Israeli politician Ofair Kasif has publicly condemned the situation in Gaza as an “absolute apocalypse, a holocaust.” Kasif’s brave statement, the starvation of Palestinians, and the ongoing destruction in Gaza is why this lone voice from within the Israeli establishment is so vital, and how his blunt assessment of “no war, only a holocaust” challenges conventional narratives.
Chef Jose Andres with World Central Kitchen visits a temporary shelter for the victims of the Southern California wildfires at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Celebrity chef and local D.C. icon Jose Andres is pushing back against Trump’s claim that his federal takeover and law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital has resulted in a “boom town” for the city’s restaurants.
Trump on Monday rejected reports that the flood of federal agents and National Guard troops had hurt D.C. restaurant and nightlife industry.
“Half the restaurants closed, because nobody could go, because they were afraid to go outside,” Trump said. “Now those restaurants are opening and new restaurants are opening up. It’s like a boomtown.”
Andres, in a Tuesday post on X, directly and sarcastically addressed Trump, saying: “I understand why you are confused…all your time in DC you haven’t eaten ONCE outside the White House or your own hotel. I’ve lived here for 33 years, and it’s a flat out lie that half the restaurants have closed because of safety…but restaurants will close because you have troops with guns and federal agents harassing people…making people afraid to go out.”
The Spanish-American restaurateur and founder of the global food charity World Central Kitchen and Trump have exchanged public hostilities in the past.
For me this was the hardest to watch. I have had to go without food while others ate. I was hospitalized and suffered clinical death due to malnutrition. At the table if I was allowed the meals could turn quickly for me from possible danger to happening harm. I spent a lot of time diving under the table to doge something thrown at me or in dodging the blows aimed at me. Being kicked under the table was common and if I yelped or complained I was the one punished. I learned to eat without looking at my food always looking around out the sides of my eyes because to look scared brought more violence. I was told I ruined their meals. I often could only choke a few bites out of fear and anxiety. I basically ate one meal a day which was at school and mostly was two hot dogs and a serving of french fries, and when school was out I would take a sandwich and stay away from the house. The only place I could eat freely and in peace was my grandparent’s home I went to on the weekends. What these people are going through is a war crime and a crime against humanity that the government of Israel and the military people must answer for. Never again applies to more than Jewish people. Hugs
August 24, 1968 France became the world’s fifth thermonuclear power when it exploded a hydrogen bomb at the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific. It had a yield of 2.6 megatons (the equivalent of more than two-and-a-half million tons of TNT) and heavily contaminated the atoll, leaving it off-limits to humans for six years. Fangataufa test Atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing continued there for nearly thirty more years.
August 24, 1970 United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) leaders Cesar Chavezand Dolores Huertacalled for a consumer boycott of lettuce to support the strike against lettuce growers who would not negotiate contracts with the farm workers for decent wages and working conditions. United Farm Workers show their support for the lettuce strike and boycott at a rally in Salinas, California. U.F.W. history Farm Labor leader Cesar Chavez, pictured at a rally in Salinas, California The United Farm Workers today Farmworker Movement Documentation Project Susan Due Pearcy Boycott Posters and buttons
Ok yesterday afternoon I was so tired but after washing dishes Ron asked me to make supper. He had taken a pound of hamburger out and asked me to make a beef goulash. I said OK but realized I was going to have to wing it. I did misspeak a few times and I need to remember when doing a video with a TV or other sound on to stop them or turn them down. But it does show how bad my intrusive thought problem is that I need constant input from something to keep my mind occupied to keep the thoughts at bay. I hope you enjoy the video and my recipe as such as it is. Hugs
More racism. Plus what does this say about how the Republican Party which is the party that touts themselves as pro business yet in the name of racism they feel free to trash people’s places of business. Notice everyone they detained was working. Working. These are not criminals they are productive members of their community. Their real crime in the current US under Stephen Miller is not being white. Yes undocumented but how soon will it be before they come for US citizen brown people in their quest for a white ethnostate. We must stop them now. Hugs
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In a social media post, the business said immigration agents left behind a burned kitchen, torn ceiling tiles, broken doors and trashed food.
A local Mexican restaurant chain in Pennsylvania is trying to forge ahead a week after a worksite immigration raid left property damage at two of its storefronts and a workforce afraid to show up to their jobs, according to two employees and a witness who spoke with NBC News.
