Commentary Culture Investigations

The Associated Press says “Public executions are not uncommon in Iran.” The watchdog group Iran Human Rights counted 459 such executions between 2008 and 2025, frequently featuring large audiences, including children. United Against Nuclear Iran reports that Iran “regularly carries out executions in public. In many of these cases, the victim is publicly hanged from a construction crane, an especially slow and painful execution method.” And that doesn’t even mention the extrajudicial killings of pro-democracy protesters. President Trump has said between 30,000 and 52,000 of them were murdered this year by the Iranian regime, many shot in the forehead.
So how did the New York Times spin its own news article on two recent executions? With the absurd, false claim that “Iran has long been one of the world’s most frequent users of capital punishment, but public executions are extremely rare.”
The New York Times describes public executions in Iran as “extremely rare.”
The article appeared under a joint byline. Leily Nikounazar is, according to her LinkedIn profile, a 2010 graduate of “Tehran’s Faculty of News.” Sanjana Varghese’s New York Times bio says she has freelanced for Al Jazeera, the Qatar-owned outlet that has harbored Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. Her main job before the New York Times was at Airwars, which is funded by anti-Israel nonprofits including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Neither Nikounazar nor Varghese, who lives in London but “grew up between Canada and Bahrain,” immediately returned my queries about whether they planned a correction.
Adverbs are frequently trouble in news articles. The Times might have gotten away with calling public executions unusual or rare. But “extremely rare” pushes the envelope in a way that makes the Times’ extremely slanted coverage extremely obvious.
Maybe the Times Iran team is attempting to ingratiate itself in hopes of obtaining permission to make a minder-accompanied trip to the Islamic Republic to cover the eventual funeral of Mojtaba Khamenei, the same way it covered the funeral this month of Ali Khamenei with two Times video journalists, a photographer, and a correspondent. (“We had two handlers with us throughout the trip … he would tell us we could not photograph certain places or say we couldn’t go to certain places without explaining why. … Iran contains multitudes. … I came away wishing we had more time and opportunity to document that complexity,” Times Middle East correspondent Abdi Latif Dahir said earlier this month.)
In the past, the New York Times has been more accurate about the issue. The Times itself reported in 2012: “Executions are very public events in Iran, with authorities setting up building cranes at the scene of the crime or on the central square of the city where the crime took place. … The convicted criminal is often brought in around dusk, arriving at the square where a crane or scaffolding with ropes and nooses await him. Families, both of the victim and the convicted cheer and wail, often there are last minute pleas for a pardon. An Islamic judge, always present at the scene, will also officially ask the family of the victim for forgiveness. Usually crowds try to influence such decisions by calling for forgiveness or for the execution to take place.”
In 2012, the Times went so far as to publish a slideshow of the pictures of the hangings, preceded by a disclaimer or trigger warning: “Please note that this slideshow includes some graphic images.”
There was a pause in public executions during the COVID pandemic, but that had more to do with an attempt to avoid mass gatherings than with any liberalization of Iranian practices. An Iranian judge in 2008 banned public executions and restricted news coverage, but the “ban,” like the so-called fatwa against nuclear weapons, was more public relations than reality, and it came with enough exceptions to drive a portable gallows through.
The annual report by Iran Human Rights on the death penalty in Iran notes that “the number of public executions increased dramatically after 2010, reaching an annual average of 50 to 60 between 2011-2015.”
In 2025, the report says, “11 executions were carried out in public spaces, where children were amongst the spectators, a practice intended to spread fear and reinforce the state’s policy of intimidation.”
A graphic from Iran Human Rights 2025 report on the death penalty in Iran. It doesn’t include extrajudicial killings by the government.
According to the report, among the crimes punishable by the death penalty under Iran’s Islamic law are incest, rape, adultery, consensual gay sex, apostasy, insulting the prophet, and tafkhiz, or intercrural sex where the “active party” is non-Muslim and the “passive party” is Muslim. Approved execution methods include “hanging, firing squads, crucifixion and stoning.”
