Comments

  1. sinuousrills says

    Your antisemitism is getting out of hand. Remember, just because an idea is popular on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true.

  2. A Sloth named Sparkles says

    This has been reported everywhere on every reputable new outlet, including Al-Jazeera.
    It’s just insane & disappointing how even anyone who calls themselves “liberal” or “rational” would dismiss this as some “conspiracy theory”. Especially those who decries ICE, but vehemently denies that the IDF or any Israeli orgs have any involvement with that Gestapo squad.

  4. beholder says

    Chris Hedges noted something similar:

    The murders of unarmed civilians on the streets of Minneapolis, including the killing today of the intensive-care nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti, would not come as a shock to Iraqis in Fallujah or Afghans in Helmand province. They were terrorized by heavily armed American execution squads for decades. It would not come as a shock to any of the students I teach in prison. Militarized police in poor urban neighborhoods kick down doors without warrants and kill with the same impunity and lack of accountability. What the rest of us are facing now, is what Aimé Césaire called imperial boomerang. Empires, when they decay, employ the savage forms of control on those they subjugate abroad, or those demonized by the wider society in the name of law and order, on the homeland. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, Thucydides noted, it finally, with the collapse of Athenian democracy, imposed on itself. But before we became the victims of state terror, we were accomplices. Before we expressed moral outrage at the indiscriminate taking of innocent lives, we tolerated, and often celebrated, the same Gestapo tactics, as long as they were directed at those who lived in the nations we occupied or poor people of color. We sowed the wind, now we will reap the whirlwind. The machinery of terror, perfected on those we abandoned and betrayed, including the Palestinians in Gaza, is ready for us.

  5. StevoR says

    ^ Trump helping troll “beholder” : Yet knowing that you still voted and argued and worked for fthis happening and worse.

    Would never have happened under Kamala harris oif she were POTUS as you know full well.

    So very much blood on your hands. It wiullnever wash off and I willnever stop reminding you of that.

  11. StevoR says

    Again. Two choices one outright evil and fascist.

    The other being neiither of those things.

    Good (relatively & really) versus evil..

  14. raven says

    There is a step 4 here.

    .4. The coverup.
    Destroy the evidence of the murders. Keep the real police away from the crime scene.

    They are already doing that in Minnesota with the murder of Pettri.

    Court Filing where Minnesota is suing Kristi Noem and DHS:

    But federal personnel purported to order BCA personnel to leave. According to
    reports, federal personnel may have seized cell phones, taken other evidence from the
    scene, and detained witnesses. It is unclear whether federal personnel otherwise processed
    the scene—let alone how carefully. Then just a few hours after the shooting, federal
    personnel left, allowing the perimeter to collapse and potentially spoiling evidence.

    From a law enforcement perspective, this is astonishing. The federal government’s
    actions are a sharp departure from normal best practices and procedure, in which every
    effort is taken to preserve the scene and the evidence it contains. Instead, by first
    attempting to bar BCA and then letting the scene collapse, the federal government appears
    to have taken measures that directly led to the destruction of evidence.

    This is a court filing today.
    I’ll explain it.

    ICE prevented the Minnesota BCA from securing the crime scence. The BCA is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state equivalent of the Federal FBI. They then just walked away after a few hours, letting the crime scene collapse.

    This is destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice. Both are criminal felonies.

    NYTimes: New York Times live blog entry by Ernesto Londoño:

    “Superintendent Evans said federal officials have refused to disclose the identities of federal agents involved in Saturday’s shooting, as well as the names of federal agents who have shot people in recent days in the course of the continuing immigration crackdown.”

    This is also probably illegal.

    ICE is refusing to identify the killers.
    There is no such thing as secret police in the USA. They don’t have the right to be anonymous killers.
    It will come out sooner or later.
    Everything important leaks sooner or later and way too many people hate ICE these days.

  15. StevoR says

    Anyone who helped Trump obviously helped and stood with outright evil.

    Plus they were warned of back then & knew that.

    We all do know that here right?

