francisco_1844Pope Leo issues warning on democracy after Trump criticism
TropicalDingdongCan You Trust Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson on Israel? Mehdi and Bassem Debate
Can You Trust Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson on Israel? Mehdi and Bassem Debate - Lemmy.World
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45601600 [https://lemmy.world/post/45601600] > This episode is sponsored by Ellydee. To sign up, go to ellydee.ai/mehdi [http://ellydee.ai/mehdi] > > NOTE: This episode was recorded on April 3, 2026. > > It’s been six months (!) since Bassem Youssef joined Mehdi for an episode of ‘We’re Not Kidding’, and since then Israel has started two new wars, right-wing podcasters have turned on Donald Trump over his war with Iran, and centrist Democrats have mounted a cancellation campaign against leftist streamer Hasan Piker. But before they get to any of that, they dig into Epstein and Mehdi’s viral interview with the so-called “Professor Jiang,” the two get into a friendly argument over which terms and ideas qualify as religious tropes and how the weaponization of antisemitism by Zionists has diluted the meaning of the word. > > The two also debate whether right-wingers like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson can be trusted allies for calling out Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Donald Trump’s war with Iran, or if they’re just opportunists who see the writing on the wall for the MAGA movement. “Why don’t you like Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson?” Bassem asks Mehdi, who explains his position on the two. > > The two also discuss: > Zionists cracking down on free speech and civil liberties. > Why “Pax Judaica” is an antisemitic trope and “Greater Israel” is not. > US citizen Moshe Katz who recently died in Lebanon fighting for the Israeli military. > Why Bill Maher is… just the worst.
geneva_convenienceJD Vance defends backing Orbán's campaign after landslide defeat
JD Vance defends backing Orbán's campaign after landslide defeat - Lemmy
US Vice-President JD Vance has insisted he was right to stage a two-day campaign visit to back Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán five days before he was voted out of office by opposition party Tisza’s landslide victory. Insisting Orbán was a “great guy” who did a “very good job”, Vance told Fox News he was “one of the few European leaders we’ve seen who’s been willing to stand up to the bureaucracy in Brussels”. While he was sad Orbán had lost, he was sure the US would “work very well” with the new government, he said.
CubitOomICE detains 2 doctors serving underserved Texas region
ICE detains 2 doctors serving underserved Texas region - Infosec.Pub
> Dr. Veliz is an award-winning physician who worked at Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco as a resident doctor of UT Health RGV. In 2025, Veliz was recognized as the program’s “best resident doctor,” according to his husband. Veliz was part of the family medicine residency program, according to his LinkedIn, and had previously earned a medical degree from La Universidad Central de Venezuela. Veliz has been in the U.S. for about nine years and had entered the country legally. > > “However, due to a recent federal visa pause, Ezequiel’s work permit renewal was halted and he was unexpectedly detained,” the GoFundMe post reads. > > Currently, Veliz is being held in a migrant detention facility in McAllen. > > Dr. Bolivar is an emergency room physician who works for South Texas Health Systems (STHS), one of the largest hospital systems in the Valley. On Saturday, April 11, Bolivar was traveling to meet her husband in California, where the couple were scheduled to attend an asylum interview, according to a GoFundMe campaign launched by her family. Bolivar and her 5-year-old daughter — a U.S. citizen — were detained by immigration officials at the airport, according to reporting by The New York Times. The child was ultimately released to a relative later that day. > > Bolivar has been in the United States lawfully for a decade and had a work permit that was valid through 2030, her husband told the Times.
[Video] Three people stand up in succession and shout to DNC Chair Ken Martin to release the autopsy of 2024. Martin had promised transparency then did not release it.
[Alejandro Cabrera Clemente died on April 11th] 47 Deaths Reported in ICE [Concentration Camps] Considered “An Alarming, Unacceptable Trend”
[Alejandro Cabrera Clemente died on April 11th] 47 Deaths Reported in ICE [Concentration Camps] Considered “An Alarming, Unacceptable Trend” - Infosec.Pub
cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/44949084 [https://infosec.pub/post/44949084] > > A 49-year-old Mexican man named Alejandro Cabrera Clemente died on April 11 [https://substack.com/redirect/cf29b71e-f2e1-4a7e-a3a7-a590cc8dadf1?j=eyJ1IjoiOGVseGUifQ.KK__61dV-ps97bThxvIY_lfFHdFUsAvRzdX8Dj_WFXA] at the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana. He was found unresponsive, transferred to a medical center, and pronounced dead. He’s the 47th person to die in ICE detention during the Trump administration’s second term. > > > > … > > > > Forty-seven people have died. The rate is accelerating. And the people in charge are ignoring it.