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CNN This Morning 7-29-26

Somewhere, James Carville is smiling.The Ragin’ Cajun would surely approve of Dem strategist Antjuan Seawright’s attempt on today’s CNN This Morning to distract from the Fauci scandal and the Senate committee hearing regarding it that Rand Paul is heading today.Seawright twice claimed that people should forget about Fauci and focus instead on . . . screwworms. Screwworms: scarier than squirrels!Substitute host Erica Hill described the 1,100-page Fauci diary dump as “a little choose-your-own-adventure, if you will, depending on what you are looking for in the diaries of Dr. Fauci . . . A little bit of something in here for everybody.” Hill left no doubt as to what “little bit” she was “looking for”— something flattering to Fauci and casting President Trump in a negative light. From all the 1,100 diary pages, Hill highlighted just one entry, that from March 2020 in which Fauci boasted: “We met with POTUS in the living quarters, not the Oval, for about an hour. I led the discussion since the POTUS kept referring to me. It was a disturbingly rambling discussion. He kept talking about TV ratings, and HC, and influenza and virtually everything else as I was trying to keep him on track.”Such a hero, that Fauci–if he does say so himself–keeping the supposedly rambling Trump on track!Seawright then launched his distraction campaign. After briefly citing praise for Fauci from Trump’s former surgeon general, he complained that today’s hearing would be mere “political theater.” What really “burns my biscuits,” said the South Carolinian, is the lack of focus on current problems:“There’s no interest in the fact that you have the screwworms sending everyone on the run . . and there’s no sense of accountability in that regard.” 

Look Over There: A Screwworm! — CNNer Tries To Distract From Fauci Scandal pic.twitter.com/wGHKTfywJr— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) July 29, 2026

Seawright renewed the screwworm pivot later when conservative Rob Bluey, an MRC alum and head of the Daily Signal, pressed the point that Congress has a duty to oversee a former $400,000-a-year government employee who, Bluey said, “lied to the American people repeatedly about the origin of COVID.”Seawright interrupted: “But Rob, but Rob, but Rob. Respectfully, how do you know that?”Bluey shot back: “Because it’s in the diary!”Seawright then circled back to his preferred topic: “So where’s the accountability for the screwworm? Screwworm.”Seawright tried one last deflection: “Remind me who was in charge when we were going through the COVID-19 pandemic, because I think sometimes that gets lost in the conversation. Who was the president?”  In response, Bluey unleashed the line o’ the day: “Apparently, Anthony Fauci thought he was!” Seawright’s repeated insistence that Americans should focus on screwworms rather than Fauci’s record was a textbook attempt to change the subject. The hearing is about accountability for decisions made at the highest levels of the federal government during a national crisis. Pretending the only accountability that matters is today’s is the oldest trick in the book.Here’s the transcript.CNN This Morning7/29/266:39 am EDTERICA HILL: Also happening on the Hill today, just about two hours from now, Dr. Anthony Fauci will head to Capitol Hill where he’s set to face a grilling by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. That committee is led by Senator Rand Paul, who has butted heads with Fauci in past hearings over his role leading the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the days leading up to this hearing, later this morning, the committee published 1,100 pages from Fauci’s personal diary, detailing everything from high level White House pandemic meetings to his newfound fame and press attention. Fauci isn’t appearing voluntarily after Senator Paul previously called for the doctor to be thrown in jail.RAND PAUL: I would just, just suggest that he tell the truth. And if he tells the truth, he has no liability. But I would suggest that he testify because, because he’s protected by the pardon, there’s no real constitutional reason for him not to testify.HILL: The Group Chat is back with us. I will note, there is a lot in here, as I noted, more than 1,100 pages. It’s a little choose-your-own-adventure, if you will, depending on what you are looking for in the diaries of Dr. Fauci. Here is one thing that he wrote about a meeting in March of 2020, writing, “We met with POTUS in the living quarters, not the Oval, for about an hour. I led the discussion since the POTUS kept referring to me. It was a disturbingly rambling discussion. He kept talking about TV ratings, and HC, and influenza and virtually everything else as I was tryin to keep him on track. With the help of the VP, we finally got him to agree to a travel advisory, not a quarantine.” As I noted, there is a little bit of something in here for everybody. We know it’s going to be contentious with Rand Paul, but how are Democrats, do you think, going to approach this hearing today, Antjuan?ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT: First of all, you had Trump’s former Surgeon General, I think as late as this morning, come out and praise Dr. Fauci, and called him, basically, a trusted and good public servant. But I think what’s frustrating and what burns my biscuits the most is you have this political theater that will happen in the United States Senate today, with Senator Rand Paul.But there’s no interest in the fact that you have the screwworms sending everyone on the run, the fact that you see recall after recall and foods that basic everyday Americans are afraid to even deal with, and all the challenges that came along, that come along with this current administration. And there’s no sense of accountability in that regard. I think that is what the American people focus on. Not in retrospect, but they’re focused on right now in front of them, and right now in front of them are the challenges because of the people who are in charge of our government, but yet there’s no accountability from the legislative standpoint. And so the theater is just gonna be political theater, for today, and I think the American people have grown numb to some of that.HILL: And then you think people move on. Rob does not feel that way.ROB BLUEY: Yeah, no. You can probably tell that I don’t. I mean, I think that there will be fireworks today. I agree with you on that point But it’s the role of Congress, in this case, Senator Rand Paul, to have oversight and hold this, this government employee, former government employee, who was paid $400,000 a year with our tax dollars, and who lied to the American people repeatedly about the origin of COVID. I mean, he talked about it.SEAWRIGHT: But Rob, but Rob, but Rob. Respectfully, how do you know that? And, and I— We agree –BLUEY: — Because it’s in the diary! SEAWRIGHT: Well, here’s what we agree on. We agree that the, the legislative branch is supposed to have oversight and accountability to the executive branch. We agree with that. So where’s the accountability for the screwworm? Screwworm. Where’s accountability for all these recalls we see every single day and the lack thereof from the current leaders of our government? You, you don’t see that, but you want to focus on someone who’s no longer in the government.Remind me who was in charge when we were going through the COVID-19 pandemic, because I think sometimes that gets lost in the conversation. Who was the president? BLUEY: Apparently, Anthony Fauci thought he was.

On Friday’s The 11th Hour show, MS NOW host Ali Velshi devoted a segment to comparing the Donald Trump administration, declaring that the President is trying to make ICE accountable only to him. He then had on liberal historian and University of Toronto Professor Jason Stanley to claim that Trump is promoting fascism like 1930s Germany.After beginning the segment with some polling suggesting that the President’s approval ratings are down, Velshi intoned:Trump is losing the country. And here’s the thing that should worry you much more than the polling. … He doesn’t seem to care. A President who governs against the will of the people he serves isn’t really accountable to them, and a President who isn’t accountable to the people he serves isn’t really a President in the way that we’ve come to understand that word. This is not hyperbole.There are no funnier words on MS NOW than “This is not hyperbole.” The MS NOW leaned into hyperbole, claiming that under Trump, ICE “terrorizes” immigrants and minorities, and then argued that the President is trying to make ICE into “a force that answers to Donald Trump and to no one else.” Velshi invoked leftist hyperbole machine Tim Snyder, who puts the word “fascism” into every other sentence:

MS NOW’s Velshi Compares Trump Admin to 1930s Germany pic.twitter.com/Ocr00DXHjI— Brad Wilmouth (@bradwilmouth) July 27, 2026

This administration is working to make our government less accountable. The historian Timothy Snyder put it this way: “The only advantage we have over the Jews in Germany in the 1930s is that we know their history. And because we can know their history, we can recognize the patterns, not to be surprised, and to act effectively,” end quote.After bringing aboard Stanley as a guest, Velshi began by making more Nazi comparisons:… it may get boring to some people, but we’ve actually got to go back to the early 1930s in Germany to remember that stuff that looks like this happened quite frequently. Little laws that were taken away, police that were meant to be homicide investigators all of a sudden moved over here to harass people — people who thought, “This is crazy and it will go away,” and, “How bad can it get?” It’s all playing itself out. And you and I puzzle about the fact that: How can this happen in 2026? How can we watch authoritarianism set in and not have an adequate response?Stanley, who was so panicked by Trump he moved to Canada, pushed for resistance to Trump as he began:Yeah, I mean, I don’t puzzle about it in 2026. I’ve been on these networks for eight years now saying this is a would-be fascist dictator, this is a fascist movement behind him. They know what they’re doing. And the reason that it’s not going to succeed is because of journalists like you, Ali, and your colleagues — because of police officers who will refuse to do orders that are immoral and illegal — because of military officers that will refuse to follow unconstitutional orders.A bit later, Stanley fearmongered:And they are putting people in these concentration camps. The — I say “concentration camps” because they’re zones of lawlessness. They can take seemingly anyone they want and put them there. … we’re