    Voting for & 100% supporting and uniting behind Kamala was about the easist test of ethics & political awaremness & competemy ever – but too many somehow failed it..

  16. StevoR says

    Anyone who helped Trump obviously helped and stood with outright evil.

    Plus they were warned of back then & knew that.

    We all do know that here right?

    Voting for & 100% supporting and uniting behind Kamala was about the easist test of ethics & political awaremness & competemy ever – but too many somehow failed it..

  17. raven says

    There is also a Step 5 here.
    Really, to be a good government terrorist, you have to know these things.

    .5. Lie about the victim. Say they were horrible people and deserved it.

    “Pettri was a Kenyan born, gay, Muslim, with an extensive record of going to universities and earning professional degrees.”
    He was woke and DEI and only pretending to be a native born white US citizen.

    The FBI is now investigating Pettri for theft of government property, a felony.
    He got in the way and ruined at least 10 bullets owned by the US government with his body.

    The FBI expects to files charges any year now.

    PS There is another step, which we will see soon.

    Step 6. Do it again to someone else.
    Find an unarmed civilian and kill them. Shoot them multiple times.
    Bonus if they are female and have small children.

  18. says

    PZ, the problem with that cartoon is the idea US paramilitaries would need training in violence and suppression of dissent from Israelis. People seem to have forgotten about things like the School of the Americas, that trained officers in Latin American militaries and had a reputation(whether it was true or not) for teaching things like methods of torture. American advisors probably had a hand in advising the South Korean dictatorships between the ’50s and late ’80s on how to suppress dissent as well. (Some South Koreans believe that the violent suppression of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, in which hundreds or more protestors were killed, was authorised by the US government.) And of course there was stuff like the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which was well known enough that Mel Gibson’s character in Lethal Weapon was supposed to be a former member.

  19. says

    That’s a valid criticism of the cartoon — we’re seeing home-grown fascism in action. I see the point not so much as a pattern of linear descent but more of an analogous pattern of similarity in authoritarian regimes. They all lie and kill.

  20. F.O. says

    Not sure about whether Israeli know-how was used to train ICE, but their tech, refined over years of testing over a whole captive population, is definitely sold to all Western countries in their stepping up of authoritarianism.

  21. cheerfulcharlie says

    The question now is, how many more of these ICE atrocities will occur until voting day 2026? How many GOP seats will be lost as a result? I can already hear the MAGAts moaning and groaning.

  24. zetopan says

    And the gaslighters are out in force “explaining” away the actual video evidence, as ICE tries to remove all evidence.
    https://abc7.com/post/minneapolis-shooting-today-federal-agent-reportedly-involved-gov-tim-walz-says/18463609/
    Male nurse tries to help a woman being assaulted by ICE goons, 6 of them force him to the ground, taking his legal open carry gun, macing him in the face while he is down, and then proceed to execute him with at least 10 shots in front and back, claiming he was a threat and their lives were in danger. Of course psychopath and puppy killer, Kristi Noem quickly explains what “actually” happened.
    “@Tom2001tri @fumioshwartz7114 Oh, like the Russian collusion story, fake Hunter laptop, Biden is mentally fit, and so on and so on. The right’s propaganda doesn’t even come close to the liberal left’s constant lies.”
    “@Easymon3y777 YES DONT BELIEVE THE LIBERAL PROPAGANDA!!!!!”
    “@exnihilonihilfit8688 he bit off a federal agents fingers. He was a crazed lunatic.”
    “@saxon6 Even his parents knew he went looking for trouble.”
    “@1faros Remember Covid and the George Floyd riots. Ignore the media. This is another psy-op. They want division and chaos.”
    “@larrywelling1731 he was fighting the officer’s and going for his gun. Officer’s saved lives that day.”
    “@JohnD-f2o Why was he there, Why was he interfering. Why did he resist. If you put yourself in a stupid place, expect to get into stupid situations.”
    “@hobojoe62 Thank you ice for all your hard work taking out the trash.”
    “@FlorentinoRebuildingCo.5644 Yes….carry a gun and confront police anywhere on the planet and you win the prize. Stop pretending you’re outraged so you can cover foe[sic] the thief TIm Walz.”
    “@ggangpae95 CBS needs to get their broadcasting license revokes for spreading propaganda.”
    “@dan61131 Why did he bring a gun at protest? Clearly he plan[sic] an “assisted suicide” with a federal enforcers. How “stupid” is he?”
    “Seven videos prove that he assaulted the ICE officers and threatened them with his gun, so he got what he deserved, case closed.”
    etc, There are literally hundreds of these Orange Mussolini cult member* comments in the news reports. And some trolls spam the same exact copy and paste comments many times all over the comment section. Do they get paid per comment?

