Sunday, October 12, 2025

FASCIST AMERICA 2025: Some of The Best Minds, Hearts, and Spirits Today On The Central Role Of The American Empire's Complicity in Oppression, Exploitation, Imperialism, Colonialism, Plunder, Violence, Stupidity, Ignorance, Fear and the Obstruction of Justice Both 'Home and Abroad'

 Zeteo
 

Mamdani CALLS OUT Trump for 'Celebrating' Netanyahu

October 8, 2025
 
VIDEO:
 
 
Mehdi Unfiltered

Mehdi Hasan sits down with Zohran Mamdani — who, through his historic mayoral primary win, has become a household name not just in New York, but across the globe. He leads in the polls against rival Andrew Cuomo (and ex-rival Eric Adams), and has attracted the ire of Donald Trump but not the endorsements of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Mehdi asks Mamdani about the death threats he’s received since being thrust into the national spotlight, and the two also discuss a wide array of other topics such as: The future of the Democratic Party (“What we need is to fight”) Schumer and Jeffries’ refusal to endorse him (“What New Yorkers are looking for is consistency”) Arresting Benjamin Netanyahu (“Someone who has perpetrated a genocide of Palestinians”) Attacks on him from the ADL (“There are far better representations of the concerns of Jewish New Yorkers than the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt”) His mayoral rivals (“The only thing that Andrew Cuomo seems to believe in is his own ambition”) Plus, don’t miss Mamdani’s snarky message for right-wing billionaire Bill Ackman!   
 
 
Trump’s Plan for Gaza 'Reeks of Colonialism,' Says Former Palestinian Negotiator

Palestinian lawyer and Zeteo contributor Diana Buttu unloads on Trump’s supposed plan to stop Israel’s assault on Gaza in a live Zeteo Town Hall with Prem Thakker and a group of paid subscribers.

by Prem Thakker and Diana Buttu
October 4, 2025
Zeteo

Two years into Israel’s genocide of Gaza, President Donald Trump announced his so-called “peace plan” this week – a plan that appears to have gotten more input from Iraq War architects than actual Palestinians.

Diana Buttu, a Zeteo contributor who served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in the early 2000s, joined Prem to break down the 20-point “peace plan” step by step.

The plan – to be aided by the likes of former UK Prime Minister and Iraq invader Tony Blair – “reeks of colonialism,” Buttu says.

“Who invited you? Like, who asked you, Blair, to come in and do anything?” Buttu asks. “There was no consultation with any Palestinians, so I’m pretty sure nobody asked you to come in…he’s done enough to destroy one country in the Middle East. He doesn’t need to destroy a second.”

The plan also says nothing concrete about Palestinian statehood, beyond describing it as an “aspiration” that could be sought after Gaza is rebuilt under the authority of these outsider US and Israeli-approved forces.

Trump presented it via threat, saying if Hamas doesn’t accept the proposal by Sunday night, “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out.”

Buttu tells Prem that “all hell has already broken loose.”

Watch the full conversation above to hear more about the plan, the situation in Gaza after two years of Israel’s genocide, and what the plan could mean for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This Town Hall was for paid subscribers only. Consider upgrading your subscription to join future Town Halls where you can get your questions answered live.

Editor’s note: This Town Hall was filmed just before Hamas submitted its response to the plan. On Telegram, the group said it affirms “its readiness to immediately enter into negotiations through the mediators to discuss the details of this agreement.” It also said it would agree to release all Israeli hostages under the formula set out under Trump’s plan, and was willing to hand over the administration of the enclave to an independent Palestinian body “in national coordination and based on Arab-Islamic support.”
 

On Zohran, Bari Weiss, Van Jones, & A Thing Called Destiny (w/ Norman Finkelstein & Mouin Rabbani)



Bad Faith

Streamed live on October 7, 2025

VIDEO: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsSc3yRY_OQ
 
On the two year anniversary, two preeminent scholars of the history of the Israeli occupation of Gaza join in discussion about the past and future of Palestine. We discuss Zohran Mamdani's October 7th statement, Bari Weiss's CBS takeover, Norm & Mouin's infamous debate with "a thing called Destiny," Van Jones's Bill Maher dead baby "joke," & more.
 

