'She won't be able to grand stand': Bipartisan group subpoenas AG Bondi for closed-door deposition
Friday, 6 March 2026
Thursday, 5 March 2026
Mendacious Rationales: The Lies Behind Trump-Netanyahu Operation Lion’s Roar
Mendacious Rationales: The Lies Behind Trump-Netanyahu Operation Lion’s Roar
Many in the United States would scarcely identify the difference between Iran and Iraq, both countries based on ancient civilisations so chronologically distant as to be fiction. If not Marvel, it’s not marvellous. But another fiction came into play towards the end of February as the United States and Israel reprised their role as world rogues and crockery breakers by attacking Iran for a second time in less than a year in a joint campaign called Operation Lion’s Roar and Epic Fury. Following the vulgar playbook on regime change used against Iraq in 2003 by the US-led forces, a variation of the same theme is being used against Iran.
The difference here is that neither the US nor Israel are willing to commit ground forces. They will kill key leaders and figures across the Iranian regime, leaving an inchoate resistance against the clerics to seize the day. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has apparently been killed, with US President Donald J. Trump calling him “one of the most evil people in history”. Israel also claims that the opening strikes killed seven senior defence and intelligence officials, including Khamenei’s top security advisor Ali Shamkhani, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Mohammad Pakpour, Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh and the chief of Iranian military intelligence Saleh Asadi.
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President Donald J. Trump oversees Operation Epic Fury at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, Feb. 28, 2026. (White House photo by Daniel Torok) (Public Domain)
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The February 28 statement from Trump posted on Truth Social as an 8-minute video declared that the objective of the attack was “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.” This was curious given the previous US-Israeli attacks in June 2025 that had apparently “obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.” Then efforts were supposedly made on his part to seek a deal to prevent Iran ever pursuing nuclear weapons.
“We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again they wanted to.”
In this haze of confusion, Trump had concluded that Tehran had, after all, decided to “rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.” Their missile industry would be razed, the navy annihilated, the proxies crippled. Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard would receive total immunity if they laid down their weapons, “or you will face certain death.” As for the unspecified “great proud people of Iran”, they should stay sheltered as the bombing continued. When done, the government “will be yours to take”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement also confirmed the objective of ending “the threat of the Ayatollah regime in Iran.” That regime had domestically repressed its citizens, “instilled fear in the peoples of the region”, created a global terror network, “invested enormous resources to develop atomic bombs and tens of thousands of missiles intended, as it defined it, to erase Israel from the map of the world.” They armed “terrorist proxies”.
Even more stridently, and fanatically than Trump, Netanyahu restated those themes of existential threat and untrustworthiness so characteristic of the wicked Persian. Despite “a decisive blow” being struck against the regime and its proxies last June, “the wounded predator has not ceased its attempts to recover, for the same purpose, to destroy us.” (Evidently not that decisive, then.) Having stated every year for years that Iran would develop the means to destroy Israel within a short time, he came up with another fictional twist: not only were the tyrants “plotting to rebuild their nuclear and missile capabilities”, they were also placing them “underground, where we cannot reach them. If we do not stop them now, they will become invulnerable.”
The tissues of lies in both statements are impressive and incorrigible. Operation Midnight Hammer had seemingly not obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities, suggesting they had been ineffectual, indulgent or incompetent. And why bother keeping the US-Iranian dialogue on Teheran’s nuclear program going if a military solution proved inevitable? For a President who boasts about his ability to make deals, few are being brokered of late.
Both Israel and the US used the same verbal formulae as before: exaggerate the capabilities of Iran to build consensus for an illegal war; exaggerate a military prowess of such biblical force that simply does not exist. Again, there are too many chilling parallels to the pattern followed by the George W. Bush administration leading up to the pre-emptive attack on Iraq in March 2003. Imminent threats were very much part of the hysterical argot then in justifying the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Needing justifications plucked out of thin air, the US government sought propping evidence from the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Tony Blair duly supplied the infamous 2002 dossier with the chilling claim that Iraqi forces could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of being ordered to do so. (This nicely supplemented the fabricated claim that Saddam Hussein was also pursuing a nuclear weapons program with the purchase of 500 tonnes of yellowcake uranium powder from Niger.) The key official behind the dossier, the diligent arms expert David Kelly, committed suicide in despairing disgust, having been ordered to include the 45-minute claim. No such weapons were ever found, and a central rationale of the invasion collapsed. The United States, UK, Australia and a motley crew of coalition members were found to be brigands.
