The Latest News from Across the Web

Mehdi Takes Your Questions on Jimmy Kimmel, Free Speech, and Whatever You Throw His Way

2025-09-22 01:15:24 UTC

EXCLUSIVE: Hundreds of Jewish Health Professionals Say 'End the Genocide' in Gaza

2025-09-21 13:02:49 UTC

EXCLUSIVE: Bill to Block Arms Sales to Israel Endorsed by Congressional Progressive Caucus

2025-09-20 23:30:19 UTC

This Week in Democracy – Week 35: Free Speech! Free Speech! Free Sp... Oh Wait

2025-09-20 17:00:49 UTC

'It's Fascism All Over Again': The UK Is Following the US Down a Dark Path

2025-09-20 09:01:05 UTC

Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Like Biden’s But Far Worse

2025-09-19 19:30:31 UTC

EXCLUSIVE: Families of Americans Killed by Israeli Violence Join Zeteo in Heart-Wrenching Interview

2025-09-19 16:16:42 UTC

Trump FCC Chair Who Demanded Jimmy Kimmel Suspension Once Slammed Censoring ‘Late-Night Comedians’

2025-09-19 00:41:12 UTC

Trump Will Always Fail to Meet the Moment. It’s Up to Us to Fill the Moral Void

2025-09-18 17:44:14 UTC

Immigration Judge Orders Mahmoud Khalil to Be Deported to Syria or Algeria

2025-09-18 12:47:11 UTC

The New McCarthyism: UC Berkeley Just Handed Over the Names of 160 Students and Faculty to the Trump Admin

2025-09-18 00:30:25 UTC

‘Shame on Them’: Listen to Mehdi’s Powerful Speech at London’s ‘Together for Palestine’ Concert

2025-09-17 21:30:30 UTC

Vance Says It’s a ‘Statistical Fact’ the Left Commits Most Political Violence. The Actual Stats Show He’s Lying

2025-09-17 15:30:34 UTC

TODAY: Mehdi Set to Speak at Historic ‘Together for Palestine’ Benefit Concert in London

2025-09-17 13:06:40 UTC

‘Game Over Israel’ Campaign Demands Boycott of Israeli Soccer Clubs Over Government’s Killing of Palestinian Players

2025-09-16 22:38:41 UTC

In Israel, the Right Sees the America It Wants

2025-09-16 16:38:40 UTC

BREAKING: UN Commission Concludes Israel is Committing Genocide in Gaza

2025-09-16 07:02:39 UTC

Is Trump Leading the US Into War With Venezuela?

2025-09-15 23:11:24 UTC

Mehdi’s Challenge to Conservatives on Charlie Kirk and Political Violence

2025-09-15 18:06:14 UTC

This Week in Democracy – Week 34: Assassination, Recriminations, and a Trump 'Birthday Note' to Epstein

This past week truly and tragically underscored the dark moment the US is currently facing – not only because of the horrific and inexcusable killing of Trump ally and right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, but also because of the response to it.

Instead of bringing the nation together in the face of escalating political violence, Donald Trump, as president, chose to further divide the country, immediately blaming everyone on the left (despite knowing nothing about the shooter). What Trump and his allies conveniently failed to mention is that Democrats have been the victims of a spike in political violence themselves, perpetrated by pro-Trump individuals on the right.

The Kirk news dominated the news cycle, as it will likely do for days to come, but in the background, Trump and his allies continued to take a number of actions that harm democracy, undermine the Constitution, and hurt free societies worldwide.

From Trump’s strange denial of what clearly looks like his signature on a birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein, to his border czar spreading disinformation about people protesting against the administration’s policies, to the Supreme Court allowing ICE to continue practices that effectively amount to racial profiling, here’s ‘This Week in Democracy – Week 34’:

Saturday, September 6

• On Truth Social, Trump shared a meme that depicted him as an officer in the 1979 film ‘Apocalypse Now,’ with the title “Chipocalypse Now.” The caption read, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…,” and continued, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.” In response, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker tweeted that Trump, whom he called a “wannabe dictator,” is “threatening to go to war with an American city,” and added, “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

• Thousands of people protested in Washington, DC, to demand the Trump administration end its federal law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital, with signs that read “Trump must go now,” “Free DC,” and “Resist Tyranny.”

