The threat to Florida's higher education system accelerated this year with the takeover of New College of Florida in Sarasota by partisan DeSantis supporters, according to the report from an AAUP committee.
New College has become a focal point of a campaign by DeSantis, a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, to rid higher education in the state of what he calls left-leaning “woke” indoctrination on campuses.
Additionally, the appointments of GOP politicians to the boards that govern Florida's higher education system have made them compliant to the wishes of the Republican governor, the report said.
A veteran University of Florida faculty member told the AAUP committee that previous board members, regardless of party, understood their role to be ensuring that the universities they led were thriving. But the current group “are concerned principally with their relationships with the governor,” the report said.
This developing case was used as the springboard for an op-ed published on Sunday by the Orlando Sentinel. The piece titled, "Florida's high court should reinstate Monique Worrell, because truth and justice matter," cited investigations from the newspaper's staff finding that DeSantis' grounds for suspending Worrell were dubious, and accused him of making the move for political gain, so as to be able to boast about the suspension before prospective GOP voters on the 2024 presidential campaign trail.
"The high court has also seen ample evidence that the governor's strike against Worrell (and other elected officials, including former State Attorney Andrew Warren in Hillsborough County) was meant to further his own ambitions," the piece from the paper's editorial board reads. "DeSantis took every opportunity to brandish the heads of 'two Democrat prosecutors' on campaign stops and debate stages, to roars of approval from primary voters who saw him as a slightly less scandalous alternative to Donald Trump. Imagine that level of pettiness, backed by the breathtaking power of the Oval Office."
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
According to court documents, police were able to link Santiago to this murder when they accessed his cell phone following his arrest for the murder and mutilation of 30-year-old Bernardo Pantaleon.
Under questioning from police — and after being read his Miranda rights — Santiago claimed that he killed Pantaleon after “an unwanted advance made him uncomfortable.”
However, the investigation into [Osvaldo Hernandez] Castillo’s death uncovered information leading prosecutors to believe that Santiago lured Castillo through the popular Snapchat app by arranging a sexual encounter with his victim.
Arizona police have arrested four men in connection with the death of a gay man, whose mutilated body was found near a Phoenix park, and of sending his family photos of the body.
Christopher Ibarra, 21, was the latest to be arrested on Wednesday in the death of 30-year-old Bernardo Pantaleon, KPHO-TV in Phoenix reported. Jose Rodriguez, 20, Leonardo Santiago, 21, and Manuel Carrasco-Calderon, 21, were arrested last Friday.
Though prosecutors say Santiago was the one who killed Pantaleon, all four men are facing murder charges, the KPHO reported.
A profile visible in one of the photos lead the police to Santiago, and later to the group chat where Santiago, Calderon and Rodriguez orchestrated Pantaleon's death. The chat contained messages that made derogatory remarks about Pantaleon's sexuality and that gay people were "not being allowed in the north side."
On Monday evening at the QuikTrip at Cactus and Cave Creek roads, Phoenix police arrested 21-year-old, Christopher Ibarra on one count of first-degree murder and a gang-related charge. Court documents revealed he knew about the social media group chat that planned the killing of Pantaleon.
UN Security Council envoys have arrived in Egypt to inspect the Rafah border crossing with Gaza amid the worsening crisis in the besieged enclave.
The daylong visit, organised by the UAE and Egypt, involves about a dozen ambassadors, including those from Russia and the UK. The US and France did not send any representatives.
“There is no justification for turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering inflicted on the Palestinian people in Gaza,” an Egyptian Foreign Ministry official told the envoys during a briefing following their arrival.
UAE’s ambassador to the UN, Lana Nusseibeh, asserted the countries participating were doing so in their “national and personal capacities” and the trip was aimed to “help understand not only the suffering and destruction experienced by the people of Gaza, but also their hope and their strength”.
