❧ PresidentTrump is planning to offer Saudi Arabia a $100+ billion weapons deal in an effort to push the kingdom toward normalized relations with Israel. Saudi Arabia has a horrific human rights record both at home and abroad, most notably in Yemen, where its air campaign has resulted in a devastating civilian death toll. Selling weapons to the Saudis is, critically, something Congress has the ability to review, and has attempted to stall in the past, citing the Saudis’ brutality. Trump’s cozy relationship with the murderous Saudi regime (all of which is definitely, totally above board) is nothing new, of course – he famously looked the other way and sold them weapons in 2019 after they provoked international outrage by carving up a dissident journalist with a bone saw.
But there is blame to go around here. The Biden administration paused arms sales for three years in 2021, a welcome development that led to significant progress toward a ceasefire and stopped the Saudi onslaught. But Biden ultimately unpaused the sales in summer 2024 in order to counter Yemen’s Houthis (Ansar Allah), who had begun firing rockets at commercial vessels in response to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. As far back as 2023, Biden was reportedly much more bullish on supporting the Saudis in private, even discussing with war hawk Lindsey Graham about a NATO-like security pact that would have obligated the U.S. to enter a war had either ally been attacked.
Trump surely would have restarted weapons sales regardless of what Biden did. But at the very least, it would have been a contentious partisan issue. Instead, Biden set cooperation with the murderous Saudi regime as bipartisan precedent. There will still probably be Democrats who oppose this deal should it come to pass. But it’ll be a lot harder to make the case that the Saudis should be a pariah state when the latest Democratic president also supported them.
❧ A French railway worker and union activist, Anasse Kazib, is on trial for making pro-Palestine tweets. He and another activist with his group Révolution Permanente were accused of “condoning terrorism,” for tweets he made denouncing Israel shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attack. Kazib told Jacobinthat he was taken by police for two hours and was subjected to “what was essentially a political interrogation” in which they asked him his opinions of various Palestinian political parties and resistance groups. He said he was summoned over tweets he made denouncing “colonialism” and “apartheid.” Kazib is being prosecuted under a law passed in 2014 criminalizing “apologia for terrorism.” The law was criticized as overly broad and dangerous at the time, and we are now seeing its results, as people like Kazib are being targeted for their speech. (Mondoweiss)
DISMISS THE CHARGES AGAINST ANASSE KAZIB!
This petition calls for Kazib’s acquittal at his June 18 trial. The letter has been signed by more than 1,000 activists, intellectuals, and writers — including Angela Davis, Ilan Pappe, Bhaskar Sunkara, Rashid Khalidi, and Chris Hedges. You can sign it too, and be in good company!
❧ Canada had elections last night, and the Conservative Party got soundly defeated in an election they were on track to dominate less than two months ago. The extent of the collapse really can’t be overstated. In January, the Conservatives had a 25-point lead in national polling over the Liberals, one that would evaporate in the following months after Trump took office and threatened to annex Canada, causing the country to undergo the greatest wave of anti-American nationalism since the War of 1812.
After dispatching unpopular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Libs very effectively wielded the threat of Vichy Ottawa to attack the Conservative Party leader, the Trump-aligned Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre not only failed to become prime minister, but lost his own seat in parliament!
It’s very sweet to see the far-right soundly repudiated and to be reminded that, despite their apparent global ascendance, they are still extremely stupid and bad at politics. But the bad news is that former banker Mark Carney’s anemic, visionless Liberal Party will probably take away the lesson that all they need to do to win elections is count on the right to screw up, which is not always a good bet.