  Subscribe now

Sunday, September 7

• On Truth Social, Trump said that Israel has accepted his terms for an agreement to free the hostages and end its war on Gaza and added that it’s “time for Hamas to accept as well.” He went on to say that he “warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,” and noted, “This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” Drop Site News later reported that a senior Hamas official said the 100-word proposal “looks like it was written by the Israelis.”

• In an interview on ‘60 Minutes Australia,’ comedian Rosie O’Donnell responded to Trump’s repeated threats to revoke her US citizenship, saying that while it would violate the Constitution, “he has pawns in the Supreme Court and you never know what he’d be able to do.” O’Donnell also noted that she’s being advised on “what would be right and healthy and what would be safe for myself and my family” when it comes to visiting the US from her new home in Ireland.

• On Fox, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said without evidence that those who are protesting the administration’s immigration crackdown are “absolutely” being paid to do so, and that those who are behind the funding “will be prosecuted too.”

• Asked by NBC News reporter Yamiche Alcindor whether Trump is trying to go to war with Chicago based on his Saturday post on Truth Social, the president berated her, called her “darling,” and told her to “be quiet,” adding, “You never listen. That’s why you’re second-rate.”

Monday, September 8

• The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal asking the Supreme Court to authorize the freezing of billions of dollars in foreign aid after a lower court ruled it must spend the funds before they begin to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

• Politico reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte “in the fucking face” during a private dinner last week, which was attended by dozens of Trump’s administration officials and advisers.

• While speaking at the Museum of the Bible, Trump downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence, saying, “Things that take place in the home, they call crime … If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime.’”

• Trump also said that the Department of Education will be introducing new guidelines “protecting the right to prayer in our public schools,” while claiming that there are “grave threats to religious liberty in American schools.”

• A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit by a coalition of 19 states and DC, finding that they had no legal standing to sue the Trump administration over its mass firings of thousands of federal probationary employees.

• A federal appeals court upheld the $83 million judgment against Trump in a defamation case against writer E. Jean Carroll and rejected his claims that he should’ve been shielded from liability because of presidential immunity. The panel, which found that the jury’s damages awards were “fair and reasonable,” wrote that the hundreds of death threats Caroll faced due to Trump’s social media attacks and public statements against her supported the judge’s “determination that ‘the degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented.”

• The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 unexplained decision, paused a lower court ruling preventing federal immigration officials from stopping suspects in Los Angeles based solely on factors like their race, their occupation, having an accent, or speaking Spanish. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.”

  Subscribe now

• Meanwhile, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts allowed Trump to move forward with the firing of a Biden-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission, directly contravening a 1935 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law meant to restrict the White House’s ability to control the agency, while litigation around her termination continues.

• The House Oversight Committee released records from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, including a note signed by Trump that was part of the sex trafficker’s 50th birthday “book,” which featured text framed around the outline of a naked woman. The text read, in part, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” along with, “Happy birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The records also included another entry in the book from a long-time Mar-a-Lago member, which featured a photo of Epstein holding an oversized novelty check with the caption, “Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [woman’s name] to Donald Trump for $22,500.”

• The Department of Homeland Security announced it launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, in an effort to “target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.” In response, Pritzker tweeted that the operation “isn’t about fighting crime,” but “scaring Illinoisians.”

• House Speaker Mike Johnson walked back the claim he made last week that Trump was an “FBI informant” against Epstein, saying he didn’t know if he used the “right terminology,” but that it’s “much ado about nothing.”

• On Truth Social, Trump posted a video that promoted the long-discredited and debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. The video featured vaccine skeptic David Geier, who was hired to work as a senior data analyst in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study on links between vaccines and autism.

• Asked on CNN about why Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a lower-security prison, her former lawyer seemingly admitted that it was likely part of a deal with the Trump administration in exchange for her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, saying, “when anybody who’s represented by a lawyer who knows what they’re doing goes in and meets with the government, there’s always a quid pro quo.”