There will, no doubt, be some cheer within Iran at these strikes, notably from the young who have suffered at the hands of a clerical, authoritarian regime. Washington’s allies will snivel with coerced approval citing the brutality of Iran’s regime while ignoring breaches of international law they are condoning. (Australia’s response was particularly despicable.) The Shia-Sunni division will be tested, with various US bases and military assets already struck in the Gulf States by a regime trying to survive. The United Nations will continue being treated like a bed-ridden dowager whose influence was from another day, conduct more contemptible even than 2003 when many Western states did, at the very least, show solidarity in rejecting the use of force by the United States and its allies in the absence of a Security Council resolution. In the meantime, American diplomats who open their frontier-stretched mouths claiming interest for peace and negotiations should make everyone reach for the gun.
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The Snapshot Wednesday, March 4, 2026.
The Snapshot
Wednesday, March 4, 2026. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee and makes clear that she's not running anything, she's not overseeing cases that cause problems for DHS, she's not overseeing spending on projects, she's just posing for photo-ops endlessly.
Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducted an oversight hearing on Homeland Security. Appearing before them was Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Homeland Security has terrorized the American people and behaved with no oversight at all. It wasn't until the January killings of US citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti that the repulsion grew so great against ICE's actions that Noem and others were forced into realizing that there are checks and balances in this system. Renee and Alex were killed in Minnesota. Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of that state's two US senators so we'll start by noting her.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed. They should be alive today. In fact, in one month in the city of Minneapolis, when you look at the three fatalities that were results of shooting, 2 of 3 were committed by federal agents. Are you aware of that?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I am.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: So your agents not only their actions resulted in the deaths of two innocent American citizens but they repeatedly violated my constituents First Amendment rights to assemble. You say you believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms but Alez Pretti was criticized repeatedly by officials in the administration for hvaing a lawful permit to carry and having a gun. Your agents violated the Fourth Amendment rights of my constituents by ramming through doors of innocent people's homes, innocent citizens' homes without any kind of a warrant and violated the Fifth Amendment right to due process. So, as I've shared with my colleagues, if you believe in federalism, in freedom and in liberty, you should be horrified by what the Department of Homeland Security did in Minnesota. So my first question is, having spoken to Mr. [Tom] Homan [White House Border Czar], what is the eact number of DHS agents still in Minnesota?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Well I believe that there is still close to 650 there counting the investigators that are there working to get to the bottom of the unprecedented fraud that has been found in the Medicaid funding
Senator Amy Klobchar: As you know, I am all in on prosecuting fraud. I put in place the US Attorney who exposed the fraud under the Biden administration and brought the bulk of the prosecutions and also recommended to Mr. [Todd] Blanch [Deputy Attorney General] that Joe Thompson be the acting US Attorney who led those prosecutions and now has left the office because the Department of Justice asked him and many others to investigate Renee Good's wife instead of doing their jobs, doing fraud. So what I want to know is when are you going to get down to the original footprint as promised to us.
Secretary Kristi Noem: We're continuing to work at that although those investigators will continue to stay there to get to the bottom of that fraud to make sure that those vulnerable people that rely on those programs actually get services from those federal dollars that are spent, that it's not stolen by criminals and used by individuals to enrich themselves and send it out of the country.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Secretary, Chong Li Tao. Are you aware that agents bashed in the door of a US citizen with no criminal record?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I can't speak to the specifics of that.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Did you see the photos of that man being dragged out of his house in crocs and in his underwear?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I did.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Did you believe that he was involved in fraud?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I do not know where that status of that investigation is.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you aware that he is a son of a beloved nurse that treated our soldiers in Vietnam?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I believe that we have laws in this country that need to be enforced and need to be applied equally to everyone of enforcing the laws and following the laws.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Did they have a judicial warrant when they rammed through an American citizen's store?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Our law enforcement officers follow the same protocols and procedures that all law enforcement --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you aware that he tried to show his identification, to show that he was an American citizen, and they didn't want to see it?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Again, these officers, uhm, conduct themselves in processes. If something was done inaccurately then certainly we will make sure that we corrected and rectify it in the future.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you aware that the person they were looking for was in prison and had been in prison for years?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I am. That's a target -- Yes, we do target operations going after and looking for --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Do you agree that it is unacceptable for your agents to ram in someone's door and drag someone out in their underwear in below zero temperatures when they have the wrong guy?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Our officers conduct targeted operations and utilize the law processes that are given to them in the tools --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: You are not answering that you think that's wrong.
