorities in the House and Senate. In the latter chamber, the bill will need at least seven Democratic votes to pass.
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ICE Arrests Palestinian Green Card Holder Who Helped Lead Columbia's Gaza Solidarity Camp
"The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil—a green card holder whose wife is eight months pregnant—is a blatant assault on the First Amendment and a sign of advancing authoritarianism under Trump," said one critic.
Mar 10, 2025
Federal agents on Saturday arrested a prominent Palestinian activist and permanent U.S. resident who says the arresting officers told him his green card had been revoked.
Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, who is eight months pregnant, were returning home at around 8:30 pm Saturday when plainclothes Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents "pushed in behind them," advocates for Khalil
toldZeteo's Prem Thakker. Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer, said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents also threatened to arrest his wife.
Last week, the U.S. State Department announced the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered "catch and revoke" program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas. This, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel's assault on Gaza.
"Clearly Trump is using the protesters as a scapegoat for his wider agenda fighting and attacking higher education and the Ivy League education system," Khalil toldReuters Saturday before his arrest.
Thakker reported:
The agents claimed that the State Department had revoked Khalil's student visa, with one agent presenting what he claimed was a warrant on his cell phone. But Khalil, according to advocates, has a green card. Khalil's wife went to their apartment to get the green card.
"He has a green card," an agent apparently said on the phone, confused by the matter. But then after a moment, the agent claimed that the State Department had "revoked that too."
Experts said that revoking a green card is very rare and typically only occurs when a permanent resident has committed a serious crime, engages in immigration fraud, or clearly demonstrates intent to abandon their status.
"This has the appearance of a retaliatory action against someone who expressed an opinion the Trump administration didn't like," Camille Mackler, founder of Immigrant ARC, a coalition of New York legal service providers, toldHuffpost.
Khalil graduated in December with a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He was also a lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which drew international attention as Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and annihilated much of their homeland. Khalil was briefly suspended last spring for his protest activities.
Elora Mukherjee, director of the immigrants' rights clinic at Columbia Law School, toldThe New York Times that if the Trump administration revoked Khalil's green card "in retaliation for his public speech, that is prohibited by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said late Sunday that Khalil was arrested "in support of President Trump's executive orders prohibiting antisemitism."
"Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization," McLaughlin added. "ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump's executive orders and to protecting U.S. national security."
However, Greer said that "we will vigorously be pursuing Mahmoud's rights in court, and will continue our efforts to right this terrible and inexcusable—and calculated—wrong committed against him."
Murad Awawdeh, the president of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in a statement that "this blatantly unconstitutional act sends a deplorable message that freedom of speech is no longer protected in America."
The Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers, which represents more than 3,000 graduate and undergraduate student workers, urged Columbia staff and students to oppose the school's "cooperation with the Trump administration."
“By allowing ICE on campus, Columbia is surrendering to the Trump administration's assault on universities across the country and sacrificing international students to protect its finances," the union said in a statement.
Last week, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia, claiming the school—which cracked down hard on Gaza protesters—hasn't done enough to combat antisemitism.
The Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) coalition noted that "Columbia University has published guidance on how best to collaborate with federal enforcement, including advising faculty and staff 'not to interfere' with ICE agents even if those agents are unable to present a warrant."
"Columbia's continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible."
"Columbia's continued acquiescence to federal agencies and outside partisan institutions has made this situation possible," WAWOG argued.
"A Palestinian student and member of the community has been abducted and detained without the physical demonstration of a warrant or officially filed charges," the coalition continued. "Like many other Arab and Muslim students, Khalil has been the target of various Zionist harassment campaigns, fueled by doxxing websites like Canary Mission."
"This racist targeting serves to instill fear in pro-Palestine activists as well as a warning to others," WAWOG added.
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