already the country that has the fourth highest incarceration rate in the world, and we’re adding to that a system of concentration camps where they’re putting people in for no reason at all, just because they say that they’re threats. Now, they’re saying radical leftists are threats. They’re saying the same thing about radical leftists. We are literally living “First they came for” in real time.So “this is not hyperbole”??Transcript follows:MS NOW’s The 11th HourJuly 24, 2026ALI VELSHI: Trump is losing the country. And here’s the thing that should worry you much more than the polling. It actually has something to do with what you saw tonight. He doesn’t seem to care. A President who governs against the will of the people he serves isn’t really accountable to them, and a President who isn’t accountable to the people he serves isn’t really a President in the way that we’ve come to understand that word.This is not hyperbole. I want to show you exactly where this is playing out right now, and it is under the banner of immigration enforcement. Donald Trump has dramatically built up the force carrying out his mass deportation agenda. ICE’s budget has quadrupled since he took office. The agency has more than doubled in size — 12,000 new agents and officers hired — a lot of them patrol in masks in unmarked cars, and they are armed. We’ve talked about them before because that presence alone terrorizes immigrant communities.But more than that, it terrorizes communities of color. And more than that, if you’ve been to Minnesota or Chicago or L.A. lately, it terrorizes communities in general. And that was always the point. But let’s look at what’s happened after two recent ICE killings because you start to see something bigger than intimidation. You start to see a system built so that ICE answers to no one but Trump himself. Again, this is not hyperbole. This is hyper specific.In Houston, an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — 52 years old, a father of three, no criminal record, not even the target of the operation. His family says he was close to getting legal status after 35 years in the United States. Six days later, in Biddeford, Maine, another agent shot and killed Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero — 25 years old, also a father legally authorized to work. He had a Social Security number, also not the target of any investigation or traffic stop. Both men were shot in their vehicles.In both cases, DHS’s first claim — I don’t even have to tell you this — you can probably guess it on your own: “The men used their cars as weapons against agents.” In both cases, that claim didn’t hold up against video and witness accounts, and, in both cases, DHS will not release the agents’ names — which, if you’ve been watching this beat, you know, is a pattern. The AP, however, after speaking with close relatives, identified the agent in the main shooting anyway, and his name is David Brouillette. His own relatives describe a history of violent, frightening behavior. The Washington Post reports a judge found him to be not credible in court testimony last year.Both outlets reached out to Brouillette for comment, but he did not reply. So there were already questions about how well DHS is actually vetting these agents as they have this hiring surge. After these two killings, DHS actually paused most traffic stops. Okay, that’s in theory a good thing. Said they were going to wear body cameras and all that kind of stuff — 12 hours later — 12 hours later, Donald Trump reversed that decision. He ordered ICE back onto the road, doing exactly the kind of stops that got two innocent men killed. He posted it himself on social media. He said, quote, “The men and women of ICE are doing a great job — one that has to be done. We cannot give up on one of ICE’s most important and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop.”Just sit with that for a second. The President of the United States personally intervening to make sure that a masked, unmarked, armed federal force faces zero check on its power, and doing it through social media. Except there’s nothing about this that is isolated. After Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed in Minnesota back in January, state investigators said that the federal government wouldn’t hand over evidence in that case. Most of it only arrived last week — six months later. This week, ICE briefed the House Homeland Security Committee behind closed doors. Since January 2025, 53 reports of excessive force — 32 have been closed, 21 are still open. One has been referred for discipline. And now the New York Times reports that federal agents have been told that the FBI will not investigate assault claims that are made against federal immigration agents anymore. Just not going to be investigated. So knock yourself out if you’ve got a complaint.DHS and Justice deny that, but, given how little evidence they’ve shared with state and local authorities already, a policy like that would leave ICE to police itself. Now, I want to be careful with the history here because it matters. When Trump’s first administration separated children from their families, we understood very clearly that the cruelty was, in fact, the point.Separating people from their families — it’s about the worst thing you can do — is designed to deter people from coming to the United States. Now, what’s