Secretary Kristi Noem: They need to identify that individual and, uh, that individual --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: They couldn't identify him by looking at his identification? Instead, they had to drag him out, throw him in a car and drive him around for an hour? How about pulling off off-duty police officers, Madam Secretary, every single one of whom made clear who they were. They were people of color, off-duty police officers. In Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, the chief described how one off-duty police officer -- someone of color, a US citizen -- was stopped and confronted by ICE agents with their guns drawn demanding her proof of citizenship. As Chief [Mark] Bruley said, "I wish I could tell you that this was an isolated incident but other chiefs said it had happened to their own officers. Why were these officers stopped?
Secretary Kristi Noem: We have thousands of law enforcement operations that we do every single day --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Do you think they were stopped because they were people of color? Were they racially profiled -- Ms. Noem ?
Secretary Kristi Noem: When I look at these American families who've been victimized by criminals that we have removed from cities and communities, I'm grateful for the work that our ICE officers do. And by your only focus on --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: Are you defending stopping off-duty police officers of color and dragging a Mung elder out of his home?
Secretary Kristi Noem: -- when you only talk about these situations like this that we are conducting and you don't talk about the good work that they do to protect people from being victimized, right? People that are in this country that want to conduct violent crimes against them or take advantage against them, uh, the law need to apply to everyone and we're out there enforcing --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: I am a former prosecutor, Ms. Noem, and I have always worked with our police well. But that's not what was going -- these ICE agents were not following police procedures. After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, when I spoke to Alex's parents, they told me that you calling him "a domestic terrorist." This was directly from them the day after he was killed -- a nurse in our VA, Alex -- one of the mos thurtful things they could ever imagine was said by you about their son. Do you have anything you want to say to Alex Pretti's parents?
Secretary Kristi Noem: We were relying in the hours after that incident that was so horrific, um, on information we were getting from our agents --
Senator Amy Klobuchar I just asked if you had anything you wanted to say to the parents or to the family of Renee Good after you called them domestic terrorists?
Secretary Kristi Noem: That's what I am doing --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: You called them domestic terrorists.
Secretary Kristi Noem: -- is I can't even imagine what they have gone through in the loss of their son and the loss of their family members and
Senator Amy Klobuchar: But how about specifically calling them domestic terrorists without any evidence of that?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, ma'am, I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an incident of.
Senator Amy Klobuchar: I think the parents saw it for what it was. After the killings, the federal government refused to cooperate with state law enforcement agents, blocked Minnesota investigators from accessing the scene. I know because I got directly calls from the mayor. I tried to call the DOJ. I tried to do everything I could because they were very worried about what was going to happen immediately -- especially after Alex Pretti's death. Do you think that blocking local law enforcement from the scene of a shooting makes people safer? Yes or no?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Actually our HSI law enforcement officers risked their lives on that scene preserving evidence and keeping the violent rioters away from the evidence so that it could --
Senator Amy Klobuchar: It was Alex Pretti's life that was lost at the scene, Secretary Noem.
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I am aware.
Kristi had nothing to say to the families of Renee or Alex when asked by Senator Klobuchar. Molly Sprayregen (LGBTQ NATION) notes that she had nothing to say on the topic elsewhere in the hearing as well:
While testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused to admit she was wrong for announcing that the two people killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis were “domestic terrorists” in the immediate aftermath of their deaths.
“We have ample video evidence and eyewitness testimony proving you were wrong,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told her. “Your statements caused immeasurable pain to these families.”
Durbin also brought up teacher’s assistant Marimar Martinez, who survived being shot five times by ICE agents in Chicago and was also accused by the federal government of being a domestic terrorist.
He then said he wanted to give Noem “an opportunity to do the right thing” and asked, “Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists?”
Noem did not, instead giving a long-winded answer about her heart breaking for the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. She justified her actions by claiming “agents at the scene” told her the victims were terrorists and that the situation was “chaotic.”
Noem continued to skirt the issue, prompting Durbin to ask, “Is it so hard to say you were wrong?”
Yes, it apparently is too hard for Noem to admit she was wrong.
On Renee Nicole Good, Molly Sprayregen also reports:
Senate Judiciary Democrats have accused FBI Director Kash Patel of shutting down the FBI investigation into the death of Renee Good at the hands of ICE agents because he did not want the warrant to call her a “victim.”
The group posted on social media on Monday that a “credible whistleblower” revealed that “FBI forensic experts were ordered to stand down from processing the scene where Renee Good was killed, because Kash Patel did not want Good referenced as a ‘victim’ in the warrant.”
In a follow-up post, the Democrats clarify that Patel “wanted to falsely spin Renee Good as a threat to law enforcement.” The post included a screenshot explaining information from a credible whistleblower that the FBI’s Forensic Response Section was initially called to the scene of Good’s death to access Good’s car and gather evidence.
