Sanders to Oligarchs Opposing California Billionaire Tax: ‘You’re Treading on Very, Very Thin Ice’

from Common Dreams

US Sen. Bernie Sanders used his appearance at a rally in Los Angeles on Wednesday to call out—in some cases by name—the billionaires using tiny slices of their fortunes to fight a proposed wealth tax in California.

“What I can tell the oligarchs is that the American people are sick and tired of their greed,” Sanders (I-Vt.) told an enthusiastic audience gathered at The Wiltern theater, with members of the crowd donning “Tax the Billionaires” T-shirts. “They are sick and tired of people like Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, who is spending $20 million to defeat this tax on billionaires.”

“It’s not just Mr. Brin,” the senator continued. “Mark Zuckerberg is the wealthiest man in California and the fourth-wealthiest person in the world, worth $226 billion. And for Mr. Zuckerberg, it is apparently not good enough to own one yacht. He had to buy three yachts worth $530 million. He had to buy 11 homes in Palo Alto to make a family compound. Mr. Zuckerberg, you can afford to pay your fair share of taxes so that people have healthcare.”

The senator also condemned billionaires’ fearmongering about the supposed negative impacts of wealth taxes and threats to flee the state if the levy proposed in California is enacted.

“I would say to these oligarchs: Be careful, because you are treading on very, very thin ice,” said Sanders. “At a time when the very rich are becoming phenomenally richer, when the very rich have been given a massive tax break by Donald Trump, when millions of people in this state are struggling to be able to afford healthcare, maybe billionaires should start paying their fair share of taxes.”...

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'Colonization 2030': Israeli minister plots new Palestinian exodus

from Daily Sabah

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has vowed to displace more Palestinians from the occupied territories.

The announcement Tuesday came as part of his "Colonisation 2030" campaign and presented as encouraging "emigration," despite mounting criticism of recent measures tightening control over the occupied West Bank.

Since last week, Israel has approved a series of initiatives backed by far-right ministers to consolidate control over the West Bank, including in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords, in place since the 1990s.

"We will eliminate the idea of an Arab ... state," Smotrich said at an event organized by his Religious Zionism Party late Tuesday.

"We will finally, formally, and in practical terms nullify the cursed Oslo Accords and embark on a path toward sovereignty, while encouraging emigration from both Gaza and Judea and Samaria," he said, using the Biblical term for the West Bank.

"There is no other long-term solution," added Smotrich, who himself lives in a settlement in the West Bank.

Smotrich was speaking at a vineyard near Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, where he presented the "Colonization 2030" campaign initiative ahead of national elections scheduled for later this year...

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Iran, Russia launch joint naval drills in Sea of Oman

from al Mayadeen English

Joint naval exercises between Iran and Russia commenced Thursday in the Sea of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean, with participating warships deploying to their designated missions and coordinating operational activities at sea.

Captain Hassan Maqsoudlou, spokesperson for the joint drills, confirmed that naval vessels had embarked on their assignments a day earlier. He stated that following the deployment of units across the Sea of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean, information was exchanged between operations rooms aboard the participating warships.

Maqsoudlou noted that special operations units from the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and the naval forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), alongside their Russian counterparts, conducted a series of coordinated exercises, successfully achieving the objectives set for the maneuvers.

He added that the Iranian Navy carries out numerous routine programs in the framework of defense diplomacy, emphasizing that the current drills fall within the annual plans agreed upon between Tehran and Moscow...

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Any new US strike on Iran is ‘playing with fire’, Russia’s Lavrov warns

from PressTV

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that any new US strike on Iran is “playing with fire” and will have “serious consequences.”

Lavrov made the remark in an interview with Saudi Arabia's al-Arabiya television aired on Wednesday, a day after Iranian and American negotiators held indirect talks in the Swiss city of Geneva over Tehran's nuclear program.

"The consequences are not good. There have already been strikes on Iran on nuclear sites under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said.

“From what we can judge, there were real risks of a nuclear incident… Everyone understands this is playing with fire,” the top Russian diplomat emphasized.

Iran and the US held the second round of indirect nuclear negotiations at the Omani consulate general in Geneva on Tuesday. As in the previous round in the Omani capital of Muscat, the agenda of the talks focused primarily on the nuclear issue and the lifting of illegal US sanctions.

Following the talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the two sides agreed on a set of guiding principles to clear the path for future talks. 

Separately, a senior US official, who spoke to Reuters on Wednesday, said Iran is anticipated to present a written proposal for resolving its dispute with the United States following the Geneva talks...