• Trump politicized the killing of a Ukrainian refugee on a North Carolina train to rail against cashless bail, saying “her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail,” and calling on Republicans to vote for former RNC Chair Michael Whatley for US Senate.

Tuesday, September 9

• NBC News reported that a more than 15-year-old ICE policy requiring officers in its Enforcement and Removal Operations division to fill out a form with details, including the name, known addresses, and criminal history of targeted immigrants before conducting any operations to arrest them, has ended under the Trump administration.

• A Michigan state judge dismissed charges against a group of fake electors who signed certificates that falsely stated Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election, ruling that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove their intent to commit fraud. Calling the dismissal a “very wrong decision,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it marked “the most dangerous slippery slope for American democracy, when courts decide that violations of election laws shouldn’t even be heard by a jury.” Nessel added, “I am terrified for the 2026 elections … If they can get away with this, what can’t they get away with next?”

• Israel launched a deadly attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, two days after Trump said his proposal for a ceasefire agreement was “last warning.” A Qatari security official was also killed. The illegal bombing of a sovereign country took place in a residential neighborhood and was condemned worldwide.

• Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’ political leadership in part at the request of the US, has been a key mediator in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal. “I think that what [Benjamin] Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said.

• White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration was notified of the action by the US military, but CBS News reported that Israel told the US, which has a military base in Qatar, about the strike just before it happened. On Truth Social, Trump said the operation was “not a decision made by me” but called the elimination of Hamas a “worthy goal.” He also said that he directed Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to inform Qatar of the impending strike, “which he did, however, unfortunately, too late to stop the attack.”

• Asked about Trump’s Monday comments downplaying domestic violence during a White House press briefing, Leavitt baselessly claimed that women are falsely reporting cases of domestic violence as a crime “to undermine the great work” Trump’s task force is doing in DC.

• The Supreme Court said it would take up Trump’s emergency appeal related to the legality of his global tariffs, with oral arguments expected in November. In the meantime, the tariffs will remain in place.

  Buy Zeteo Merch

• The New York Times reported that Tulsi Gabbard ordered the retraction of an intelligence report on Venezuela and Richard Grenell, who serves as an envoy to the country and has called for negotiations with its government. The report, which was recalled several months ago while Grenell was negotiating the return of undocumented immigrants to Venezuela, focused on his conversations and negotiations with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

• The Missouri state House voted to approve a new gerrymandered congressional map that would likely result in Republicans gaining another US House seat in the 2026 midterm elections. The map now moves to the state Senate, which is expected to pass it this month.

• Speaking to reporters, Trump denied that he signed the letter included in Epstein’s 50th birthday book, saying, “It’s not my signature and it’s not the way I speak, and anybody that’s covered me for a long time know that’s not my language.”

• A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, finding that the president’s decision to terminate her over accusations of mortgage fraud that allegedly occurred before her tenure is outside the bounds of the “for cause” provision, which is limited to her behavior in office.

• The New York Times reported that Trump’s Justice Department is quietly building the largest national voting database in the agency’s history, which includes data from more than 30 states. Experts say efforts to collect information about individual voters, including their names and addresses, may be against the law, and have raised concerns about the data being used to revive debunked claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen, or to discredit the results of future elections.

• The Supreme Court temporarily authorized the Trump administration to freeze approximately $4 billion in foreign aid set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, which includes funding for global health and HIV/AIDS programs.

Wednesday, September 10

• Trump ally and MAGA pundit Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. His killing was immediately condemned by politicians and pundits across the political spectrum.

• While top Democrats, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, denounced Kirk’s killing, some far-right commentators immediately attempted to blame the left for the shooting. Elon Musk tweeted that “The Left is the party of murder,” while conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer called on the Trump administration to “shut down, defund & prosecute every single Leftist organization.”

• Meanwhile, Trump issued a video message from the Oval Office, in which he said, “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals … My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.” Trump’s warning came despite the fact that the shooter hadn’t yet been identified in Kirk’s killing, and their motive remained unclear.