Despise Israel AND The Entire Western Empire
Despise Israel AND The Entire Western Empire - Lemmy
Everyone hates Israel now, which is as it should be. But we all need to understand that Israel has never acted alone. If Israel were acting alone, it would be an asshole with a pointy stick instead of an asshole with an attack helicopter. The west gave it the attack helicopter. An asshole with a pointy stick is not much of a problem. The world is full of assholes with pointy sticks. Get yourself your own pointy stick and you can deter their aggressions without much difficulty. An asshole with an attack helicopter can ruin everyone’s day. He can fuck everything up and kill whoever he wants — even people who have pointy sticks. He doesn’t need to negotiate with anyone. He doesn’t need to be polite or diplomatic. You just have to give him whatever he wants or he’ll fly over there and chain gun you and your family. The US and its allies are responsible for ensuring that Israel remains an asshole with an attack helicopter instead of an asshole with a pointy stick. They’ve created this situation where Israel doesn’t have to get along with its neighbors like any other normal country on the planet, and can instead exist in a perpetual state of war. It is right and good to despise Israel; Israel is a genocidal apartheid state which should not exist and should never have been created in the first place. But political maturity means carrying that disdain forward to the entire western power structure under which we all live. Hating Israel without hating the western empire is nonsensical, because Israel would not exist without western weapons, military support, narrative control, and diplomatic cover. It’s like hating Bonnie without hating Clyde. Like hating Butch Cassidy but not the Sundance Kid. There are laws against being an accomplice to murder because we all understand that if you aid and abet a murderer then you necessarily share moral culpability for the killing.
[Video] Hillary Clinton says she is pushing the Lebanese government to join Israel in fighting Hezbollah.
AOC wrestles with left-wing Dems as 2028 decision looms
AOC wrestles with left-wing Dems as 2028 decision looms - Lemmy
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hustling to win over left-wing critics who say the progressive leader cares too much about mainstream approval and is too cozy with senior Democrats. Between the lines: If Ocasio-Cortez’s diplomacy is successful, it could be more difficult for any potential 2028 presidential candidate to run to her left — but moderate Democrats argue it also could make it tougher for her to win a general election. Despite her recent efforts, some loud voices on the left — including people who have worked closely with her — have gotten under her skin by continuing to question her progressive bona fides. Zoom in: In recent weeks, Ocasio-Cortez has tried to repair her relationship with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Many members of the group opposed her support for giving Israel defensive weapons, including the Iron Dome missile system, during the war in Gaza — which she has called a “genocide.” In July 2024, national DSA leaders withdrew their endorsement of her for the elections that year, arguing that she’d conflated “anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions,” which the group considered a “deep betrayal.” The intrigue: AOC also has had a fraught relationship with some progressives who helped launch her political Her first chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, co-founded Justice Democrats, a group that helped Ocasio-Cortez with her insurgent House campaign in 2018. Chakrabarti is running for Congress in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in San Francisco, but Ocasio-Cortez pointedly hasn’t endorsed him in the June 2 primary. She’s indicated she believes that some of her early allies on the left have taken too much credit for her upset House victory eight years ago, and she’s distanced herself from them over the years, people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.
Things Are Looking Quite Bad for Trump
Things Are Looking Quite Bad for Trump - sh.itjust.works
President Donald Trump had a very bad weekend. In the most crushing blow, his favorite European leader, the pro-Putin, anti-Zelensky exemplar of “illiberal democracy,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—whose reelection Trump had strongly endorsed—lost his bid to stay in power by a stunning landslide margin. Only slightly less embarrassing, the much-touted peace negotiations with Iran—the first direct talks between U.S. and Iranian leaders in almost 50 years—ended in failure, dramatizing Trump’s failure to convert a massive wave of U.S. military power (hitting more than 13,000 Iranian targets in five weeks of airstrikes) into a political victory. Finally, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has tried more than any other Western leader to maintain good relations with the American president, said he was “fed up” with the fact that energy prices dip and soar “because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.” In an op-ed for the Guardian last week, Starmer wrote: “Britain’s national interest is best served by de-escalation, diplomacy, and the swift reopening of the strait of Hormuz.”