Senator Adam Schiff also raised the murders of Renee and Alex in the hearing.
Senator Adam Schiff: […] Madam Secretary I want to ask you about one of the first claims you made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. You accused them both, I think, within hours of engaging in domestic terrorism. You have testified earlier that you did so based on preliminary field reports. Who told you that these two victims were engaged in domestic terrorism? Where did you get that information from?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I have said before and will repeat again for you Senator, that those reports were coming from on the ground agents that were there. It was a chaotic scene.
Senator Adam Schiff: So, you spoke to agents on the ground who told you they were domestic terrorists?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, my team was working with me, talking to those agents on the ground to relay as much information as possible that we could to the American people.
Senator Adam Schiff: So, your team told you that people in Minneapolis said they were domestic terrorists. Did they tell you whether they had any basis for that claim within either minutes or hours of the shooting of Alex Pretti and Renee Good?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, if you look back at the day of January 24, there was a press conference earlier in the day and then I held one hours later. And we were also talking –
Senator Adam Schiff: I’m asking you, did you determine whether there was any basis for the sensational claim, a claim that proved to be utterly false, that these two victims were engaged in domestic terrorism?
Secretary Kristi Noem: There is an investigation ongoing. The FBI is leading --
Senator Adam Schiff: I’m aware of that. I’m asking you --
Secretary Kristi Noem: -- there is also internal investigations that are ongoing –
Senator Adam Schiff Schiff: What I’m asking about though is not the investigation that’s ongoing […] I’m asking about your statements in the immediate aftermath of these shootings. Your statements based on completely unvetted information. Information that if it was even provided to you, proved to be utterly false. That you were content to tell the whole country. Do you have any concern about misleading the whole country? Don’t you think in the immediate aftermath of a shooting that you should provide only vetted information to the public? How do you imagine you are going to gain the trust of the American people if you’re pushing out false information about the shooting of American citizens?
Senator Richard Blumenthal's line of questioning is also worthy of note. Noem knew the hearing was scheduled, she was briefed ahead of time by various people on her staff so she would be ready and prepared to answer questions. But she still couldn't.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here today, Madam Secretary. For a year, you maintained that no U.S. citizens have been arrested or detained by ICE or CBP. After hearings I conducted in the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as the Ranking Member, you admitted finally in a letter written to me just last month, that in fact U.S. citizens have been detained and arrested. I’m going to ask, Mr. Chairman, that that letter be entered into the record. Thank you. You put the number at 38. Far more American citizens have been arrested by ICE and CBP, probably in the hundreds, perhaps the thousands. Have you met with any of the American citizens who have been detained or arrested by your agency?
Secretary Kristi Noem: The individuals that may have been detained and arrested were individuals that could have been obstructing law enforcement operations --
Senator Richard Blumenthal: You haven’t met with them, correct?
Secretary Kristi Noem: -- and committing crimes that way, and that we would have been detaining individuals until their identity was confirmed.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: I would like to introduce you to three of them. Leo, Javier, and Marimar, would you please stand? These three individuals, Madam Secretary, were arrested by your agency. Leonardo Venegas, Javier Ramirez, and Marimar Martinez. Do you know what your agents did to Leo Venegas? I’ll tell you. On May 21 of last year, they entered the private property at a house that he was constructing without consent, without a warrant, illegally. Again, on June 12, they entered private property, a home where he was doing construction. He is a United States citizen, born in Florida. They seized him and ignored and disregarded his proof of citizenship. Wouldn't you agree with me that no U.S. citizen simply working lawfully should be arrested?
Secretary Kristi Noem: In law enforcement operations across the country, there are times when U.S. citizens --
Senator Richard Blumenthal: It’s a simple yes or no.
Secretary Kristi Noem: -- may be arrested or detained until their identity is confirmed and that they haven’t committed a crime.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Would you agree with me, Madam Secretary, that U.S. citizens should not be arrested when they are obeying the law, they have no criminal record, and they are engaged in lawful activity?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, in situations where law enforcement, regardless of the agency, across the country, when there is probable cause an individual --
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Let me tell you about Javier Ramirez. Do you know what your agents did to Javier Ramirez? He was on his own private property when he was assaulted by masked agents—his own property—without a warrant, without consent. They said, “Get him, he's Mexican.” He was violently slammed into the ground while being handcuffed and taken into custody, despite telling officers that he is a United States citizen and even showing them his passport. And when he was asked what he was being arrested for, you know what they said? “We don’t know.” Wouldn’t you agree that targeting someone just because he is, or looks like he is, Mexican, when he is a United States citizen, is wrong?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Senator, we do not target people based on their race or ethnicity. We do targeted operations based on criminal backgrounds and information that we have.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: This story goes on, Madam Secretary. Javier was detained for over four days. He was denied medicine that he needed for severe diabetes. He lost consciousness. He had severe hypoglycemia. Wouldn't you agree with me that medical treatment should have been provided to him? He was denied.