    *Of course, many are also highly likely coming from paid overseas trolls. Russia, Nigeria, etc.

  25. birgerjohansson says

    Chrerfulcharlie @ 21

    The Youtube podcast LetsTalkElections has mentioned numerous polls that show latino voters are outraged, indicating previously deep-red regions in Texas and Florida may turn on the fascist-adjacent party.
    .
    This will in no way make Stephen Miller et al rein in ICE before the election. They lack introspection, like a narcissistic swarm intelligence. Expect lots of dead bodies.

  26. cheerfulcharlie says

    The reason Trump won was because lots of young voters did not bother to turn out to vote despite disliking Trump. Perhaps they have learned a lesson from this. But surveys demonstrate young Americans despise both parties. We will need a bigger popcorn bucket.

  27. says

    @1:

    So, by definition, pointing out a government’s abuse is also bigotry against every citizen of that government? As a Certified Cold Warrior™, I’ve got decades of experience in distinguishing between “Soviet and successor-government abuses” and “the character and worthiness of individuals who happen to be Russian (or have Russian ancestry).” Under the rubric you suggest, had that been the CCCP flag on the instructor’s chest instead of the Israeli flag, the cartoon would have been a vicious attack on the worthiness of Boris Pasternak, Natalia Gorbanevskaia, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.† The echoes of “The only good German…” are a bit loud, especially considering the Vaterland from which our present wannabe-Führer came.

    † Two of whom were arch-social-conservatives who, in the US of the Cold War era, would have been much more comfortable as members of the Moral Majority than any other discernable social grouping. So this ain’t about the libs.

  28. Ridana says

    If (when) the SAVE Act passes, millions of women will be disenfranchised unless they’re able to scramble up the documentation required to show why their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate (a few million men, trans people, et al., will be screwed too). Also both J.D. and Usha Vance, but I’m sure he has people to handle that.

  30. steve oberski says

    My takeaway on the star of david on the ICE goon was that somehow a shadowy jewish cabal is controlling the actions of ICE.

    In no way can it be construed as “Recognizing the criminality of the Israeli state”.

  32. steve oberski says

    So you don’t think that a certain, not so small, subset of Americans are going to link the actions of ICE to jewish Americans based on a cartoon of this sort ?

    So the fact that it’s actually a flag containing the star of david and and not a star of david is going to make that subset say, hey, that’s a flag containing the star of david so I’m not going to conflate that actions of ICE with those of jewish Americans ?

  33. John Morales says

    Pierce @22 makes a good point (I didn’t click on the link, but I did see the hat).

  34. beholder says

    Step 4: Israel is always the victim. Play the victim in increasingly absurd circumstances, and leave comments accusing bloggers of antisemitism.

  37. StevoR says

    @ ^ John Morales : RThanks Legal Eagle is always good.

    .***
    Apologies for my inadvertant double posts that were coming through twice last night eg. . Dunno how that happened. Does seme to happen a bit but don’t know why.

  38. StevoR says

    @32. steve oberski : “So you don’t think that a certain, not so small, subset of Americans are going to link the actions of ICE to Jewish Americans based on a cartoon of this sort ?”

    Maybe, but clearly that isn’t the intent of the author and anti-Semites and reichwingers are always going to find irrational ways to blame and scapegoat others including Jewish people.

    This cartoon is about the similarity of ICE and Israeli – IDF – tactics in gaslighting murders and oppression.