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This is Gaza

This is Gaza https://nomadiceveryman.blogspot.com/2026/02/this-is-gaza-as-zionist-envisions-it.html

Gaza Today https://nomadiceveryman.blogspot.com/2026/02/gaza-today.html

the list with links https://nomadiceveryman.blogspot.com/2026/02/gaza-before-and-after-genocide.html

The Guardian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQdB9xPhBCo&t=133s

UN human Rights Council https://x.com/ricwe123/status/2023721443968585864 

Direct Support 

This is Gaza as the Zionist Envisions It

by Scott Creighton 

video from @nadaa01012

 

Remember... in order to build you must first destroy. That is what this is all about. Not about Hamas. Not about Oct. 7th. Not about existential threats. 

'From the river to the river' was the promise. That's what Daniela Weiss said in that documentary. That's what they claim the promise from god was. Everything from the river Euphrates to the river Nile belongs to the Israelis. It's right there in front of your eyes and always has been.

 

In order to achieve that they must destroy what came before them. Wipe it out. Not only ethnically cleanse the land of it's rightful owners, but erase all the evidence of it ever being inhabited. 

Only then can they begin to construct their own technocratic version of what the land of Palestine is to become.

Marco Rubio’s Munich Speech Sanewashed US-Backed Dictatorships

from Common Dreams

Much has already been written about Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s damage-control mission to the Munich Security Conference, sent to cool transatlantic tensions mere weeks after President Donald Trump hinted multiple times at annexing Greenland by force. But beneath the conciliatory tone was Rubio’s explicit defense of the fight against “godless communist revolutions” and “anti-colonial uprisings” throughout the world, a horrific sanitization of the US-backed dictatorships that terrorized Latin America and beyond in the last century.

Rubio painted a sweeping narrative of Western civilization under threat. “The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline,” he declared, “accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map.”

Section 230 Is Way More Than Just a Social Media Liability Shield

from Public Knowledge

We are nearing the 30th anniversary of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, in which lies Section 230, the infamous internet liability shield opponents believe is the major roadblock to making platforms a safer, healthier space for free expression. Responding to incessant calls to hold social media platforms accountable for harm, a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers have championed repealing or reforming Section 230. The most recent charge is driven largely by kids’ online safety debates, and is being led in the Senate by Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) with support from a bipartisan group of 8 other lawmakers. In the House, Representative Harriet Hageman (R-WY) introduced her own Section 230 sunset bill to tackle what she perceives as “liberal Silicon Valley bias” in platform content moderation. Most recently, Representative Jimmy Patronis (R-FL) introduced the Promoting Responsible Online Technology and Ensuring Consumer Trust (PROTECT) Act, legislation to repeal Section 230, coming from the angle of holding platforms accountable for harm to children. 

Armed militia members are serving as Israeli agents in Gaza: Investigation

from al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is set to release a new investigation on armed groups in Gaza accused of collaborating with the Israeli military against Palestinians, detailing their names, movements and training locations, as Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave continues unabated.

The investigation, a new episode of the programme What is Hidden is Greater, by Al Jazeera journalist Tamer Almisshal, will be broadcast at 9pm in Doha (18:00 GMT) on Friday. It includes audio and video material that the network says documents how individuals inside Gaza were recruited and operated.

The investigation reveals how the armed groups have been moving freely from northern to southern Gaza behind the so-called “yellow line” – the self-proclaimed demarcation line, effectively a buffer zone, where the Israeli army is entrenched under the first phase of the Gaza “ceasefire” that came into effect in October.

Israel has repeatedly violated the “ceasefire” on a near-daily basis, killing more than 525 Palestinians.

Israeli military maps indicate the line extends 1.5km and 6.5km (0.9 to 4 miles) inside Gaza from its eastern boundary with Israel and covers roughly 58 percent of the enclave...

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Hamas rejects Netanyahu aide’s 60-day ultimatum for group to disarm

from al Jazeera

Hamas has rejected remarks by an Israeli government official calling for the Gaza-based group to disarm in 60 days and threatening to resume Israel’s genocidal war if it fails to comply.

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi told Al Jazeera Mubasher on Monday that he had no knowledge of such a demand.

“Statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu … and through the media are merely threats with no basis in the ongoing negotiations”, Al Jazeera Arabic cited him as saying.

Mardawi’s comments come after Israeli Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, during a conference in Jerusalem on Monday, threatened to renew the genocidal war on Gaza if Hamas failed to disarm in 60 days, local media outlet the Times of Israel reported.

A top aide to Netanyahu, Fuchs claimed that the two-month period was requested by the United States administration. “We are respecting that,” he said...

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