Secretary Kristi Noem: Senator, medical treatment is provided to individuals in our detention centers --
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Well, it wasn’t for him. Wouldn’t you agree that was wrong?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Within 12 hours, they have a medical examination, and we get them the prescriptions and medications that they need. They also have a full evaluation, including --
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Will you commit to take action and to look into why he was denied medical treatment?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, I will look into that case specifically for you, Senator.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Marimar Martinez is with us as well. She is standing right behind you. She was on her way to donate clothing at her church when she came across an unmarked car. The agents sideswiped her car. Three masked agents in camouflage stormed out. One of them pulled out his gun and fired at her moving vehicle, hitting her five times. She almost bled to death. Wouldn't you agree that shooting Marimar Martinez, a United States citizen from Chicago, on her way to donate clothing at her church is wrong?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, I don’t know the situation or the case. I’ll look into it to ensure that all the procedures were followed properly.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Well, I’m glad you’ll look into it. Marimar, by the way, was falsely charged with impeding law enforcement, but the case actually fell apart. The judge dismissed it as being trumped up. He dismissed it with prejudice. In fact, the agent who shot her—I’m not going to name him, but you know who he is—was quoted on social media the day or so afterward, and he said, “I fired five rounds, and she had seven holes. Put that in your book, boys” and “Cool, I'm up for another round of f--- around and find out.” Will you join me in condemning that agent?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, that situation I don’t know the details of, but I will look into that.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: I don’t know why you can't join me in saying it was wrong to shoot Marimar, almost cause her death, and then brag about it.
Wouldn’t you agree with me that it was wrong?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, the way that you have portrayed it, it appears to be, but let me look at the case so I can speak to the specifics of it.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Apparently, contrary to what you just said, you actually supported the agent who shot Ms. Martinez five times. He is quoted as saying, when he was asked, “Everyone has been supportive, including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Secretary Noem, and El Jefe himself,” referring presumably to President Trump. Is the agent who shot Ms. Martinez still on the job?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, our law enforcement officers conduct operations every day according to procedures and training and experience they have. Whenever something is not done properly --
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Is the agent who shot Ms. Martinez still on the job, carrying a gun?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I don’t know the details. I will find out and get that information to you.
Senator Richard Blumenthal: Would you agree that he shouldn’t be on the job?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I will look into this case and get back to you on the details. I’m not familiar with it.
Marimar Martinez. The country knows her name and story. But Krisi Noem will have to "look into this case and get back to you"? Marimar's case has received a ton of press attention and yet Kristi Noem, who heads Homeland Security, is not versed in it? Do her photo ops take up all of her time? She's the head of the department. ICE attacked Marimar. Marimar's lucky to be alive. And yet Kristi hasn't bothered once to look into what happened ("I don't know the details").
She doesn't know much. We'll note Senator Cory Booker next and pay attention for the section where he brings up the cost of a building DHS recently purchases -- the cost they paid versus the cost of the building's actual market value.
Senator Cory Booker: Secretary Noem, you're in charge of your agency, the buck stops with you -- correct?
Secretary Kristi Noem: I'm in charge of my agency. Yes, correct.
Senator Cory Booker: And you had to swear an oath to the Constitution before you took this jor, right?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Correct.
Senator Cory Booker: So one of the most sacrosanct ideas of our nation -- enshrined in our Constitution -- is freedom, is liberty.It is an idea that the government has a very high standard should they take away liberty and freedom from an American citizen? How many US citizens has DHS detained as of last October?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Senator, if you're talking about detained and arrested, is that those that have been violating and obstructing our law enforcement operations? If that what you're referencing because it could be hundreds and hundreds We have faced violent riots across the country.
Senator Cory Booker: You are specifically in Portalnd and in only people you've detained are committing crimes, but you and I both know that's not true. So then how many people have you detained?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Can't give you an accurate number because we've literally detained and arrested many for those obstruction of law enforcement operations and also other records that --
Senator Cory Booker: Let me tell you what my - my staff researched. May I, may I continue? Public records are showing that over 170 incidents of your agency unlawfully taking away the liberties and freedoms of American citizens. This includes 20 children -- 20 American kids -- that your agency detained. How long can your agency detain an American citizen?