    So the fact that it’s actually a flag containing the star of David the flag of Israel and not a star of David (Shield of David – Magen David technically- ed) is going to make that subset say, “hey, that’s a flag containing the star of David the Israeli flag so I’m not going to conflate that actions of ICE with those of Jewish Americans?”

    Minor edits for readability – as well as Fixing It For You.

    What do you suggest the cartoonist do? Simply ignore the topic and similarity and not make this analogy that they are seeing for fear of provoking nazi scum who will find excuses to hate Jewish Americans anyhow? Self censor and avoid pointing out the ICE – IDF similarity because anti-Semites might co-opt it?

    The cartoon isn’t anti-Semitic in my view.

    Criticism of Israel and the IDF’s conduct is legitimate – although yes it does sometimes spill over into some anti-Semitism and anti-Semites will co-opt it to blame all “the Joooz!!!” rather than just specifically calling out Israel’s govt and some of its soldiers for their actions.

    We do need to be wary of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic readings of things but also we need to be careful that legitimate criticism of the IDF and Israeli govt is permitted and not unjustly silenced.

  39. StevoR says

    FWIW a google search on ICE – IDF connections finds :

    Deadly Exchange, run by Jewish Voice for Peace, has chronicled the imperial nexus between the two bodies. ICE, which has the budget of a military itself, has a vested interest in the IDF, as the two are interlinked in ideology and function.

    U.S. and Israeli officials have made comparisons between their respective walls, Israeli companies provide the same radar and surveillance services used by Israel to the U.S., or law enforcement exchange programs between the U.S. police and Israeli police continue to share suppression tactics. Groups like the Anti-Defamation League have encouraged several exchanges wherein law enforcement officials, including those from ICE, have exchanged “best practices.”

    Moreover, ICE and the IDF have similar modalities—operating through the use of militarized checkpoints, constant surveillance, and sometimes arbitrary detentions and arrests—making the connection between the two entities exceedingly clear. Bolstered by private contractors, ICE and the IDF maintain ideological connections. They seek to punish those who oppose the imperial and ethnonationalistic tendencies that both ICE and the IDF espouse.

    In some instances, ICE has directly acted to support Israel’s propaganda project, using a blacklist run by zionist organization Canary Mission in order to choose who to arrest.

    Source : https://scalawagmagazine.org/2025/08/ice-and-the-idf-the-transnational-nexus-of-state-control/

    Plus :

    ICE and the IDF are linked through a web of trainings, technology transfers, and shared tactics that critics say normalize militarized policing and surveillance in the United States; advocacy groups and multiple reports document U.S. law‑enforcement delegations to Israel and corporate ties such as Palantir that connect data systems used by ICE with Israeli platforms [1] [2] [3]. Supporters of those ties depict them as counterterrorism and security cooperation, while critics—including Deadly Exchange and allied groups—frame the relationship as a transnational “playbook” for racialized state control and have campaigned to sever the links.

    Source : https://factually.co/fact-checks/military/ice-idf-meaning-differences-ice-idf-explained-b9b0ab

    As well as via AJ :

    According to the organisations Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Researching the American-Israeli Alliance (RAIA), one common theme shared between United States and Israel is the exchange of tactics and expertise in state violence, which has been ongoing for 18 years.

    Months after the September 11 attacks, US law enforcement delegates attended their first official training expedition to Israel to exchange “best practices” in “counter-terrorism”.

    Since then, thousands more from across the US – including agents from the FBI, CIA, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – have been schooled at these meetings in both Israel and the US, sponsored by far-right Israeli lobby organisations.

    Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/12/how-the-us-and-israel-exchange-tactics-in-violence-and-control

  40. John Morales says

    The cartoon isn’t anti-Semitic in my view

    You noticed my #36 but not my #33, nor its source, #22.

    (See the hat?)

  41. Silentbob says

    @ 40 Morales

    That’s an utterly ludicrous stretch.

    @ 35 違う

    It was crystal clear – don’t blame others for your lack of comprehension. It makes the accurate observation that the Star of David is not a national symbol. It’s a Jewish symbol that has been incorporated into the flag of a nation.

