/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

L.A. volunteers who document ICE raids are being arrested. How to do it safely
She was pinned to the ground, handcuffed and put into an unmarked black van by masked federal agents. The arrest put a spotlight on the risks faced by a growing number of volunteers who work to document immigration enforcement actions across Southern California. Trebach is a member of Unión del Barrio, an immigrant rights organization, one of several advocacy groups that conduct local patrols to respond to and document immigration enforcement operations in Southern California.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/la-volunteers-who-document-ice-raids-are-being-arrested-how-to-do-it-safely
https://archive.ph/a6qVY

D.C. man accused of throwing sandwich at federal agent faces felony charges
Sean Charles Dunn, 37, is accused of being the man in a viral video who threw "a sub-style sandwich" at a CBP agent who was patrolling with Metro Transit Police in northwest D.C. late Sunday, after President Trump ordered an increased federal law enforcement presence in the U.S. capital, per a court filing. "The video has become emblematic of how some Washington residents feel about Mr. Trump's injection of federal law enforcement officers into the city's streets," per the New York Times. "It has also been condemned by others as indicative of disrespect and dehumanization of the police."
http://www.axios.com/2025/08/14/trump-dc-federal-agent-sandwich-assault-charge
https://archive.ph/FILw6

Groups sue Trump agencies for using 'secret' report to reverse core of US climate rules
The Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed the lawsuit in a federal district court in Massachusetts, arguing that the so-called Climate Working Group that Energy Secretary Chris Wright put together, evaded public view, delivered erroneous results and was illegally used to inform the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to reverse the scientific finding that served as the foundation for federal climate regulation.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/groups-sue-trump-agencies-using-secret-report-reverse-core-us-climate-rules-2025-08-13/

California’s richest agricultural family is shuttering a farm the UFW sought to unionize
Wonderful Co., owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, plans to shut down the majority of the nursery in Wasco, northwest of Bakersfield, and donate the farm to UC Davis, representatives for the company and the university confirmed this week. The move comes as Wonderful Nurseries remains locked in a battle with the UFW after the union last year petitioned to represent workers growing grapevines, using a new state “card check” law that made it easier for organizers to sign up workers. Company officials said their decision was unrelated to that.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/ufw-wonderful-nurseries-uc-davis
https://archive.ph/AsNJ4

New York sues Zelle, says security lapses led to $1 billion consumer fraud losses
James said Zelle's parent and the banks knew for years that the platform was vulnerable to fraudsters but resisted basic safeguards, with the banks sometimes ignoring customer complaints while Zelle let fraudsters stay on the platform. The result was "rampant" fraud that Zelle sometimes refused to address even after it occurred, despite its assurances it was a safe alternative to cash and checks and "backed by the banks, so you know it's secure," the complaint said.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/new-york-sues-zelle-says-security-lapses-led-1-billion-consumer-fraud-losses-2025-08-13/

San Francisco’s Ultrarich Are Blocking a Zohran-Style Agenda
Zohran Mamdani’s recent victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary is no doubt the shot of adrenaline that democratic socialism needs right now. But while his win shocked most of the nation, democratic socialists have always known that Mamdani’s platform was a winning one. We knew in 2016 that Bernie Sanders could have won. We knew it when COVID-19 hit and the stimulus checks started printing — if the government could provide something like a universal basic income for unemployed people when the economy was flatlining, could they not afford it during boom times? We knew it during the fiasco of the Joe Biden–Kamala Harris campaign while centrist Democrats ignored the economic gasps for breath from working-class America. And although New York’s primary election surprised almost everybody, democratic socialists have been excited, even exuberantly optimistic, about Mamdani’s campaign as a model for other socialists since early 2024. A bold, populist economic platform has massive appeal. As the Zohran adrenaline courses through our networks, to the soundtrack of Bernie’s latest directive to run for office at every level, it’s no wonder many politicians are trying to jump on this winning bandwagon (and making sure to hit record on their iPhones). But in San Francisco — a city known for its progressivism — some mainstream commentators still don’t seem so sure. As Cal Matters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu asked last month: “Could we have a Zohran in San Francisco?” The truth is, for years San Francisco voters have tried to pass Mamdani’s agenda — almost to a tee — and it has been as popular as you’d expect, even without his dimples and killer social media. The people of San Francisco have always been fans of a Mamdani-style platform. They’re not the ones opposing such an agenda; it’s the Andrew Cuomos of the city and their ultrarich backers. The political establishment and the economic elites that fund them have worked to block economic prosperity for working people at every turn.
https://jacobin.com/2025/08/san-francisco-zohran-democratic-socialism