• AP reported that the Trump administration is reviewing material at national parks and historic sites related to slavery, the destruction of Native American culture and language, the climate crisis, and other information that could be “disparaging” to the US. Additionally, the National Park Service had until July 18 to flag “inappropriate” signs, exhibits, and other material.

• A federal appeals court reinstated the copyright chief of the Library of Congress while she continues to challenge Trump’s effort to fire her in court.

• ProPublica reported that the Education Department cut funding for programs in eight states that help students who have hearing and vision loss, with a spokesperson for the department citing concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in relation to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The funding, which will stop at the end of September, was expected to continue through September 2028.

  Share

• Three former senior FBI officials, including former acting director Brian Driscoll, sued Kash Patel for their firings, arguing they were unlawful and politically motivated. The lawsuit claims that Patel “deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people. The suit also details an interview Driscoll undertook before he was appointed as acting director, which appeared to be a loyalty test. The interview included questions about whether he voted for a Democrat in the last five elections and if FBI agents who raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 “should be held accountable.”

• The Trump administration announced it would withhold $350 million in grants to hundreds of colleges serving students of color, reallocating the funds away from eight discretionary grant programs that support Black, Native, Hispanic, and Asian American students.

• The Trump administration walked back its claims that hundreds of Guatemalan children it tried to deport back to their home country last month had been requested to return by their parents after a Justice Department attorney acknowledged that the claims had no factual basis and had been contradicted by a Guatemalan government review, which concluded that most of the parents couldn’t be located and the majority who were had wanted their children to remain in the US.

• Trump’s 30-day emergency order involving the federal takeover of law enforcement in DC officially expired, though National Guard troops and ICE agents will remain in the area. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that National Guard documents concluded that public sentiment about Trump’s takeover has been perceived as “leveraging fear,” driving a “wedge between citizens and the military,” and promoting a sense of “shame” among some troops and veterans.

• The New York Times reported that the Venezuelan boat destroyed by the US military in the Caribbean last week, which killed 11 civilians, had altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the strike began after people on board saw a military aircraft following them. The new details about the strike, which experts say may have violated international law, further undermine the Trump administration’s claim that it was legally justified as self-defense.

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from subpoenaing the medical records of trans patients who received gender-affirming care at a children’s hospital in Boston, calling the move improper and “motivated only by bad faith.”

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from restricting access to services for undocumented immigrants, including the federal preschool program Head Start, as well as health clinics and adult education.

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested to Axios that the Trump administration may begin targeting a share of funds generated by patents developed at major universities that receive federal funding, saying, “I think if we fund it and they invent a patent, the United States of America taxpayer should get half the benefit.”

  Donate to Zeteo

Thursday, September 11

• Speaking to reporters, Trump escalated his dangerous rhetoric following Kirk’s killing, saying, “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”

• House Democrats sent a letter to the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency requesting a review of director Bill Pulte’s mortgage fraud allegations against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. In the letter, the lawmakers asked the IG to “review all the circumstances and activities” related to the agency’s acquisition and review of Cook’s mortgage application, along with “any announcements, statements, and release of documents related to this matter in order to determine whether any statutory, regulatory, or agency policies may have been violated.”

• Trump asked a federal appeals court to immediately pause a lower court ruling that blocked his firing of Lisa Cook, and requested a ruling by Monday, which is one day before the Fed’s board starts meeting to vote on whether to lower interest rates. Cook will be able to attend the meeting if the block on her firing remains in place.

• Bloomberg reported on a trove of Epstein emails from his personal Yahoo account that hadn’t been made public until now, which largely shed light on his partnership with Maxwell. In one email from Sept. 2006, two months after Epstein was charged in Florida with solicitation of prostitution, Maxwell sent Epstein a list of 51 people, including politicians, business executives, and Wall Street powerbrokers, writing, “Pls review list and add or remove peeps.” Epstein responded, “Remove trump.” A White House spokesperson called the article “more stupid, fake news playing into the hands of the Democrat Hox trying to link” Trump and Epstein.