The U.S. is facing criticism from the Palestinian Authority that governs the West Bank, and other global leaders and organizations, after it vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
The security council held an emergency meeting on Friday after U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres invoked Article 99, a rare move to force a vote on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, where two million people are displaced. The Hamas-run health ministry says 17,000 people have been killed under an Israeli campaign to eliminate the militant group after its Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and took an estimated 240 hostage. More than 100 remain in captivity.
The U.S. vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire put forward by the United Arab Emirates and backed by more than 90 Member States at a meeting in New York City. Compared to 13 council members’ votes in favor, the U.S. was the sole veto. The U.K. abstained.
Yes, the White House is facing criticism. Even from Recep.
That's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, and he's calling out the US. Recep who does the same to the Kurds in Turkey that is being done to the Palestinians is calling out the US. Because anyone can now. The US government is in the wrong -- completely -- and now even Recep can call the US government out. And he can do it on strong ground. There's no weak foundation that's about to crumble under him as he makes this call.
The vote on Friday resulted from Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, triggered the vote. As noted in the December 7th snapshot:
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used a rarely exercised power to warn the Security Council on Wednesday of an impending “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and urged its members to demand an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.
His letter to the council’s 15 members said Gaza’s humanitarian system was at risk of collapse after two months of war that has created “appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma,” and he demanded civilians be spared greater harm.
It’s a special power, and the only independent political tool given to the secretary-general in the UN Charter. It allows him to call a meeting of the Security Council on his own initiative to issue warnings about new threats to international peace and security and matters that are not yet on the council’s agenda.
In Article 99, the charter states, “the Secretary General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.
Now Guterres will have the right to speak at the Security Council, without having to be invited to speak by a member state, as is usually the case.
At the UN, the Americans duly vetoed this resolution calling for a ceasefire. For those concerned about the significant loss of life, that does sound a bit hollow - the Americans claim the Israelis are saying they will stick to the rules of war and avoid unnecessary civilian deaths. But, they say, there is a gap between what Israel says and what it does.
I think the strategy behind the secretary general's decision to bring a vote - which he knew would probably get vetoed - was to hurry up the inevitable moment when the Americans will say to Israel: "Enough is enough, you've had enough time and killed enough people and it's time for a ceasefire."
Some diplomats I have spoken to have said they might give the Israelis another month - I think Mr Guterres's strategy is to try and shorten that, partly by increasing international pressure and also partly by shaming the Americans into thinking that they cannot continue to hold this position as it becomes less and less tenable.
That pressure has also increased today with the publication of footage of prisoners in Gaza, held by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), stripped to their underwear and being driven away in trucks. It's a cruel image of war seeing these men, which local reports on social media suggest could be as many as 700.
Those same sources, including family of some of the men, say that they were taken from a UN school where they were sheltering, and where others tried to get away and were killed.
Lee Ying Shan (CNBC) notes this morning:
Palestinian officials expressed resounding disappointment after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.
“It was the U.S. who failed the Palestinians,” Palestinian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Husam Zomlot told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on the sidelines of the Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday. “The U.S. has stood between humanity and peace and security.” The White House did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
The U.S. on Friday vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution that was backed by thirteen Security Council members, while the United Kingdom abstained.
At ZNET, Ralph Nader observes:
The humiliation of the U.S. government, which is actively complicit in providing the weaponry, funding, and UN vetoes backing the Israeli government’s attack on the civilian Palestinians/Arabs in tiny Gaza, is in plain view daily. All in the name of the unasked American people and taxpayers.
Earlier this week, at a House of Representatives’ hearing, Trump toady Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) repeatedly assailed three University presidents with the question of would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews, without any evidence that this hateful speech is prevalent on campus.
Pursuing her fulminations, Stefanik was cruelly oblivious to the real ongoing genocide in Gaza with her support of unconditional shipment of American F-16s, 155mm. missiles and other weapons of mass destruction used to kill children, women and the elderly who had nothing to do with the preventable October 7th Hamas violence.
Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman continues to say that the Israeli government does not intentionally target civilians. With U.S. drones over Gaza daily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visual proof that the overwhelming bombing on civilian structures is killing innocent civilians.