    @ 38 StevoR

    Maybe, but clearly that isn’t the intent of the author

    Hey, what’s that thing that isn’t magic again?

    @ 30 steve oberski

    Your point is entirely valid, don’t let the assholes gaslight you. I don’t interpret the cartoon as antisemitic but rather a comment on the brutality of the State of Israel. However, it does (inadvertently?) reek of the antisemitic trope, “the Jews are controlling everything behind the scenes”.

  42. says

    One of the things we saw today was the shooting doctrine that many cops are taught: keep pulling the trigger until your gun is empty. This has absolutely nothing to do with good policing; it’s in order to decrease the likeihood of a lawsuit in which the victim can testify. Literally, “dead men tell no tales”

  43. says

    Marcus, there’s something even ickier about it — not in the formal training, but whispered about in the law-enforcement community (which they’ll deny deny deny):

    Killing the victim also saves money, because successful claims (not just lawsuits) for seriously-disabled victims tend to take more time and have bigger awards than do corresponding claims for dead victims by their families (if the families can even be found/make a claim without other troubles, such as the only living relative being a brother in prison). “Future medical bills” add up.

  44. Tethys says

    Both Minneapolis murders have been by border patrol agents, not ICE. As someone remarked, ICE agents can be identified by their Walmart camo and lack of physical fitness. CPB are the ones kitted out like they are heading to Faluja. Fuckers relentlessly lobbed tear gas and flash bangs at peaceful protesters, but that just makes even the white suburbanites come out into the streets.

    The national guard is serving protesters doughnuts, coffee, and hot cocoa, which is lovely and surreal.

  45. says

    pierce@22 is not wrong the text on the hat looks quite a lot like that slur. i did not see it until it was mentioned, but now i can’t not see it. it may well be a coincidence, but fair to wonder if the cartoonist might have slipped some shit in there on purpose. to be clear, i could easily see it being an unfortunate coincidence. i wouldn’t jump to a conclusion about the artist. but if a look at his previous works or words revealed anything dicey, that tilts the math. i don’t feel up to doing a deep dive on a random political cartoonist. suffice it to say, nobody reasonable would think pz or anyone in here is an antisemite over that. but that is quite odd.

  46. John Morales says

    Bébé, #29 is such a look. Links to his cartoons.

    (More liminal than sub-liminal, that(

  48. Silentbob says

    @ 45 Bébé Mélange

    You think the criticism was that PZ is antisemitic!!!

    I thought it was, at worst, PZ inadvertently used a maybe antisemitic cartoon. Anyone who thinks PZ Myers is antisemitic knows nothing about him whatsoever.

    @ 47 lotharloo

    The gist of the artist’s work is a belief that the USA and Israel are in cahoots. I’ve no idea whether Morales thinks this confirms or denies antisemitism. Like his racist weeaboo buddy, Morales likes to just obliquely hint at things rather than having the guts to come out and say them.

  49. John Morales says

    lotharloo:

    to be clear, i could easily see it being an unfortunate coincidence. i wouldn’t jump to a conclusion about the artist. but if a look at his previous works or words revealed anything dicey, that tilts the math.

    so:

    More cartoons: https://www.mintpressnews.com/so-it-goes/

    ↓
    Our Cartoonist

    Carlos Latuff is a world-renowned political cartoonist and outspoken activist. His award-winning editorial cartoons have been featured in publications around the world and can often be found hoisted above crowds on protest signs and placards calling for peace, justice and an end to imperialism.

  50. StevoR says

    @40. John Morales : “You noticed my #36 but not my #33, nor its source, #22.(See the hat?)”

    No, sorry I hadn’t till now and yeah, your correct -that doers look pretty bad. Can’t quite see it clearly but it does indeed look like the k-word and, if so, that does change things and make it anti-Semitic after all. I stand tentatively corrected.

    @41.Silentbob :

    @ 38 StevoR “Maybe, but clearly that isn’t the intent of the author.”

    Hey, what’s that thing that isn’t magic again?