Secretary Kristi Noem: We don't -- we don't detain children and separate them from their parents.
Senator Cory Booker: Those parents have chosen -- you're telling me -- to keep their child with them? I just want to be clear. You're telling me under oath right now that your agency has not detained American children?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Those parents have chosen to keep their children with them. We don't separate families like the Biden administration did -- We keep them together and parents have the option on if they want their child with them or not with them.
Senator Cory Booker: When you detain an American citizen, how long do they last?
Secretary Kristi Noem: We don't detain American citizens and when there's probable cause --
Senator Cory Booker: Let me -- because you're not speaking truthfully under oath. Isaias Pena Salcedo, a US citizen living in California, was detained more than 70 hours -- almost 3 days -- even after he showed ICE agents his passport. My colleague Senator Blumenthal gave you example after example. He brought people here who had something else we Americans consider sacrosanct, our home, our property. Your masked agents jumping out of unmarked cars have broken into -- considerable property damage occurring in American citizens' homes. Case after case of this and you sit here before me and claim the buck stops with you. But you don't even know the names of these individuals. I ran New Jersey's largest municipal police department. When my officers engaged in misconduct, you can be damn well sure I knew about it and I investigated it. And yet you have situations where your officers are violating the sanctity of people's homes, arresting and detaining them and holding their children and you're acting as if you don't know about it and saying that under oath. Marimar Martinez -- who is here right now -- on her way to church, an American citizen going to church, not just to worship but to donate clothing -- your officers shot her multiple times. The case was thrown out of court and you represent here that you don't know about it. In New Jersey, are you aware of your officers' activities in places like schools? Are you aware of your officers' activities at our public schools?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, we don't go into schools and do targeted law enforcement operations. We do targeted law enforcement operations like other agencies and
Senator Cory Booker: ICE officers entered the grounds of a high school in Minneapolis. That's a fact. Elementary school children in New Jersey are terrified of your agents. When they came up a school bus top, they fled. Another school, higher education, Columbia University. your agents reportedly lied to students, told them they were searching for a missing person to gain access to private spaces, to non public areas of campus. Secretary Noem, these are kids. They're terrified in our communities. How do you think that affects them when children in my stage go running, fleeing and often you will pursue children throwing them to the ground, getting on their backs,putting them in handcuffs. I want to talk to you about this incredible empire of for-profit companies that are profiting at rates we've never seen and the way you're using money. Let's -- let's drill down on the warehouses, the DHS has been buying over the last several months, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Are you familiar with the acquisition of a warehouse DHS recently bought in Roxbury Township, New Jersey?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes.
Senator Cory Booker: You are familiar with that.
Secretary Kristi Noem: I'm familiar.
Senator Cory Booker: How much you spent of it?
Secretary Kristi Noem: No, sir. I do not.
Senator Cory Booker: $129.3 million. Do you know how much it was assessed for in New Jersey?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Sir, we're purchasing centers across the country to build efficiency into our detention system. Efficiency so that we can --
Senator Cory Booker: As a person who's run tight budgets before and had taxpayer dollars. You paid $129.3 million for a facility in my state that was assessed at less than half of that at $62 million to work for a president that says he's a great dealmaker. I can't believe he thinks that you're a great dealmaker. But what's worse than that is that the Roxbury Township Council comprised entirely of Republicans voted unanimously early this year to oppose that facility. My office tried to facilitate a meeting between DHS and local officials so that ICE could hear their concerns. Yet DHS did not even respond. That is unacceptable. That you all would enter a town, you wouldn't even follow environmental reviews or have conversations with local officials about the resources from emergency resources to fire resources and more that you're going to pull down. You didn't even have a conversation. So, you know, do you comply with court orders?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, we do comply with agency --
Senator Cory Booker: Do you comply with court orders?
Secretary Kristi Noem: Yes, we have. We -- we comply with the federal court orders.
Senator Cory Booker: You were saying under oath that you do and yet we know in January, the Chief Judge, Republican appointee for the federal district of Minnesota found that ICE had violated nearly 100 court orders since January 1st alone. In my state of New Jersey last month, the chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General admitted in my state to the New Jersey District Court that the government had violated 52 separate court orders -- all involving cases where immigrants successfully challenged the legality of their detention. So this again is a Constitution that you swore an oath to and one of the most important ideas is that no one is above the law. You are violating the separation of powers, violating court orders and routinely violating the Civil Rights of Americans. This is a reckless and out of control agency that you are responsible for. You seem to have no situational awareness whatsoever of some of the most egregious examples of Americans being completely attacked, violated, undermined in accordance with our laws by their own government. And this is what is phenomenal to me -- is immigration was your president's number one issue, overwhelmingly popular with the American people. But now it's overwhelmingly unpopular and it's not because you are deporting dangerous people that everybody here wants out of our country. No, it's because you're going into our schools. You're terrorizing out children. You're detaining children. You're arresting Americans. You're breaking into our homes. You're terrorizing out streets. You're violating our rights to peacefully protest again and again and again. [. . .] Either you are utterly incompetent or you are violating laws with impunity. You should step down from your position. If you odn't, you should be removed by this president. And if not, Congress should impeach you.