It all started Aug. 7 when immigration authorities showed up at two Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar locations in the Pittsburgh area. As many as 16 workers were detained — nine worked at a location in Gibsonia, a suburb north of Pittsburgh, and seven others worked at another location in the nearby township of Cranberry.
In a social media post that same afternoon, which included a video taken by a worker, the business accused agents of storming into its restaurants and leaving “a trail of fear, confusion, and destruction” that included a burned kitchen, torn ceiling tiles, broken doors, a safe cut open by an agent and trashed food. The incident raises questions over the tactics used by authorities at this particular raid.
Immigration authorities conducted a workplace raid on two Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar locations on Aug. 7. Courtesy Jaime Martinez
This week, gas plumbers fixed a stove that was damaged during the raid, according to two people working at the restaurant chain. Staffing was also thin at the locations targeted by immigration authorities as employees who witnessed the raid, including those who are U.S. citizens, remain “in shock,” they added. “No one wants to go back, everyone is scared.”
Both workers who spoke with NBC News requested to not be named to protect their family’s privacy because of an ongoing federal investigation in connection with last week’s events.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania declined to clarify what the investigation it is leading is about.
As the immigration arrests were happening last week, someone alerted an emergency response immigration hotline run by Casa San Jose, a local nonprofit that advocates for Latino and immigrant communities.
The organization quickly dispatched about 20 volunteers to both locations to act as legal observers, collect testimonies and provide support to the workers and families affected, according to Jaime Martinez, a community defense organizer at Casa San Jose.
At the Gibsonia location, “the raid actually caused a kitchen fire that agents were unable to extinguish at the beginning, which put people in danger,” Martinez told NBC News on Tuesday.
Employees who spoke to Martinez and his volunteers said the stove was on when agents entered the kitchen because workers were cooking food as they prepared to open the restaurant Thursday morning. The restaurant’s manager warned agents that the open burners were on, but witnesses alleged that agents didn’t do anything until a fire sparked, he said.
The detained employees, who had their arms and ankles shackled, were the ones who directed the agents to find the fire extinguisher and instructed them on how to use it after initially failing to operate it, according to employees who spoke to Martinez and his volunteers.
“By the time the fire department got there, the fire had already been put out with a dry chemical extinguisher, but only after this delay,” Martinez said.
As many as 16 workers were detained at two locations in the Pittsburgh region.Courtesy Jaime Martinez
A spokesperson with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told NBC News in an email Thursday that the “damage to the restaurant, including the small fire, was created by the illegal aliens themselves while they were trying to escape or hide from law enforcement officers.”
According to ICE, the agents showed up at the locations in Gibsonia and Cranberry to execute federal search warrants based on information it got alleging that the restaurants were employing undocumented workers, WPXI, NBC’s affiliate in Pittsburgh, reported. The agency added that the 16 people detained lack legal status and are now in ICE custody, undergoing immigration proceedings.
“But in the process of coming in with that warrant, they also terrorized the community, pointed guns at people and destroyed a local business,” Martinez said.
In response to this, the ICE spokesperson told NBC News, “All agents and officers followed established legal procedures while executing the warrants.”
At the Cranberry location, Casa San Jose volunteers interviewed a worker who described seeing officers come into the restaurant, shouting “police” and pointing their long guns at the employees. One female employee who was in the kitchen said an agent “pointed the gun at her head” while telling her to stop cooking, according to Martinez.
While she was not detained after showing proper documentation, “this lady is now going to have to live with the trauma of having law enforcement point a gun at her head while she was at work,” Martinez said.
Martinez and one of the workers who spoke with NBC News said agents lined up all of the cuffed employees and made them kneel while pointing their weapons at them.
“Agents and officers operated within established law enforcement standards in order to ensure the safety of law enforcement officers, the public and the illegal aliens themselves,” the ICE spokesperson said in response to this allegation.
An ICE spokesperson said agents were also present in June as part of the same investigation.Courtesy Jaime Martinez
Last week was not the first time immigration authorities attempted to detain employees from Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant & Bar.The ICE spokesperson confirmed to NBC News that a June incident was part of “an investigation that ultimately led to the execution of the warrants” this month.
Martinez said that on a night in June, he got a call on the hotline, reporting unmarked vehicles surrounding a nearby apartment complex. When the volunteer who was dispatched arrived at the area, she noticed the vehicles were parked with their engines still running, in front and behind the restaurant.