‘She Didn’t Like It at All’: Noura Erakat Confronts the UN Over Gaza



Zeteo

October 8, 2025

VIDEO: 
On Monday October 6, Noura Erakat became one of the first Palestinian women to address the United Nations Security Council since October 7, 2023. Staring directly into the eyes of the global leaders who could stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, she spoke bitingly about the consequences of their inaction. Just hours later, the renowned human rights attorney and legal scholar joined Prem and the live audience of Zeteo subscribers to discuss her experience in the Security Council chamber, the message she was delivering about the plight of women and girls in Gaza, Donald Trump’s “peace plan,” and much more. “The highlight of this intervention today was when I made these specific arguments, looking directly at the deputy ambassador of the United States, she didn’t like it at all,” Erakat said. Erakat also discussed whether the United Nations is something we can put our faith in to act and stop genocide. “These people are not going to save us, and it’s a lot of pomp and presentation, but we’re it,” she said, arguing that the Global Sumud Flotilla and the thousands protesting demonstrate where change actually happens. She said the UN Security Council chamber should be the place where actual action, intervention, could take place. And yet, she noted, the representatives all read pre-prepared statements, all said, ‘there’s too much words and no action.’ “And I’m looking around, I’m like, this is precisely where if there was to be action, this would be the place [where] there was action.” Watch the full conversation above to hear more about Erakat’s address, the complicated history and efficacy of the United Nations, and where Erakat finds hope. *This LIVE Q&A took place earlier this week for paid subscribers. If you would like early access to more content like this, then do visit zeteo.com and consider becoming a paid subscriber. It goes a long way in supporting our mission of bringing fearless, independent journalism to YOU.


Chapters:

00:00 Intro

1:08 UN Address

3:00 Plight of Gaza Women

13:00 UN Complicit

17:00 Hope for UN

23:00 Trump’s Peace Plan

29:00 Women In Gaza

Catch up on some of Zeteo’s latest stories:

‘Children Shot By Quadcopters’: UNICEF Spokesperson in Gaza
Team Zeteo

October 1
Read full story

BREAKING: Israel Begins Intercepting 44-Ship Global Sumud Flotilla
Prem Thakker

October 1
Read full story

Tony Blair Should Be on Trial for War Crimes, Not Running Gaza
Mehdi Hasan

September 30
Read full story
 

Judges Resist Trump and Stephen Miller's Escalation to Martial Law


Wajahat Ali

October 6, 2025

VIDEO: 
 
A Escalation and Judicial Resistance: The Erosion of the Rule of Law in the Second Trump Administration Unfortunately, violence and stochastic terror remain the weapons of choice for MAGA. For the past 10 years, Trump’s supporters have engaged in threats and assaults against the media, judges, law enforcement, teachers, poll workers, and Democrats. In South Carolina, Judge Goodstein, who recently ruled against the Trump Administration, almost lost her family when a massive fire engulfed her home. Authorities are now investigating, but the timing is interesting considering the Judge has received death threats for the past month. In September, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called her out directly on Twitter, and Stephen Miller and Elon Musk used the hellsite to criticize judges over the weekend. Danielle and I break it down in today’s episode of Democracy-ish.
 

Letitia James Indicted as Trump Continues Down His Enemies List

 
'This is what tyranny looks like,' say Democrats as the New York AG faces prosecution by Trump-appointed US Attorney.

by Minnah Arshad
October 9, 2025
Zeteo

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press briefing in November 2024. Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

New York Attorney General Letitia James became the latest political enemy to face retribution from Donald Trump’s Justice Department after a federal grand jury indicted the prominent Democratic critic of the president in a mortgage fraud case on Thursday.

James took Trump to court in 2022 in a civil fraud case that resulted in a half-billion-dollar penalty against him and his real estate business (which an appeals court later tossed, though it kept the fraud verdict in place).

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly jumped on the offensive Thursday, accusing Trump of using the Justice Department as his “personal attack dog.”

“This is what tyranny looks like,” Schumer wrote on social media. “...One U.S. Attorney already refused this case. So, Trump hand-picked an unqualified hack that would go after another political enemy. This isn’t justice. It’s revenge. And it should horrify every American who believes no one is above the law.”

The five-page grand jury indictment filed in the Eastern District Court of Virginia charges James with one count of bank fraud and one count of false statements to a financial institution. It is signed by Lindsey Halligan herself. Halligan is Trump’s former personal lawyer, whom he appointed as the interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after the former US attorney, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from the Trump administration to file charges against James and former FBI Director James Comey.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Thursday’s indictment, James purchased a home in Norfolk, Virginia, with a mortgage loan backed by Fannie Mae. The loan required her to use the property as a secondary residence, but she rented it out instead, the indictment alleges.