• A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children who came to the US alone, extending her order until at least Sept. 26. The judge also raised concerns about whether the government made arrangements for the children’s parents or legal guardians to take custody of them.

• On Twitter, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau announced that the State Department will “undertake appropriate action” against immigrants who are “praising, rationalizing, or making light” of Charlie Kirk’s killing on social media, saying they “are not welcome visitors to our country.” He also called on Twitter users to report immigrants who have made such comments.

• Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to over 27 years in prison after the country’s Supreme Court found him guilty of plotting a coup d’état following his loss in the 2022 election. Trump, who has called Bolsonaro’s prosecution a “witch hunt,” compared the former president to himself, telling reporters, “It’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn’t get away with it.”

  Subscribe now

• The Trump administration told the New York Times it had ordered the destruction of nearly $10 million worth of birth control pills and other contraceptives meant to go to individuals in low-income countries, even though several international organizations offered to buy them or accept them as donations. The estimated cost to destroy the products was $167,000. Authorities in Belgium, where the products were being held, later told the Times that the stockpile hadn’t been destroyed yet.

• Utah Governor Spencer Cox warned about a “tremendous amount” of disinformation circulating on social media in relation to Charlie Kirk’s killing.

• Senate Republicans broke precedent by changing a rule to lower the existing 60-vote threshold for considering a group of presidential nominees to a simple majority, further eroding the filibuster in the process and making it more difficult for individual senators to block specific nominees.

• Several historically Black colleges and universities in the South were put on lockdown and had classes canceled after receiving “potential threats to campus safety.” Meanwhile, Capitol Police responded to a “potential security concern” at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, which turned out to be a non-credible bomb threat.

• A federal appeals court cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with blocking Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood as part of the president’s tax and spending bill passed in July.

Friday, September 12

• During a one-hour interview on Fox, Trump announced that a 22-year-old suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk had been taken into custody, and once again called for “quick trials,” saying that suspects who are caught on tape “should have a trial the following day.” The suspect was later named as Tyler Robinson.

• Also during the interview, Trump falsely said he could “change the mayor” of DC if he wants, claimed Chicago is “worse than Afghanistan,” and ludicrously said that “California doesn’t have ballot boxes.” Additionally, he accused, without evidence, the Jan. 6 Select Committee of “burn[ing] all the information because we were right on everything.” He claimed that “radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.” He also said his administration is going to “look into” Jewish billionaire and Democratic Party donor George Soros, adding he believes “it’s a RICO case against him and other people.”

• Trump announced that Memphis, Tennessee, will be his administration’s next target of a National Guard deployment to fight crime, saying, “We’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.” He added, “I would’ve preferred going to Chicago … we’ll bring in the military too if we need it.”

  Give a Zeteo Gift Subscription

• Reuters reported that the Trump administration is planning to propose significant restrictions on the right to asylum at the United Nations later this month. The proposed framework would require asylum seekers to claim protection in the first country they enter, rather than a country of their choosing. Additionally, asylum would be temporary, and the country providing asylum would be able to determine whether conditions in home countries have improved enough for their return.

• The Washington Post reported that Trump health officials are planning to link COVID-19 vaccines to the deaths of 25 children based on information submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which contains unverified reports of side effects from vaccines that can be submitted by anyone. The move comes as the Trump administration considers limiting who can get the COVID-19 vaccine.

• A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s policy that directed immigration judges to dismiss deportation cases, a move that has resulted in ICE arresting immigrants in and around courthouses.

• Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would move to end a 15-year-old program that requires thousands of polluters to report the amount of greenhouse gases they emit, with EPA administrator Lee Zeldin saying in a statement that the program “is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape.”

• CBS News reported that the US Secret Service put an agent on leave after writing a Facebook post about Charlie Kirk’s killing, noting he “spewed hate and racism on his show.” In a memo, the Secret Service director said that members “must be focused on being the solution, not adding to the problem.”

• Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor who Trump tried to fire over allegations of mortgage fraud, listed the Atlanta property at the center of those allegations as a “vacation home,” according to a document reviewed by Reuters. The 2021 document, says Reuters, “appears to counter other documentation that Cook’s critics have cited in support of their claims that she committed mortgage fraud.”

Did you miss previous weeks? Catch up here.

Subscribe to Zeteo to make sure you get ‘This Week in Democracy’ in your inbox every week.

If you are already a Zeteo subscriber but would like to increase your support for our accountability journalism in this era of Trump and authoritarianism, please do consider a donation, too.

2025-09-13 18:00:38 UTC

Sold-Out Screening of Our Gaza Doctors Film Draws Hundreds at Georgetown University

With not a single empty seat in the crowd, hundreds gathered at Washington DC’s Georgetown University for a screening of Zeteo’s documentary, ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,’ which the BBC refused to air. The screening of the documentary, produced by Basement Films, was followed by a panel discussion with Mehdi and California trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who recently came back from Gaza. The panel was moderated by the Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Nader Hashemi.

“I wish it wasn't a Zeteo film,” Mehdi opened by saying of the documentary. “It was supposed to have aired on the BBC, and yet the BBC decided, under pressure from all sorts of institutions, individuals, groups, that they couldn't run this film.”

Subscribe now

Dr. Sidhwa, who has been to Gaza twice since the genocide started and is planning for his third visit later this year, explained to the audience the realities of being a doctor in Gaza that our film couldn’t show. “You can only show so much in an hour,” said the trauma surgeon. “One thing it doesn't show is their struggle to survive.”

The doctor shared personal experiences from his trips to Gaza, including the killing of one of his child patients while he was being treated, the difficulty of getting into the occupied strip, and testimonies from Palestinian doctors who cannot leave.

“I fly in for two weeks, and I fly out, and I pat myself on the back, and then I go eat a big cheeseburger. But these folks are there literally just all the time. And there's countless stories of physicians working in the ER when their whole family is brought in dead,” Dr. Sidhwa recounts.

Audience members got to take part in the conversation by putting their own questions to the panel, which ranged from what they can do to fight Israel’s brutality, how Dr. Sidhwa prepares for his trips to Gaza, and where Israel’s red lines are drawn, among many others.

Mehdi, as ever, didn’t hold back in his scathing critique of both Israel’s genocidal government and our own complicit mainstream media!

Paid subscribers can watch the full discussion above. Free subscribers can watch a three-minute preview. Do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo and never hitting another paywall again!

In case you missed them, here are some of our latest stories:

Read more

2025-09-13 14:02:47 UTC

I Am the Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor. The UK Arrested Me for Protesting the Genocide in Gaza

My Polish father survived the Holocaust.

Last Saturday, I was arrested for protesting against a genocide.

I had made the conscious decision to attend a protest against the UK's draconian law that makes it a crime to support Palestine Action, a group the government recently proscribed as a terrorist organization, knowing I would be arrested.

Hundreds, including an 89-year-old woman, a blind man in a wheelchair, and many others in their 60s like me, have been arrested at similar protests in London. So going there, I knew how my day would end.

Read more

2025-09-12 21:16:27 UTC

Charlie Kirk in His Own Words

Black people

• “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.” (source)

Black pilots

• “If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ’Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” (source)

Black women

• “They're coming out, and they're saying, 'I'm only here because of affirmative action.' Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously." (source)

Civil rights

• “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.” (source)

The death penalty

• "[The death penalty] should be public, should be quick, should be televised… I think at a certain age, it’s an initiation… At what age should you start to see public executions?" (source)

Democrats

• “The Democrat Party supports everything that God hates.” (source)

Empathy

• "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage." (source)

Feminism

• “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge." (source)

Gay people

• “You might want to crack open that Bible of yours. In a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture, is in Leviticus 18 is that, ‘thou shalt lay with another man shall be stoned to death.’ Just sayin’! So Miss Rachel, you quote Leviticus 19… the chapter before affirms God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.” (source)

George Floyd

• “This guy was a scumbag.” (source)

Great Replacement Theory

• “It's not a Great Replacement Theory, it's a Great Replacement Reality. Just this year, 3.6 million foreigners will invade America. 10-15 million will enter by the end of Joe Biden's term. Each will probably have 3-5 kids on average while native born Americans have 1.5 per couple. You are being replaced, by design.” (source)

Guns

• “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” (source)

Jews

• “Jewish donors have been the number one funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now it’s coming for Jews, and they're like, ‘What on Earth happened?’ And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it.” (source)

Martin Luther King Jr.