According to Martinez, it looked like federal agents inside the vehicles were waiting for workers to come out of the restaurant as it was closing. The vehicles left once TV crews arrived on the scene, he said.
“There were nine people in that restaurant on lockdown,” Martinez said, adding his group doesn’t know the immigration status of those workers since it doesn’t ask people about that as part of its policy. “But you don’t have to be undocumented to be afraid of getting detained.”
Since launching the hotline in March, Casa San Jose has received more than 650 calls reporting more than 100 immigration detentions in the area and has dispatched volunteers in at least 70 instances, according to Martinez.
In the wake of the raids at Emiliano’s Mexican Restaurant and Bar locations, the community came together and collectively donated more than $133,000. The workers who spoke with NBC News said the business plans to use the funds to cover bond expenses, one month worth of salary for each employee detained and repair damage done to the restaurant.
In its largest employee perk rollout in years, Walmart is extending its 10% grocery discount to cover nearly all food categories for its 1.6 million U.S. workers—marking a significant boost to benefits at the nation’s largest private employer. Announced in a LinkedIn video by Kieran Shanahan, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Walmart U.S., the change is effective immediately and applies both in-store and online, signaling Walmart’s bid to support its workforce amid rising food prices and retention challenges.
In a separate LinkedIn post, JD Mahaffey, group director and global head of executive total rewards, expanded on the new benefit: Previously, Walmart’s 10% discount for employees was limited to fresh produce and select general merchandise, and most grocery items were excluded except during the November to December holiday season. With the new policy, nearly every food category is covered year-round, including staples such as dairy, frozen foods, dry groceries, meat, and seafood. In total, approximately 95% of regularly priced items in-store are now eligible for the discount.
All employees and eligible corporate staff receive a discount card after 90 days of employment. The move was prompted by persistent worker feedback that called for more comprehensive and accessible perks, particularly as food inflation has squeezed household budgets. “We’ve heard your feedback that these savings make a real difference for you and your families,” chief people officer Donna Morris wrote in a staff memo shared with Fortune. In fact, she described it as “one of our most requested benefits.”
Why is Walmart doing this now?
The expansion comes as economic pressures weigh on households nationwide. Recent government data shows food prices for staples such as eggs and meat have jumped sharply year over year. The move also coincides with heightened concerns over new tariffs that threaten to further raise prices across major retailers, Walmart included. More than half of grocery shoppers surveyed in August cited tariffs as their top worry about food costs.
By ramping up employee benefits, Walmart is responding to both external market forces and internal demand. It’s a strategic step designed to bolster recruitment and retention at a time when competition for retail talent is fierce. Analysts note the company’s efforts to improve its work culture, including earlier expansions of training programs, wage hikes for hourly staff, and the introduction of bonus programs for frontline workers.
COO Shanahan explained in the company video: “We know the impact this discount has for so many associates and their families, and one consistent piece of feedback we hear is to look at how we can make our associate discount program even better.”
How does Walmart compare with other retailers?
With the new perk, Walmart’s benefits now align more closely with those of leading competitors. Target offers a similar 10% discount on most merchandise plus 20% off select food items, while Kroger gives staff 10% off house-brand products and other categories. Hy-Vee (a Midwest grocer) and Trader Joe’s have even more generous policies, with discounts of up to 20% for employees.
The timing of the announcement is crucial, coming just days before Walmart’s quarterly earnings release and as the company grapples with both supply-chain challenges and inflation pressures. As economic uncertainty continues to roil the retail sector, Walmart’s expanded grocery discount stands out as both a smart business maneuver and a measure aimed at fostering goodwill among its massive employee base.
In May, Walmart issued a warning along with its earnings report that it may have to raise prices because of the anticipated impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. “We’re wired to keep prices low, but there’s a limit to what we can bear, or any retailer for that matter,” chief financial officer John David Rainey told the AP at the time.
Trump responded by ordering Walmart to “EAT THE TARIFFS.” This move by Walmart appears to confirm that Walmart can’t eat all of them, and it will at least be helping its employees take home something to eat for the pre-tariff prices they used to see.
Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. (snip)
The Trump regime sent a letter to the Smithsonian Institution on Tuesday, requesting/demanding a “comprehensive internal review” of eight of its museums to bring the organization in line with Trump’s cultural directives ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations
The letter reads, This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.
