/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Activist Mahmoud Khalil asks Supreme Court to let US judges quickly reverse immigration detentions
Khalil, a lawful permanent U.S. resident, was detained by immigration authorities last year because of his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University in the spring of 2024. The U.S. government argued at the time that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. was harmful to the country’s foreign policy interests.
https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-supreme-court-palestinian-protests-columbia-8ac4b21f75a38a0165c92ee1a14f093e

US judge dismisses Sam Altman's sister's sexual abuse lawsuit
Laura Politi, a lawyer for ​Annie Altman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ​Santos Perez, a lawyer who previously represented Annie Altman in the case but withdrew this month, said in a statement, "I am no longer authorized to comment on ​this case but I continue to believe in Annie." Lawyers for Sam ​Altman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-judge-dismisses-sam-altmans-sisters-sexual-abuse-lawsuit-2026-10-20/

Ohio Democrat’s family criticizes Vivek Ramaswamy for bringing up estranged mother in gubernatorial ad
In a Tuesday statement, Acton’s brother, Philip Stearns, said his sister is estranged from her mother, who had married a man that sexually abused Acton when she was 12 years old. He added that Arthur remained in the marriage even after her husband was arrested and her children were taken away from her.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/20/ohio-democrat-vivek-ramaswamy-ad

Mayor Bass announces temporary relief for Los Angeles residents affected by skyrocketing utility bills
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass released a statement Tuesday announcing plans for some major changes to bring temporary relief for Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers affected by skyrocketing utility bills amid multiple recent heat waves. There’s been a growing outrage and calls for investigation after some customers reported their bills tripling in recent months, spiking by hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Bass released a statement Tuesday announcing action she’s taking for customers to get relief.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/mayor-bass-ladwp-skyrocketing-bills-relief/

‘Big business’: little-known court system in Louisiana churns out thousands of evictions – and millions in fees for judges
Inside Louisiana’s justice of the peace courts, evictions often move swiftly, landlords rack up wins, some judges earn outsized incomes – and housing advocates say tenants’ fundamental rights are at risk. The state’s 390 justices of the peace work part-time – ruling on evictions, small claims and wage garnishments as well as, in happier moments, performing weddings. They are required to have only a high school diploma and their courts do not need to keep detailed records or follow standard rules of evidence. They are paid directly by the fees their court charges, including court costs in eviction cases that can total $150 or more.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/oct/20/louisiana-justice-of-peace-courts-evictions-fees

How The Proud Boys Lost Their Name
West Palm Beach, FL – On Sept. 26, the film “American Martyrs” premiered at the Kravis Center’s Cohen Pavilion in West Palm Beach, Florida. The subject of the film, presented by the far-right media outlet Gateway Pundit, was the Proud Boys – specifically the “seditious five,” whom a federal jury found guilty of seditious conspiracy to stop the presidential transfer of power for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol. …. Despite the obvious connections to the Proud Boys organization, the premiere lacked any of the recognizable branding belonging to what it depicted as a persecuted “drinking fraternity.” Even on Tarrio’s person, the golden cock and abbreviated name have given way to the branding for his streaming outfit, “War Boys,” which has gained a whopping 700 followers on Rumble since the channel was created in April last year. And on Tarrio’s merch website – where the Afro-Cuban now in his 40s markets just about any idea as apparel, including a t-shirt reading “Enrique Tarrio Eats Cream Pies” with an AI illustration of Tarrio licking an over-sized cream pie – reveals a distinct absence of Proud Boys related merchandise. Tarrio’s ability to capitalize on Proud Boys merchandising, which once characterized his merch store, hit a setback last year when a D.C. Superior Court judge awarded the brand to a historically-Black church following a years-long legal battle set in the wake of the 2020 Presidential election. At the beginning of 2025, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (MAME) church was the only place one could purchase official Proud Boys merchandise, re-branded to signify Black pride, with proceeds going toward the church’s community justice fund.
https://unicornriot.ninja/2026/how-the-proud-boys-lost-their-name/

Puerto Rican Communities Bear the Brunt of the Water Crisis
As a child, visits to my grandmother’s home in the rural area between the municipalities of Humacao and Yabucoa, in eastern Puerto Rico, often began with the same question: “Is there running water?” Decades later, we have stopped asking—not because the problem has been solved, but because we already know the answer. She either has no running water at all or lives with such low water pressure that access remains uncertain. Community-based organizations across Puerto Rico, particularly in rural areas, have long organized to demand access to running water, but public officials often treat this struggle as a problem of the past. Yet the water-rationing program initiated by the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) on August 7 in response to an anticipated drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon reveals how persistent the problem remains. Although the program was recently suspended following temporary relief from cloud-seeding efforts, declining reservoir levels recorded on September 21—nearly a week after the intervention—underscore why Puerto Rico’s water crisis cannot be understood as a matter of climate alone. The water crisis predates the current drought. PRASA has long struggled with deteriorating infrastructure, compounded by two unsuccessful privatization attempts between 1995 and 2004. Many communities have responded by developing their own aqueducts, but these initiatives cannot match the scale of the structural problem on their own. Amid the drought, there are also growing concerns that El Súper Tubo, Puerto Rico’s main distribution pipeline, has reached the end of its useful life. In response, the government has called on residents and community organizations to prepare for drought conditions that could persist through the end of the year. There is broad consensus in Puerto Rico on the importance of local communities in addressing the water crisis. Yet calls for communities to take the lead raise questions that demand a more nuanced approach. How is the burden of the water crisis distributed? What do calls for autonomous community action demand of local leaders and the everyday work of their organizations? How have the austerity measures imposed amid Puerto Rico’s debt crisis affected PRASA’s capacity to respond?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/10/20/puerto-rican-communities-bear-the-brunt-of-the-water-crisis/

Socialize All Housing
In 1872, the German socialist newspaper Der Volksstaat ran a series of articles on housing. The breakneck growth of industrial cities had brought overcrowding, squalor, and soaring rents for workers. Their author, Arthur Mülberger, drawing on the ideas of the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, offered a simple solution — tenants should become owners. In the scheme, rental payments would be transformed into something like a mortgage payment. Eventually, every worker would hold the title to their own home. Friedrich Engels was unimpressed. In a series of replies later collected as The Housing Question, the cofounder of Marxism dismissed Mülberger’s plan as both impractical and political malpractice. Elsewhere in the same work, criticizing the reformer Emil Sax, he warned: “Give them their own houses, chain them once again to the soil and you break their power of resistance to the wage cutting of the factory owners.” For Engels, the answers to the housing question would only be made possible through the abolition of the capitalist mode of production. A century and a half later, the Left is still battling over housing. In a certain populist sense, Mülberger won the argument with Engels. Across the world, homeownership has become a defining ambition of working-class life, and the housing crisis is often framed as a crisis of access to it. Meanwhile, much of the debate on the Left today is framed as a fight between YIMBYs and NIMBYs. One divide is between those who seek to impede market-rate construction, arguing that it can fuel displacement and offers too little to low-income renters, and those who support construction with fewer caveats to boost supply and the bargaining power of renters along with it. We can all agree on building social housing, but so far that hasn’t materialized into a program on the scale of the crisis. However, it’s worth stepping back from these fights and asking what ultimate vision we are fighting for. In what follows, we set aside the thorny problems of transition — how we get from here to there and who will fight for it — and sketch out a maximalist vision of socialist housing. Our answer builds on Engels’s critique of Mülberger while putting aside his reluctance to offer details about the possible shape of a socialist future. We advocate the abolition of private ownership of housing and a fully socialized housing system.
https://jacobin.com/2026/10/housing-socialization-ownership-assets-engels