This result was a shock, but we should have seen it coming as soon as the American anthem started getting booed at hockey games. (Video: Toronto Star)
❧ India and Pakistan — both nuclear-armed powers — have been trading fire for the last four days in an unsettling escalation of the conflict over Kashmir. The disputed territory is administered by India, but is majority Muslim, and has been the subject of dispute since the end of British colonialism in 1947. Tensions were reignited last week after a group of presumed rebel fighters killed 26 tourists, prompting India to unleash a harsh response, including Indian soldiers demolishing the homes of the suspected attackers and carrying out the indiscriminate arrests of more than 2,000 people — acts that have been described as “collective punishment.” This has the potential to turn ugly incredibly fast. (Al Jazeera)
❧ Following a devastating earthquake, Myanmar’s ruling junta said it would pause the brutal military campaign it has waged against rebel forces within the country. But according to a BBC war correspondent, they have repeatedly violated that agreement: “I witnessed daily violations by the junta, including rocket and mortar attacks which killed and injured civilians and resistance fighters,” said reporter Quentin Sommerville. (BBC)
Trevelyan is actually doing this for a very good reason: Curlews are an endangered species, which are about to become even more endangered due to changes in government policies that no longer require farmers to protect them. Treveleyan donned his costume and began his long march across England to raise funds for their conservation and raise awareness about them. Hard not to be aware of a ten-foot bird that just walked past!
AROUND THE STATES
❧ It didn’t seem possible, but Trump’s deportation regime has somehow reached a new low: It has deported three young children who were American citizens, along with their two mothers, to Honduras. One of the children, 4 years old, has stage 4 cancer and was left without his medication, and was not given the opportunity to consult with doctors before being deported.
According to the Trump administration, the mothers, who were undocumented, opted to take their children with them when they were deported because it was preferable to leaving them by themselves in America. Border czar Tom Homan has said that it is therefore a mischaracterization to say that his administration “deported” American citizens. He even spun it as a humanitarian effort, saying that he was “keeping families together.” But the attorneys representing the parents dispute this, saying that ICE agents gave them no time to consult with their families. They also say that the mother of the sick child was told she had to take him with her. They are arguing that neither the mothers or the children were given sufficient due process.
But even if they were given the “choice” of whether to take their kids (which is hardly a choice in any real sense), this ignores the obvious point that there was no good reason to deport these women to begin with. They had lived in America for years, and had not been accused of any crimes other than being undocumented immigrants. The Trump administration’s justification for its actions — including its explicit position that immigrants are not entitled to due process — is the need to remove violent criminals. But as we’ve seen with those who were black-bagged and shipped to Trump’s El Salvador gulag, and now these mothers and their children, the result has been needless cruelty toward entirely innocent people.
❧ Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, has been given the ability to single-handedly appoint the board of trustees that makes policy for Indiana University. The policy was slipped into Indiana’s budget at the last minute and subsequently passed into law. Now, it may allow the far-right governor to carry out an ideological purge of the university’s policymakers who were previously elected by alumni.
The governor already has the power to appoint five trustees, and as such, the board leans right and has cracked down on student protests. But Braun seems to have designs for even more complete control, akin to what Ron DeSantis did to Florida’s New College and others in his state. There, administrators were fired and replaced with lackeys who sought to rid the universities of anything even remotely “woke” — an effort that culminated in shocking scenes like thousands of library books being loaded into a big dumpster. The people of Indiana need to oppose this effort fiercely, lest its biggest educational institution meet a similar fate. (Indy Star)
If Mike Braun gets his way, this might happen in Indiana too.
❧ Americans are increasingly taking out “Buy Now, Pay Later” loans to pay for food. These loans, which allow cash-strapped shoppers to pay for purchases in multiple installments, are typically used for clothing and accessories. But as grocery stores and manufacturers continue to jack up prices and Trump’s tariffs have begun to make things even worse, 25 percent of these high-interest loans are now taken out to buy groceries, and some are even using them for DoorDash orders. In other words, Americans are struggling so much to get by that they are taking out sandwich mortgages, and many of them are struggling to pay them back in time, creating a further debt spiral. (New York Post)
2007: Subprime mortgage crisis
2025: Subprime sandwich crisis
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or,“What’s going on with our politicians and oligarchs?”)