• “MLK was awful. He's not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn't believe.” (source)

Muslims

• “They aren’t even hiding their intentions. Muslims plan to conquer Europe by demographic replacement. Will Europe wake up in time?” (source)

Palestine

• “I don’t think the place exists.” (source)

Transgender people

• “You’re an abomination to God.” (source)

2025-09-12 18:10:31 UTC

Mahmoud Khalil and Cynthia Nixon Come to DC to Demand Congress 'Block the Bombs'

Hollywood stars Cynthia Nixon and Morgan Spector were on Capitol Hill this week to push members of Congress to support the Block the Bombs Act – a bill that would stop the US from sending offensive weapons to Israel.

The Hollywood stars were joined by Columbia student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, a deportation target of the Trump administration, and Adil Husain, a Texas doctor who recently served in Gaza.

I followed the group around Capitol Hill as they had personal meetings with Reps. Emily Randall (Wash.) and LaMonica McIver (N.J.), both of whom have not signed onto the bill, as well as Texas Rep. Greg Casar and Pennsylvania Reps. Summer Lee and Mary Gay Scanlon, who, alongside 43 other Democratic members, have signed onto the measure. They also hosted a press conference and a legislative briefing with several other members of Congress.

Subscribe now

Zeteo contributor Cynthia Nixon reflected on how, in the past, Israel and Palestine may have been seen as a “third rail” in politics, but that’s no longer the case. “[T]he vast majority of Americans really believe that our funding of bombs and weapons and of an apartheid state is wrong. And so, I think that we're here on the Hill, because our leaders haven't caught up with where the people are.”

Along with the American public, the film industry is also increasingly speaking out against the genocide. More than 4,000 film workers, including Nixon and Spector, as well as Ava DuVernay, Ayo Edebiri, Brian Cox, Josh O'Connor, Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, and Javier Bardem, have signed a historic pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid of the Palestinian people.

“I felt it was important to take a position, especially as somebody in my industry, because it was clearly dangerous…People were being told, ‘You can't talk about this,’” Spector said.

Meanwhile, Khalil told me that he had seen no concrete action since he last visited Congress in July, even as conditions severely worsen in Gaza.

Israeli forces have killed more than 64,000 people in the enclave. This week, Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned hundreds of thousands in Gaza City to leave (to where is unclear), bombed Qatar, allegedly twice struck a flotilla carrying hundreds of international volunteers seeking to deliver aid to Gaza, and announced “there will be no Palestinian state.”

“There's no excuse whatsoever for that inaction,” Khalil said.

Share

Paid subscribers can watch the full video to get a look inside Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, Mahmoud Khalil, and Dr. Adil Husain’s day on Capitol Hill.

Free subscribers can watch a one-and-a-half-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber today to support the work we’re doing and never worry about a paywall again! And if you already are a paid subscriber, you can always help Zeteo continue to do journalism like this by making a donation.

Liam Mann contributed to this reporting.

Check out more from Zeteo:

Read more

2025-09-12 13:01:29 UTC

The Charlie Kirk Shooting Is Just Another Sign of America's New Violent Era

This piece was first published by writer Jack Crosbie on Discourse Blog Substack. Zeteo is republishing it with its permission and a new headline.

Yesterday, conservative activist and provocateur Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a rally at Utah Valley University. There are pictures and videos and rampant speculation all over the internet. You will not find them here. The shooter’s name and motivation are still unknown as of this writing. In the next few hours and days, we will likely have definitive answers to these questions, but we do not have them now.

What does seem clear is that the American ‘Years of Lead’ are here.