    Intnet isn’t magic – but there is a differnece her ein that we’re talking about interpreting things and seeing them in different persepctives and if an author didn’t intend something to be that, well, I think that’s a point. Anyhow. If the word on the hat is what I think it is and what it looks like – then yeah, its anti-Semitic after all.

    @22.Pierce R. Butler : However, when I first looked at the label on the instructor’s cap, it looked a lot more like a four-letter antisemitic slur than the six-letter word a closer inspection revealed…

    Hmm.. so it isn’t the k-word after all? I’ll have to chek again, it did look a lot like it.

  51. StevoR says

    @ ^Huh. Thought I’d italicised Pierce R. Butler’s words there, sigh.

    Tried the link in #22 but it led me to search results for “idf training american police” and is not showing the cartoon or cartoonists site.

    Clicking the cartoon in the OP give s you a larger version of it sorta and maybe its my eyes and I admit I can’t quite can’t read properly what it says but does look like an anti-Jewish slur there.

    FWIW. Searching for the cartoonist & Mondowiess to find a better version gets me his age – carlos Latuff here :

    https://mondoweiss.net/author/carlos-latuff/

    But not that specific cartoon inthe 3 pages there unless I missed it somehow.

  54. raven says

    Just for completeness, I’ll summarize the ICE training manual.
    This isn’t at all secret so that word isn’t needed in the headline.

    .1. Shoot first.
    .2. Block the ambulances and medical help.
    .3. Call the victim a terrorist.
    .4. Start the coverup. Keep the real police away. Destroy any evidence you find.
    .5. Lie about the victim. Say they were horrible people and deserved it.
    .6. Find another innocent victim and do it again. Bonus points for moms with small children and health care workers.

    Do remember to claim that the killer’s lives were in danger, no matter how fake that is.
    Make up some serious imaginary injuries suffered by the murderers.
    Get the killers out of the state as soon as possible and refuse to identify them.

    This is optional but it is a good idea to threaten any real law enforcement, mayor, governor, or other elected officials with Federal indictments for whatever you can make up in a day or two.

  55. lotharloo says

    @49.

    It’s on me that I thought you had something useful to say other than copying and pasting the contents of the link that I already had read. It’s stupid of me to think that engaging with John Morales can lead to anything useful. Sorry, won’t make this mistake again.

  56. John Morales says

    [meta]

    lotharloo, the info is there. The style, the typical cartoon.
    My choice to not prime the pump, to not offer my own assessment.

    It was directly relevant to “a look at his previous works”, which was its genesis.

    (StevoR managed it, even if you could not)

    It’s stupid of me to think that engaging with John Morales can lead to anything useful.

    No. That is stupid of you. :)

  57. Pierce R. Butler says

    bluerizlagirl @ # 53: …the pareidolia is strong in this one …..

    Worse yet, the eyeballs are weak in this one!

  58. lotharloo says

    @56:

    Yeah StevoR managed to find the higher quality version of the comic where it shows the word is “police” and not the racial slur, something that you didn’t manage. Next time ask your chat bot friend harder.

  59. John Morales says

    Heh, lotharloo. I found “a look at his previous works”, as I quoted.

    Also, whyever do you imagine that was my “chatbot friend”?

    (You’re got chatbots on the brain)

  60. Prax says

    @steve oberski #32,

    So the fact that it’s actually a flag containing the star of david and and not a star of david is going to make that subset say, hey, that’s a flag containing the star of david so I’m not going to conflate that actions of ICE with those of jewish Americans ?

    Yes? Because it’s the Israeli flag and Jewish Americans aren’t Israeli? I mean, the ICE dudes are wearing the American flag. The dead guy is holding a Palestinian flag. They’re all national flags in this cartoon.

    Lots of countries have religious symbols on their flags. Do you think the flags of Commonwealth and Scandinavian and Muslim-majority nations should be off-limits in political cartoons, because they contain crosses and crescents and stars and the shahada?

    But if you don’t like Israel being symbolically conflated with Jews in general–and I certainly don’t–then maybe Israel should take the star of David off its flag and stop defining itself as a Jewish state. Because no one works harder to equate “Israel” with “all Jews everywhere” than Israel does.

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