James called the charges “baseless” in a video statement, noting that the president’s own public statements show his sole objective is political retribution.

“The president’s actions are a grave violation of our constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties,” she said.

Trump may have already imperiled the Justice Department’s case with his Sept. 20 Truth Social post that the Wall Street Journal recently reported was supposed to be sent directly to Attorney General Pam Bondi, but was instead posted publicly. In the post, Trump directs Bondi to go after James, Comey, and others he perceives as political enemies. “We can’t delay any longer,” he wrote.

James’s office and an attorney listed in court records did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case against James comes two weeks after criminal charges were brought against Comey of obstruction of justice and making a false statement to Congress related to his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in 2020 about the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign’s links with Russia.

The attorney general is not the first of Trump’s political enemies that he has targeted by weaponizing arms of government, and she likely won’t be the last. The next on Trump’s target list may be Sen. Adam Schiff. The Democratic congressman led the first impeachment trial of Trump. The DOJ is now investigating him for mortgage fraud.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Minnah Arshad is an independent journalist based in Michigan. She previously worked at USA Today, Crain’s Detroit Business, and the Detroit Free Press. Minnah has been published in The Guardian, The Intercept, BridgeDetroit, and other outlets.

“You Whisper to Us”: Racial Justice Activists and Artists Honor Assata’s Legacy

Assata Shakur's passing unleashed a flowering of hope that the freedom she fought for could one day be real for us all.

by Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine
October 10, 2025
Truthout
 
PHOTO: Assata Shakur holds the manuscript of her autobiography with Old Havana, Cuba, in the background on October 7, 1987. Ozier Muhammad / Newsday RM via Getty Images

The recent passing of Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader Assata Shakur unleashed more than a sense of loss. It sparked a sense of pride in her defiance, a sense of gratitude for the movements and organizations that sustained her and a flowering of hope that the freedom she fought for could one day be real for the rest of us.

The collective grief is still fresh following Assata’s passing in Havana, Cuba, on September 25. News of her death arrived amid a national conversation in the U.S. about violence and grief that had centered around the murder of far right activist Charlie Kirk, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the onslaught of a news cycle that delivers a steady stream of bad news daily about health care, education, the environment, and draconian immigration policies.

Despite widespread outrage and a growing resistance, grief, demoralization, and exhaustion are daily realities. There was already a lot to mourn.

After Assata’s passing, I spoke with Orisanmi Burton, author of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt, to hear how he was processing the news. He told me:

The news was bittersweet. Bitter because Assata will never again walk among us, tell another story, or author another poem; bitter because no longer can we point to her as a living example of she who struggled for Black people with courage and dignity, she who remained steadfast in the face of such fierce opposition. But also, sweet. Sweet because although they hunted her, the forces of U.S. Empire — with all their monstrous technology, were unable to kill her, or put her back in a cage. Sweet because although she is no longer of the physical realm, Assata Shakur remains with us in spirit.

From podcasts to social media, the celebration of life for Assata catapulted her to the top of the news cycle. Assata had eluded capture and lived in freedom, sheltered by the Cuban government and people. In contrast, other political prisoners from the movements of the 1960s and ‘70s like Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim, Sundiata Acoli, and Mutulu Shakur had — after suffering through decades in prison — eventually been released after tireless advocacy and organizing by their supporters. Many others are still caged. Assata had died the way few revolutionaries did: in older age, from natural causes, and free.

Related Story:



News
Prisons & Policing
Black Abolitionists Lead Resistance to Trump’s Use of Federal Police and ICE

Black-led abolitionist community defense groups are organizing against Trump’s efforts to target DC and Chicago.

by Sonali Kolhatkar 
September 20, 2025
Truthout


Writer and activist adrienne maree brown emphasized this when I reached out for her reflections, saying:

Assata Shakur has always been a model to me of how to live a revolutionary poetic life, and how to live without compromise. I am so moved by her story — that she was the most wanted woman of the largest empire of this time, that she managed to live a long life on liberated land, and that she died free.

Meanwhile, when I asked Julia Wright — the veteran Black Panther, activist, and writer who is also the daughter of famous novelist Richard Wright — for her thoughts on Assata’s legacy, she responded with a spontaneous poem, writing:

you are the Mother

of all ancestors

you let us know

our dead

as many as they are

have lost their shackles

and

though we weep

we can let them sleep

you reminded us

that the living

those still chained

throughout the darkened dungeons

need all our energy

because they are alive

and

can still be saved

from tortuous pain

but you –

you are alive

in our hearts

but you –

you walk at our side

but you –

you whisper to us

that just as Love

eats away

all bars,

Love

eats away

your death

The upsurge of positive reflections on Assata was so threatening to the status quo that FBI Director Kash Patel re-branded her as a terrorist and warned the public that she should not be romanticized. Attempts to re-criminalize her posthumously in a climate of escalating political repression of dissent and domestic terrorism only confirmed the validity of Assata’s condemnation of the FBI’s campaign to “discredit, disrupt, and destroy” the Black freedom movement.