Worth 62 million dollars but the US government spent $129 million of our taxpayer dollars to purchase it. DOGE was always a con job. The spending -- certainly at Homeland Security -- has been off the charts and it has been wasteful spending. Kristi Noem is the Secretary of Homeland Security. Americans need to be asking what she's doing with her time and our money.
We'll wind down with two things on the war on Iran.
Ben with MEIDASTOUCH NEWS reports that Chump is running low on . . . weapons. Friday there will be an emergency meeting. Way to plan, Donald, way to plan. Lara Seligman (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reports:
U.S. troops working at a tactical operations center at a commercial port in Kuwait on Sunday had no warning that a deadly Iranian drone was headed straight toward them.
Flying slow and low to the ground, the one-way attack system evaded U.S. air defenses and hit the Shuaiba port on the Persian Gulf, according to two U.S. officials, killing six American servicemembers and seriously wounding others.
The facility struck was a large trailer with walls protected by concrete slabs, but wasn’t fortified from the top, according to a third person briefed on the attack.
Their deaths highlight the risks posed by Iranian drones to tens of thousands of American military personnel serving in the Middle East after President Trump, who campaigned on bringing U.S. troops home from endless wars in the region, launched a massive military campaign against Iran on Saturday.
While the Pentagon has used sophisticated air defense systems to great effect for decades against Iranian missiles, military officials have struggled to solve the challenge posed by small drones that fly low to the ground and evade traditional detection methods. In a similar attack just over two years ago, three U.S. soldiers were killed when an Iranian Shahed drone struck a small installation at Tower 22 in Jordan.
Assata Shakur and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) Symbolized the Transformation of the Black Struggle
Assata Shakur and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) Symbolized the Transformation of the Black Struggle
Shakur (1947-2025) and al-Amin (1943-2025) came out of the African American youth movement in the South as well as the North
Assata Shakur (formerly known as Joann Chesimard) and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (also known as H. Rap Brown) passed away during 2025 amid the rise of state repression and fascism in the United States under the government of President Donald Trump.
Shakur had joined the movement as a college student at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the City College of New York where she worked with an organization focused on the promotion of African American culture and history.
It was during this period in 1969-70 when she came into contact with the Black Panther Party in NYC. The Panthers were under fierce attack by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), whose Director, J. Edgar Hoover, had labeled the BPP as the greatest threat to U.S. national security in decades.
In April 1969, 21 members of the Party were arrested and charged with plotting to carry out bombings around the New York area. The local police in New York, like in many other cities, followed the lead of the FBI by viewing the Panthers as an existential threat to their existence.
Numerous police-provoked confrontations with Party members along with other militant groupings resulted in the injuring and deaths of law-enforcement agents. These clashes between the police and African Americans occurred during and in the aftermath of urban rebellions which swept the U.S. between 1964-1970.
Of course, these rebellions and confrontations with the state and its agents did not take place within a political vacuum. In many areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, mass and armed struggles were being waged for national independence and socialism.
Consequently, people within the African American community were influenced by the African, Latin American and Asian movements for liberation. Some of these movements utilized petitioning, mass demonstrations and strikes to reach their objectives. Others, after meeting harsh repression, such as the massacre of dock workers in Guinea-Bissau in 1959 and the anti-pass campaigners at Sharpeville, South Africa in 1960, turned to guerilla warfare in their campaigns to win independence.
The Black Liberation Army (BLA), which grew out of the Black Panther Party in 1971, was a direct outcome of political repression and the refusal of the U.S. capitalist system to fundamentally address the national oppression and class exploitation suffered by African Americans and millions of other working people. As the 1970s progressed, revolutionaries and other progressive forces were forced to grapple with the rapid rise in technology and its impact not only on politics but the social psychology of workers and oppressed peoples.