The term refers to a period of Italian history roughly between 1960 and 1980 that was defined by widespread political violence and domestic terrorism, perpetrated by both right and left-wing groups. The scale of the violence in Italy — hundreds dead in massacres, bombings, and assassinations — makes applying the term to the United States seem hyperbolic at first. But consider: Italy had a deeply divided political system, a repressive government, and widespread economic woes. It was filled with motivated and organized radical political groups on both the left and the right. It was quite a bit like our country today.

Subscribe now

And now we see the results. We are in a different era: the weapons are different, the tactics are different, the groups are different. The American Years of Lead will not look like Italy’s, but they are here all the same. In this country, any person can pick up a gun and find someone to shoot for ideological reasons. As we have seen time and time again, it is so very easy to do.

But access to firearms in this country is not new. You have been able to get a gun and shoot a lot of people for years. What’s different now is that, in the past half-decade, the contours of this violence have shifted. The motivations of mass shooters are still a difficult trend to map, but more and more people appear to be carrying out assassinations for very specific reasons, targeting very specific people. Put another way, Luigi Mangione was not an anomaly, and nor is the person who killed Charlie Kirk. In the next few years, I suspect they will become known simply as the start of a trend.

The structure of American society has deteriorated to the point where a growing number of people see violence as the only way they can change their world. In some ways, this has always been the case – as I’ve written before, basically all human governance comes down to the use of force at some point or another – but society is supposed to be structured to insulate everyday people from that truth.

The kind of violence that killed Kirk is supposed to be carried out by people who are so deranged, or crazy, or sick, or in pain, that they take an extreme action that is outside the bounds of what our society should permit. But look at where we’re at. Our society is increasing the number of people who are sick or in pain every day. It has broken down and squeezed so hard that ordinary people may feel deranged on a bad day. But most of all, for those who were already harboring thoughts of violence or hate – like so many on the far right – the chaos is an easy excuse. That the president looks fondly on their views or, at the very least, shows little interest in prosecuting them only adds to the opportunity. The country is full of loaded guns in shaky hands, swinging back and forth, from target to target.

Subscribe now

What this looks like, on a practical level, might be a bit different than what most people think. There will not be another American “civil war.” The country is too geographically and economically and socially enmeshed for that. But the lone wolves, the fringe groups, and the homicidally desperate will strike, again and again, killing both the innocent and guilty alike.

A few months ago, a man drove a truck bomb into a fertility clinic in Palm Springs. The bomber was the only one who died, but the intent was there. His successors will not be as sloppy. The story didn’t get much traction when it happened, but it has stuck in my mind ever since. I do not believe we will get large armed groups fighting each other in the streets. What we will get is more incidents like the Palm Springs one – single shots ringing out in public spaces, or a brief hail of gunfire. Schools and churches will continue to come under attack. People will weaponize their vehicles – the second-deadliest machines in the country – and turn them into battering rams and bombs to slam into buildings and crowds. The state will denounce the attacks it deems to be perpetrated by its enemies and use them to justify expanding its use of force in the streets. Nonlethal rounds shot at protesters will, perhaps, become live ammunition.

There is nothing now that we can do to stop this: ending it will take years of reform and an ease to the material hardships of this country to make it abate.

If that sounds hopeless, I’m sorry. I don’t want people to live their lives in a state of constant fear. It is extremely unlikely that any one person will be affected by this trend, statistically speaking – though marginalized groups are far more at risk. But however insulated we may personally be from some of this violence, what people must do is understand and recognize that it exists. This won’t go away if we do not first recognize that our society is broken and seek to fix it. That means we can’t trust people who want us to “return to normalcy,” or who offer hollow promises of stability without changing the rotten foundations that our violent country rests upon. A more peaceful world is possible. It will take new leadership and new ideas. We do not have those yet. We may not get them anytime soon. Until then, we live in the years of lead.

Share

Jack Crosbie is a writer who covers conflict, politics, labor, and the media for Discourse Blog. He was previously a contributing writer at Splinter and has written for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic.

Subscribe to Discourse Blog for more of Jack’s writing.

Check out more from Zeteo:

2025-09-12 01:00:42 UTC