Hundreds of Former Israeli Spies Are Working in Big Tech, Database Shows
In late July, the U.S. cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks (PANW) announced that it had acquired the Israeli identity management and information security firm CyberArk, paying a staggering $25 billion dollars worth of cash and stock to purchase the firm. In addition to potentially injecting billions of dollars into the Israeli economy, Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of CyberArk further strengthens the relationship between Silicon Valley and Israel’s security-intelligence apparatus. Palo Alto is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms, and provides infrastructure protection, firewalls, and cloud security services to tens of thousands of companies internationally. Udi Mokady, CyberArk’s founder and executive chairman, is an alum of Unit 8200, the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate’s elite signals intelligence division. So are the four co-founders of Wiz: the Israeli cloud computing firm recently bought by Google for $32 billion. So, too, is Palo Alto’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer Nir Zuk. Palo Alto has expanded through a spree of high-profile acquisitions over the past decade, paying sometimes up to billions of dollars for startups aimed at expanding its cybersecurity offerings. Nearly half of these have involved companies with origins in Israeli intelligence, raising concerns about access to the vast amounts of data around the world that the company is charged with protecting.
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-technology-palo-alto-networks-microsoft-unit-8200

Leon Trotsky: (1931) For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism
The fascists are growing very rapidly. The Communists are also growing but much more slowly. The growth at the extreme poles shows that the ball cannot maintain itself at the top of the pyramid. The rapid growth of the fascists signifies the danger that the ball may roll down toward the right. Therein lies an enormous danger. Hitler emphasizes that he is against a coup d’état. In order to strangle democracy once and for all, he wants to come to power by no other route than the democratic road. Can we seriously believe this? Of course, if the fascists could figure on obtaining an absolute majority of the votes at the next elections in a peaceful way, then they would perhaps even prefer this road. In reality, however, this road is unthinkable for them. It is stupid to believe that the Nazis would grow uninterruptedly, as they do now, for an unlimited period of time. Sooner or later they will drain their social reservoir. Fascism has introduced into its own ranks such terrific contradictions, that the moment must come in which the flow ceases to replace the ebb. This moment can arrive long before the fascists have united about them even half of the votes. They will not be able to halt for they will have nothing more to look for here. They will be forced to resort to an overturn. But even apart from all this, the fascists are cut off from the democratic road. The immense growth of the political contradictions in the country, the stark brigands’ agitation of the fascists, will inevitably lead to a situation in which the closer the fascists approach a majority, the more heated the atmosphere will become and the more extensive the unfolding of the conflicts and struggles will be. With this perspective, civil war is absolutely inevitable. Consequently, the question of the seizure of power by the fascists will not be decided by vote, but by civil war, which the fascists are preparing and provoking. Can we assume even for one minute that Hitler and his counselors do not realize and foresee this? That would mean to consider them blockheads. There is no greater crime in politics than that of hoping for stupidities on the part of a strong enemy. But if Hitler is not unaware that the road to power leads through the most gruesome civil war, then it means that his speeches about the peaceful democratic road are only a cloak, that is, a stratagem. In that case, it is all the more necessary to keep one’s eyes open. His calculations are quite simple and obvious: he wants to lull his antagonists with the long-run perspective of the parliamentary growth of the Nazis in order to catch them napping and to deal them a deathblow at the right moment It is quite possible that Hitler’s courtesies to democratic parliamentarism may, moreover, help to set up some sort of coalition in the immediate future in which the fascists will obtain the most important posts and employ them in turn for their coup d’état. For it is entirely clear that the coalition, let us assume, between the Center and the fascists will not be a stage in the democratic solution of the question, but a step closer to the coup d’etat under conditions most favorable to the fascists.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311208.htm

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