Assata’s death reminds a new generation of activists that organizing works and solidarity is life. Her liberation from Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey on November 2, 1979, was the result of the organization of her comrades in radical social movements who delivered her into a clandestine network. This modern underground railroad sustained her until she was granted asylum in Cuba.

The recent passing of Assata Shakur unleashed more than a sense of loss. It sparked a flowering of hope that the freedom she fought for could one day be real for the rest of us.

We don’t know the name of the people or the location of the places where Assata hid, but we do know that sustaining the underground network involved faith, risk, audacity, and ingenuity. There is a lesson here about the kind of accomplice praxis needed to stand up and shield others from the onslaught of the state — and the kind of deep commitment to struggle and refusal that it took to escape the dragnets and bounties on her head.

We see this enacted every day as ordinary people stand up for those ensnared by ICE agents or attacked by the National Guard deployed in the Trump administration’s militaristic incursions into American cities. Assata called Cuba one of the “Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That Has Ever Existed on the Face of This Planet” and called herself an escaped slave. Revisiting these plantation metaphors in 2025, when the history of slavery is being actively erased from museums, further connects the dots between past and present.

Assata Shakur had tremendous cultural impact on music. Hip Hop legend Tupac Shakur was her godson, a reflection of the familial bonds between members of the Black Panther Party. Assata’s name and story have been mentioned in at least 50 songs, reflecting the best of Hip Hop’s rebellious potential. In Cuba she was a supporter of Hip Hop music and a deep believer in the power of art. Reflections on her life as “revolutionary” and “poetic” speak to the power of art as language, expression, and compass. It is perhaps the most fitting reflection on what her legacy might be to movements of today.

Magia López Cabrera and Alexey Rodriguez — two musicians from the Cuban Hip Hop group Obsesión — shared with me their testimony on the profound ways in which Assata also shaped Cuban social movements during her years on the island, writing:

Assata Shakur had strong connections with the Cuban Hip Hop movement. She and Nehanda Abiodun were fundamental guides in understanding the need for strong political thought from the beginning. It became increasingly difficult to see her in public spaces. Her visits to specific places held a secretive atmosphere, which emanated a certain complicity between people. Almost at the end of activities or gatherings, when there were not many people left, she would appear. Deep conversations would ensue on certain topics. More than once we saw her give her opinion on issues arising in the movement. She was listened to and cared for. Many of us decided not to talk about her to protect her, to take care of her in her forced secrecy. She taught us the value of humility, of listening and stepping back when necessary. Her runaway story leaves great lessons for humanity.

That runaway story, partially told in Assata’s memoir (Assata, 1987) has been given new life after her death. Assata recounts her life using dialogue, poetry, and snippets from speeches alongside prose. Her life history unfolds in a nonlinear structure that moves readers across space and time, chapter by chapter, weaving a narrative of growing up and growing political consciousness. The book has gone viral and spread across social media with people taking photos of the book, buying or swapping it, and most of all, reading it in reading circles and book clubs.

More and more ordinary people are revisiting the freedom dreams of 1960s activists who imagined a just world order and the end of racism and imperialism. This is not nostalgia but a concerted effort to unearth the lessons and legacies of the Black Freedom movement. It is a turn to history and an embrace of reading, a powerful rebuke to censorship, book bans, attacks on education, and the attempt to erase history in textbooks and museums. With Assata as their inspiration, people are holding a mirror up to the part of themselves that dares to hope, to see beyond this moment and connect the past to the present.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
 
 
Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine, PhD, is a historian who researches and writes about Black social protest after World War II, urban and working-class radicalism, and gender. Her book The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland was published in 2016. She is co-founder of the Intersectional Black Panther Party History Project and has written widely on gender and Black Power. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Women’s History and Souls as well as The Washington Post, Vibe Magazine, Colorlines, and Truthout. She has received awards for her work from the Mellon foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Association of Black Women Historians. She is completing her second book on the intersections between the movement for Black liberation and the movement against the U.S. war in Vietnam.
at