❧ Once upon a time, people on Capitol Hill were talking about Medicare for All. But Republicans are pursuing a very different goal that is somehow looking more plausible: Salmonella for All! Trump’s Department of Agriculture is rolling back a proposed Biden-era rule that would have required poultry companies to limit the amount of salmonella bacteria in their products before they hit shelves. The administration said checking for this dangerous bacteria imposed an “overwhelming burden” on meat producers. It just so happens that one of those downtrodden meat producers—the multinational poultry company Pilgrim’s Pride—was the single largest donor to Trump’s inaugural committee. (Rolling Stone)
❧ Disgraced former congressman George Santos has been sentenced to seven years in prison after being caught engaging in some of the most flagrant two-bit con-artistry the chamber has ever seen. Santos’ real crime, however, is not that he was corrupt — but that he did his corruption badly. Instead of the usual ways congresspeople use the office to engage in self-dealing — through campaign donations,plush private sector contracts, and legalized insider trading, Santos preferred schemes of the Saul Goodman variety, stealing donors’ credit card information to fund his campaign and lavish purchases for himself. His pathological lying — including his completely fabricated backstory as a Wall Street tycoon/college volleyball star/broadway producer/animal philanthropist whose family members survived both 9/11 and the Holocaust — also did him no favors in the court of public opinion. In fact, it made him the perfect sin-eater for a Congress that gets away with far more expansive and harmful corruption on a daily basis.
❧ In the least shocking development ever, Rep. Gerry Connolly is stepping down from his role as the leading Democrat on the House Oversight Committee after it was revealed his throat cancer had returned. In December, House Democrats passed over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the role in favor of the now 75-year-old Connolly, who has routinely disappeared when he’s been needed most. To be snubbed in favor of a man who was actively dying was about as blatant a snub as the party could give AOC, who torched most of her progressive credibility in order to become Joe Biden’s strongest soldier in his doomed 2024 campaign. Maybe she’ll get the nod now that the seat is open. But don’t hold your breath, since Democrats justified Connolly’s appointment based on the ancient seniority system that they remain married to. (Conveniently, this also helps them keep younger progressives out of positions of power.) (Jezebel)
In sympathy for Mr. Connolly, we will not do a rude joke in the caption like we would for most politicians. (Image: U.S. House of Representatives)
❧ And speaking of AOC indignities, it was also revealed this week that Joe Biden was not, in fact, “working tirelessly for a ceasefire” in Gaza, as the congresswoman infamously claimed at last year’s Democratic National Convention. Everybody who was even halfway paying attention knew that to be the case at the time. But an investigation by Israel’s Channel 13 has emphatically confirmed it. Former Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog said: “God did the State of Israel a favor that Biden was the president during this period… We fought [in Gaza] for over a year and the administration never came to us and said, ‘ceasefire now.’ It never did. And that’s not to be taken for granted.” (Drop Site News)
That’s it, that’s the fact. Normally, an animal’s appearance alone is not enough to meet the very high standards for the Animal Facts section of our news briefing. But… like… look at this thing. It looks like one of the Aaahh! Real Monsters! from Nickelodeon back in the day. We wish we could tell you why it looks like this, but even scientists don’t have much of a clue. It just looks like that.
If appearance alone is not enough for you to be fascinated, the red-lipped batfish has plenty of other fascinating characteristics. For one thing, it’s not actually very good at doing traditional fish things: It can barely swim – instead, it uses its fins to sort of waddle across the ocean floor. Its bulbous nose, meanwhile, helps it attract prey. Just as angler fish use the bright light dangling off their faces to mesmerize their prey, smaller fish come up to its face (presumably to go “What the fuuuck?”) before getting eaten.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson,Lily Sánchez, and Alex Skopic. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
Current Affairs is an independent leftist media organization supported entirely by its readers and listeners. We offer a beautiful bimonthly print and digital magazine, a weekly podcast, and a regular news briefing service. We are registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with EIN 83-1675720. Your gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Donations may be made through our website, via wire transfer, or by sending us a check. Email help@currentaffairs.org with any questions.
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