Global
The killing in Minneapolis of Renee Good, by an agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) marks an inflection point in American history, not unlike the famous “shot heard ‘round the world,” that sparked a revolution in the American colonies.
As a member of Congress, I voted against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. I understood then, as I understand now, that the expansion of federal police power inevitably endangers freedom. That danger is no longer theoretical. Federal police power has entered our communities and is a menace. This is no longer a debate about immigration policy. We are in a Constitutional crisis.
In a democratic society there are safeguards to prevent the abuse of power. This Administration has stripped those safeguards. None of us are safe when government agents, gestapo-like, bring terror to our streets, arbitrarily detaining people based on skin color, ethnicity, or accent, denying due process, and acting as police, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.
Lolwah Al-Khater is a prominent Qatari diplomat and the current Minister of Education who is known for her significant contributions to Qatar's foreign relations and education sector. Al- Khater is a Phd candidate at the University of Oxford in the area of Oriental Studies. Al-Khater is a female rising star in the Arab world. The name Lolwah translates to "pearl" in Arabic.
The Arab world is witnessing a new wave of young women rising to prominence and shaping the future with their bold vision, creativity, and influence. Lolowah Al-Khater the Qatari diplomat is one among those women.
This woman speaks the truth, a quality that is rare among kings and presidents in the Arab and Muslim world and only those whom God has blessed can utter it. She is truly an honor to all Muslim women. Al-Khater supported the Palestinian cause through the media and showed the world that the Palestinian issue is the most important issue in the world. May God reward her immensely.
According to footage from CNBC, it is no longer just a proposition out of the mouth of JD Vance. ICE agents are going door to door, kicking in doors, and breaking into peoples homes in Minneapolis. This is a direct violation of the U.S. constitution and something needs to happen about this NOW. If you are seeing this, call ALL of your congressperson now even if you don’t think it’ll do anything. And if you are nearby, help the community who is standing up against this BLATANT fascism.
See video on her substack page: https://substack.com/@dissentinbloom/note/c-198551422
I have spent most of my adult life working at the intersection of food, health, and public policy. I did not come to this work through ideology. I came to it through lived experience, long before I ever held a policy title.
My mother reversed severe, debilitating Crohn’s disease decades ago after being advised to undergo radical intestinal surgery. Doctors told her there were no other options. She refused to accept that verdict and changed what she ate. Through a whole food, plant-based approach, she regained her health. That decision reshaped our family’s relationship to food and planted the seed for my life’s work.
My mother’s healing journey is also rooted in land and farming history. Her family were pasture raised cattle farmers. They raised animals on grass, with care for land, animals, and food quality long before industrial confinement systems existed. I grew up understanding that animals, soil, and human health are inseparable, and that how food is produced matters as much as what is eaten.
It is interesting to observe how United States foreign policy, such as it is, often appears to have an Israeli back story that explains at least in part how Donald Trump’s mindless aggression against much of the world is driven by Zionist imperatives rather than actual American interests. Ukraine is supported by Israel and the US Israel Lobby in part because the roots of many diaspora and Israeli Jews are “Kazarian,” i.e. they derive from that part of Eastern Europe. Plus, Ukraine’s acting head of state Volodymyr Zelensky is a Jew whose mother and father reportedly live in Israel in a posh residence paid for by the money stolen by their son from US and European donations to Kiev to fight Russia. Also, the Jewish antipathy towards Moscow in large part derives from the belief that Imperial Russia was the source of many pogroms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That narrative fails, however, to mention how Russian Jews turned Bolshevik and, becoming enforcers of the Communist Revolution, subsequently got their revenge a hundred-fold on Russian and other Eastern European Christians.
Trump has a serious problem. He wants to be the `stupor mundi’ i.e. the master of the world, but he is running out of things to conquer.
Alexander the Great ran into a similar problem when his vanguard reached today’s Afghanistan: ‘oh Zeus! Not another damned desert. Will they never end?’
Trump has won the US presidency twice despite scandals and impeachment. Now, he speaks of an illegal third ‘term’ to be engineered by his battalions of lawyers and louche political advisors. He just overthrew Venezuela’s Maduro regime, long a target of US machinations. In doing so, Trump pulled off a highly competent coup and military operation that surgically decapitated the Maduro regime.
The much reviled and derided Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, formerly of Fox TV, deserves kudos for this complex military-political operation. Ditto CIA which prepared the groundwork for this successful operation. The late President Jimmy Carter had no such good luck when trying to free American hostages held in Iran after its revolution.
Look at the life of Renee Nicole Good. She was a mother who loved her children. She was a daughter who was cherished. She was a wife, a dog mom, and a vibrant soul who for 37 years occupied a space in this world that can never be filled again.
Twelve hours ago, Renee woke up in her home. Tonight, her wife goes to bed alone. Her child will never see her again. Not because of a “tragedy,” but because of an execution. This week the Trump administration sent 2,000 ICE agents to Minnesota. And because of that?