A statement issued by the BLA in 1976 provides their rationale for viewing armed struggle as a logical outcome of the social character of African American oppression during this time period where in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia, the ruling class was facing a deeper and more protracted crisis. Assata, having lived underground for two years, was captured in May 1973 in New Jersey. One other BLA leader and cadre, Sundiata Acoli, was captured along with Assata Shakur. Zayd Malik Shakur was killed by the New Jersey State Troopers during the same traffic stop which captured Assata and Sundiata. (See this)
According to the BLA document from 1976, it says:
“How will the movement as a whole be able to fight the oppressor in the future when all other ‘legal’ methods are completely exhausted? How will we implement political struggle without the machinery and capacity for revolutionary violence when it is abundantly clear that our oppressor maintains armed organs of violence for the enforcement of his rules? We as a movement will be unable to fight in the future if we do not develop the capacity for revolutionary violence in the present. But revolutionary violence is not an alternative to mass movement and organization, it is complementary to mass struggle, it is another front in the total liberation process.”
Assata was liberated from maximum security prison in New Jersey on November 2, 1979. The action was carried out by the BLA and the Weather Underground Organization (WOU). Several years later Assata was granted political asylum in Revolutionary Cuba.
Her transition came amid an escalation in imperialist destabilization efforts by the Trump administration. A close ally of Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, was subjected to an unprovoked attack and kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cecilia Flores who are being held illegally in a federal detention facility in New York.
Avenues of redress within the bourgeois democratic system are severely restricted. The same ideological and strategic questions which surfaced during the 1970s remain today although with deeper implications for those living inside and outside the U.S.
Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin: A Lifetime of Resistance
Image: Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown
Born during World War II as many other activists who emerged during the 1960s, Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin made his transition after being incarcerated unjustly for more than a quarter-century. In 2000, al-Amin was arrested and accused in the shooting of two Fulton County Sheriff Deputies, one fatally.
Although there was no material evidence that al-Amin committed these shootings, he was convicted and sentenced to prison.
During the 1960s, thousands of African American youth and students took leading roles in the struggles to destroy legalized segregation in the South as well as the North. Known then as H. Rap Brown, he would join the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) in Washington, D.C. NAG was an affiliate of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed in April 1960.
Brown (al-Amin) had been a student at Southern University in Louisiana where he was born. He became active in the movement like many others throughout the South. By 1966, he was active in doing field work in Greene County, Alabama. This was the time when the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) and others had united to build the Alabama Black Panther Party.
Image: Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown at Hamilton Hall Columbia, 1968
After the chairmanship of Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) for SNCC during 1966-67, Rap took over the organization. His tenure coincided with a rise in urban rebellions throughout the U.S. Due to the revolutionary trajectory of SNCC by 1966-67, the organization became more of a target of the FBI Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) which was designed to disrupt and liquidate African American organizations.
The work of SNCC in the South influenced many northern-based organizations such as the Black Panther Party for Self Defense formed by Dr. Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in October 1966. Other groups such as the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and the Deacons for the Defense would emerge to address the reality of oppression and state violence. Robert F. Williams and Mabel Williams began organizing rifle clubs in Monroe, North Carolina to defend the community against racist violence as early as the 1950s.
Image: Assata Shakur in custody
Al-Amin was said to have gone underground in March 1970 after the violent deaths of Ralph Featherstone and William Che Payne of SNCC in a car blast in Maryland. Many in the movement believed that the two SNCC organizers were assassinated while the corporate media and the authorities accused them of transporting a bomb in order to disrupt the trial of al-Amin Cambridge. (See this)
In 1971 al-Amin was captured in New York City and prosecuted on trumped up robbery charges. When he emerged from incarceration he had converted to Islam. He would continue to engage in religious activities, settling in Atlanta and opening a neighborhood mosque and grocery store.
The fact that he died in prison of illnesses that could have been effectively treated with proper medical care illustrates the unjust character of the U.S. criminal justice system. The lesson of Imam Jamil’s life is his resilience and commitment to revolutionary change.
Resistance and Historical Studies
This year, 2026, is important as it relates to African American history. There is a concerted effort in the year of the centenary of African American History Month to reverse even the minimal gains made through the various struggles during the 20th and early 21st centuries.
As the generation of Assata Shakur and Jamil Abdullah al-Amin was faced with imperialist war in Vietnam and throughout the African continent, today’s youth are being forced to engage in the battle against the cost of war. Attempts to eliminate nations and peoples while denigrating their national and regional life is creating instability on an international level.
The focus in the third decade of the 21st Century is international. The ruling class from both political camps in the U.S. are committed to the subjugation of the peoples of the Global South. Therefore, the task of the majority of the world’s population is to take up the mantle of the legacies of Assata and Rap to continue the process of total liberation.
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