USA's unconscionable invasion and kidnapping of the Venezuelan president memes

 

Ongoing protests: NYC: Reddit. Bluesky, Chicago, Rochester 

NYC

Restorative justice:

The first order repealed all executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams following the day Adams was federally indicted. Mamdani said the move reflected a moment when “many New Yorkers decided that politics had nothing for them but more of the same.”

The judicial system has sort of turtled, with some notable exceptions. I see multiple system failures in our democracy that enabled lots of wrongs going on. To me it's leadership to step over to another branch's role, and do some justice by an executive.  

Adams, who was buyable, was bought by Israel. Mamdani is staunchly against prejudice against anyone, but he's not going to carve out special protections for Israel the way Adamas does. So right wing people interested in Israel might be upset. He's upsetting the right people in my opinion. 

Hamas and Iran

There's a post on Reddit that suggests saying Hamas was funded by Iran is a PR fib of Israel. It links an article.

So I asked Gemini the evidence that Hamas got money from Iran:

To say Iran didn't give Hamas money is the more sinister unfounded comment:

Hamas officials have openly acknowledged receiving significant financial and military support from Tehran: 

Ismail Haniyeh: In 2022, the former head of Hamas’s political bureau stated the group received $70 million annually from Iran to support its "defense plan" and rocket development.

Ali Baraka: A senior official confirmed in 2023 that Iran is the group's primary source of money and weapons.

Yahya Sinwar: In 2017, Sinwar identified Iran as the largest financial and military backer of Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. 

2. Seized Documents and Intelligence 

Military operations in Gaza throughout 2024 and 2025 led to the discovery of internal records detailing the flow of funds: 

Payment Ledgers: Documents found in Hamas tunnels reportedly detail $154 million in transfers from Iran over a six-year period (2014–2020).

Strategic Budgets: A letter dated December 2022 from Hamas military chief Marwan Issa to Yahya Sinwar revealed an agreement for a special Iranian budget of $7 million per month to prepare for confrontation with Israel.

Recent Totals: By 2025, Israeli intelligence estimates indicated Iran's funding had surged to approximately $350 million per year, accounting for a vast majority of the group's total budget. 

3. Financial Tracking and Sanctions

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has identified and sanctioned multiple networks used to move Iranian money to Hamas: 

The "Oil-for-Terror" Scheme: In 2018, the U.S. uncovered a network where Iranian oil was shipped to Syria, with profits laundered through Russian companies and then distributed to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Middlemen and Exchange Houses: Sanctions have targeted Lebanese and Turkish money exchange companies, such as Nabil Chouman & Co, which served as conduits for transferring tens of millions of dollars from the IRGC-Quds Force to Gaza.

Crypto and Shell Companies: International investigations in 2024 and 2025 targeted Hamas-affiliated financial facilitators using cryptocurrency and sham charities in countries like Algeria and Sudan to bypass sanctions. 

4. Military and Technical Support

Evidence of funding is also visible in Hamas's physical arsenal: 

Local Manufacturing: Iran provided the technology and technical training for Hamas to locally manufacture rockets, drones, and precision-guided munitions.

Training Programs: Intelligence officials confirmed that Hamas militants received tactical training in IRGC-run camps in Iran and Lebanon, including training for the October 7 attacks. 

Now I know personally that AI gets things wrong, and can have a political slant, but this answer was pretty convincing to me.

Additionally I have an Iranian friend, and you have to separate the regime and the people, I don't think Iranian people personally wish to be baited into scapegoating Israel for their misery. My friend is a little anti-Israel, because Israel isn't perfect either. Indeed, the continuation of the erasure of Palestinians is an ongoing genocide, and the easy dismissal that it's not a genocide by pro-Israel people is weird to me. You don't have to pick a falsity to embrace. You don't have to participate in spin. Both sides did some bad stuff. You can be on the side of human lives, and against needless slaughter. 

"Anti-semitism" and "Zionism" has been ripped away from the common meaning and I have seen post decrying the Wikipedia definitions by Jewish people who don't want to admit it's a genocide. 

A stage of unintegrated recovery is to go from victim to victimizer, that's just basic psychology. Watch Altered Carbon, first season. 

The Jewish people haven't taken back the 5 million killed by killing Palestinians, but of the thousand they lost in the bombing, they have killed a thousand fold more in retribution. Not an eye for an eye any more, they have gone beyond, and continue to go beyond. They need their own people to stop the murderers who are still going. I don't think they can erase any blowback by keeping going. 

The wind shears from the spin are so fierce, Massad saying they with the protesters in Iran proves that they "are behind" the protests (Reddit).

I'm banned from r/Iran for pointing out that the attack on Iran wasn't unprovoked, there were missiles shot at Iran. Nobody sees any provocation, only opportunity for revenge, in a sick never ending loop.  

Rights

In the information age we can see all the moving parts. In Israel the far right warring government has decreased women's rights (CNN). War is all about making women unsafe and need protection. In a safe world, women don't need men, and therefore the association would be their option, not a matter of survival. 

Rights are about freedom. The right to vote, to own property, to control over your body. Inequality is about trying to get more for me, by being in the in group. White men supposedly do well. I'm not doing the best, but actually I am quite lucky. It's not really luck, though is it? 

Malicious compliance

 

You want us to release all the file? Well here's all the people he hates. Not sure why he's against Clinton, since he's a centrist, practically a Republican. Just hated his wife, perhaps he's trying to hurt her. 

Trump could have the people who love him spontaneously name things for him, but he's not going to wait for that, he's putting his name on everything he can. He's thinking about his legacy, it's just these things aren't going to stick. Kennedy center is going back to it's old name after he's gone. He's going to die soon and his name is going to be erased because he's just not an American president we respect.

The leadership thing is that you lead by example, and Trump breaks all the laws, and somehow gets away with it, but his followers are surprised they are caught. Malicious noncompliance isn't great.

Enshitification

New example of enshitification. (Previous post on enshitification.)

People don't watch new shows that are good, they're canceled, then they watch them because the algorithm spits them up, and then there's not follow through and resolution because it was canceled because it wasn't popular when it first came out, but people like it as they're cycling through. 

I saw the other day you can pay to get the full Gemini experience, it's already got two tiered experiences.

I'm convinced that Apple takes away functionality with their updates. I used to be able to send links back and forth from computer to phone and phone to computer, but it's gone away. 

This is the great lesson of Trump. Capitalists wreck things and then demand money to make it work again. He's doing it with the government, thank, we don't need that. I feel like this isn't worth boycotting for, I mean it's everywhere and everything. It is making me less materialistic though, so that's good. 

That's just entertainment, but the cuts in government that kill people are worse. 

Images

 

Money in politics has befuddled Americans since the 70's, my who life, why not reverse that?

I think there's a lot of latitude within religions and politics, but to me stepping across the murder, war and other forms of killing is the line I draw. So with Trump's murdering an estimated 400k by his inaction with Covid, and the million he killed by administrative fiat by ending USAID, he's an administrative mass murderer, and to think that's OK is kind of giving up your human card. I see people are of value and just politically saying no to them is administrative murder. So I could never ever imagine it's just a political difference to think Trump is OK. Until we learn to treat all life as precious, we're not really worth anything as human beings. Stop genocides and famine, that to me is bottom line stuff.

Religions don't kill people, people allow themselves to be manipulated through religions to kill people, and that's another problem.

I'm just riffing off this post on Reddit, which honesetly I'm just riffing off the headline.

Is Trump a liar or just has dementia?

He’s freezing on stage

Look at his smile