The museums are the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
What will these reviews determine? That the African American History Museum is too Black? This is more fascism.
The letter also stated, “Within 120 days, museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials.”
The beatings will continue until morale improves. (snip-you bet there’s MORE)
The news media keep referring to Trump’s law & order agenda, which sets off my irony antenna. How about also mentioning in this coverage that Trump is a convicted felon and seditious ex-president who violated his sacred oath of office?
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Deep State Sandwich by Clay Jones
And this is why we can’t have $5-dollar foot longs anymore. Read on Substack
One of the editors who receives my cartoons wrote me today saying that he didn’t understand this cartoon, and would wait for the blog to explain it. Then he followed that with, “Hey, did you hear about the WNBA dildo throwers? Dude…
Anyhoos… Cops in Washington, DC have arrested a man who viciously attacked Border Patrol…with a Subway footlong sandwich. Maybe, if he had just thrown a 6-incher, there wouldn’t have been any ruckus over it, and Pam Bondi would have only charged him with a misdemeanor or would have been given a simple citation.
Baghdad wasn’t filled with violent insurgents until the US military invaded in 2003. It wasn’t long after the occupation of Iraq began that the terrorists showed up to kill Yankee devils, and I’m not talking about the Red Sox. Now, people who wanted to kill Americans didn’t have to travel so far.
W and Cheney promised a quick war, and they were right in that Saddam’s military was defeated in short order, but they ignored us when we told them the real fight would come after. Remember when they claimed we would be “greeted as liberators?” Yeah.
And you can say that cops weren’t being assaulted with sandwiches before Trump ordered the federalization of Washington, DC. Federalizing DC has not been greeted with warmth. It’s been greeted with derision and Subway sandwiches. I hope it wasn’t an Italian BMT. Those are my favorites. Remember the crab salad sub? What happened to those?
On Wednesday night, around 11 p.m., a man approached several Border Patrol officers in Washington, DC, in front of a Subway sandwich shop. Sean Charles Dun, the sandwich guy, reportedly called the heavily armed officers “fucking fascists,” yelling, “I don’t want you in my city!” before hurling a wrapped Subway sandwich at the chest of a Border Patrol cop, which bounced off his riot gear harmlessly. Kash Patel, a joke of an FBI director (this doesn’t help), shared a video of the incident. Dunn was later caught, “I did it. I threw a sandwich.”
The video is hilarious as you watch several cops chase a sandwich-throwing man in a pink shirt down the street. I get the whole chasing thing when they had a free sandwich. Maybe it was chicken teriyaki. You bastard!
Attorney General (ha!), Pam Bondi said, “This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ.” That’s not a joke. She literally tweeted that. J6 was a little harmless protest, and the real danger is these deep-state sandwich fuckers. First, they sex traffic babies out of the basement of a DC pizza parlor, and now they’re throwing sandwiches at federal law enforcement. (snip-but wait, there’s MORE!)
This is an interview with two doctors who served in Gaza. They tell of Israeli soldiers taking the baby formula the doctors tried to take in. They talk of the starving babies they can’t feed because Israel refuses any baby formula into Gaza. They talk of the systemic targeting of women and children by drone copters. The male doctor describes a game the IDF plays with using teenaged boys 11 to 16 for target practice. One day they would target heads, the next day they targeted chest, then abdomens, then arms, then legs. The most horrifying was the days the hospital was brought teenagers again 11 to 16 who had been shot in the testicles. Yes Israeli soldiers felt it was a great idea to shoot boys in the balls and dicks to make sure they couldn’t create any more Palestinians. I have no use for the government of Israel nor any use for the people of the country who support this. The public knows what is happening, the military knows what they are doing. This is a genocide of the Palestinians so that Jewish people can have the land. Jewish people of all people should understand this is wrong. Never again did not mean just never again to the Jews, it means never again for any genocide. Yes the US government is complicit in this act and should be held to account, but while we did not do enough at least democrats were willing to try to stop it, tRump and the republicans endorse it. There are chapter markings on the progress bar to help you get to the most damning parts of the interviews. Israel is not letting new doctors go in to help. They are killing the doctors and aid workers. Hugs
By Nick Lichtenberg Fortune Intelligence Editor
Scottie's Playtime 