The evidence is in the rubble of hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, schools, libraries, places of worship, marketplaces, water mains, homes, apartment buildings, and piles of unburied corpses being eaten by stray dogs. All this information is in the possession of bomber Biden’s regime.
The Bidenites and their bloodthirsty cohorts in Congress were forewarned when the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and other Israeli officials on October 8th shouted these chilling genocidal orders to their army: “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.… We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly.” (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Add an already illegal 16-year Israeli blockade of 2.3 Palestinians suffering from dire poverty, with 40% of their children down with anemia.
Now, about half of Gaza’s population are children, 85% of the entire population is homeless, wandering helplessly into nowhere, afflicted with pending starvation, sickened by spreading infectious diseases and dirty drinking water. There is little or no medicines for diabetics and cancer patients. No surgery, no anesthesia, no emergency transport, no shelter from cold weather, only American-made bombs and missiles blowing up Palestinians into bits with Israeli snipers everywhere.
Friday, on DEMOCRACY NOW!, Amy Goodman noted, "Video has emerged showing Israeli soldiers in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza detaining over 100 Palestinian men at gunpoint, forcing them to strip to their underwear while lined up, kneeling on the pavement. Among those detained was Diaa Al-Kahlout, a Palestinian journalist with the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. In a statement, the newspaper condemned the mistreatment of Al-Kahlout and other civilians, saying Israeli forces 'deliberately subjected the Gazans to degrading treatment, forcing them to disrobe, conducting intrusive searches, and subjecting them to humiliation upon arrest, before forcibly transporting them to undisclosed locations'." Today, AP reports that they spoke with several of the detainees, "One of those freed, Osama Oula said troops ordered all men to come down to the street in their underwear. He said the men were were taken to a yard, handcuffed and dropped off at a warehouse. During days of questioning, the men were beaten and forced to walk or sleep on raw rice, causing great pain, he said."
I didn't watch the garbage that was HOMELAND and the reason why is I avoid it and all 'adventure' product based on Israeli entertainment is due to the fact that the Israeli government practices and promotes torture. I'm sure the Israeli government will deny that torture took place but their long history of practicing it makes any such claim hard to believe. As AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL noted last month:
Israeli authorities have dramatically increased their use of administrative detention, a form of arbitrary detention, of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank; extended emergency measures that facilitate inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners; and failed to investigate incidents of torture and death in custody over the past four weeks, Amnesty International said today.
Since 7 October, Israeli forces have detained more than 2,200 Palestinian men and women, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club. According to Israeli human rights organization HaMoked between 1 October and 1 November, the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, rose from 1,319 to 2,070.
Testimony from released detainees and human rights lawyers, as well as video footage and images illustrate some of the forms of torture and other ill-treatment prisoners have been subjected to by Israeli forces over the past four weeks. These include severe beatings and humiliation of detainees, including by forcing them to keep their heads down, to kneel on the floor during inmate count, and to sing Israeli songs.
“Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention – detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely – which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October. Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians. Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
[. . .]
Amnesty International has for decades documented widespread torture by Israeli authorities in places of detention across the West Bank. However, over the past four weeks, videos and images have been shared widely online showing gruesome scenes of Israeli soldiers beating and humiliating Palestinians while detaining them blind-folded, stripped, with their hands tied, in a particularly chilling public display of torture and humiliation of Palestinian detainees.
War Crimes are taking place. It's a moment that test humanity. Jeffrey St Clair (COUNTERPUNCH) offers:
+ Americans are experiencing a rare chance to relive in real-time echoes of the darkest episodes of our own history–from the howitzering of the exhausted Nez Perce in the Bear Paws to the slaughter of nearly frozen Lakota women and children at Wounded Knee; from the internment of Japanese-Americans to the grotesqueries of Abu Ghraib–and seem to have decided it was all for the greater good.
+ Gaza 2023, not Iraq 2004…
+ The Financial Times reported this week that the retaliatory bombing of Gaza with American weapons and American consent may have already surpassed the death toll from the retaliatory bombing of Dresden by US and UK bombers during the waning days of WW II.
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