happening now is cruel, too, but I don’t think deterrence is the goal anymore. I think the goal is actually broader than that. It’s actually the creation of a force that answers to Donald Trump and to no one else, and whose presence is just meant to unsettle everyone, not just immigrants. We’re at the point where we have to say the plain thing. This administration is working to make our government less accountable. The historian Timothy Snyder put it this way: “The only advantage we have over the Jews in Germany in the 1930s is that we know their history. And because we can know their history, we can recognize the patterns, not to be surprised, and to act effectively,” end quote.That’s the assignment — not to panic, but to pay attention on purpose so we’re not surprised by what comes next, and to be ready with a plan for November 3rd. Back with me is Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, a colleague of the aforementioned professor Timothy Snyder — works out of my hometown, which I miss a lot. He’s the author of a book called Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. Jason, again, it may get boring to some people, but we’ve actually got to go back to the early 1930s in Germany to remember that stuff that looks like this happened quite frequently.Little laws that were taken away, police that were meant to be homicide investigators all of a sudden moved over here to harass people — people who thought, “This is crazy and it will go away,” and, “How bad can it get?” It’s all playing itself out. And you and I puzzle about the fact that: How can this happen in 2026? How can we watch authoritarianism set in and not have an adequate response?JASON STANLEY, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO: Yeah, I mean, I don’t puzzle about it in 2026. I’ve been on these networks for eight years now saying this is a would-be fascist dictator, this is a fascist movement behind him. They know what they’re doing. And the reason that it’s not going to succeed is because of journalists like you, Ali, and your colleagues — because of police officers who will refuse to do orders that are immoral and illegal — because of military officers that will refuse to follow unconstitutional orders.That’s the only reason we are not in a fully authoritarian situation. It’s been clear from the beginning, and, in particular, as you pointed out, it’s been clear from the very beginning of this regime — Trump’s second term — that he has no intention of broadening his popular support. You know, I’ve been saying this in the very beginning. He’s not making a single attempt to win over a single –VELSHI: Which is why we have gerrymandering, which is why we’ve got the SAVE Act, which is why he did a primetime speech talking about how the vote can’t be trusted. None of that involves winning an election with extra votes. It’s winning an election, possibly, with fewer votes.STANLEY; Yeah, he has no intention of winning — of winning an election with more votes. It’s not the route he’s going, and we’re already well down this road. And, as you pointed out the role — ICE has a very particular role to play. And it’s very obvious what their role is here. Steve Bannon already said it. They’re going to flood the polling places. They’re speaking in the most threatening possible ways about — about potential fraudulent voters, you know, and what they’re going to do to them.They’re going to intimidate the heck out of voters and more. They’re going to intimidate — intimidate poll workers at elections. And what, what we’re now allowing them to do as a country, and we need to stop allowing them to do this is — is acting with total impunity. They’re doing it in immigration, but they’re just — they’re going to — it’s — they’re going to broaden it out. The message they’re sending is, “Everyone is a criminal — anyone can be a criminal.”VELSHI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.STANLEY: They’re arresting students. They’re detaining students with visas. They’re detaining people who are clearly here legally –VELSHI: Well, they have this weird — they have this weird rule, which they got that Columbia student on, right, that he’s a threat to national security because he participated in one of the protests at Columbia University against — against Israel’s actions in Gaza. It’s like there was once a free speech. And, in fact, free speech is not about Twitter. It’s about the government. But the government apparently deemed this guy to be a national security risk.STANLEY: Yeah, they’re going to do everything they can. I mean, it is just to be put in what they’re building a mass — massive number of concentration camps. They’re building a system of concentration camps. It’s not just on the borders right now. It’s national. And they are putting people in these concentration camps. The — I say “concentration camps” because they’re zones of lawlessness. They can take seemingly anyone they want and put them there. And it’s not clear how to get access to them. They’re often away from courts, far away from people’s lawyers and families. So they’re experimenting with that.This — we’re already the country that has the fourth highest incarceration rate in the world, and we’re adding to that a system of concentration camps where they’re putting people in for no reason at all, just because they say that they’re threats. Now, they’re saying radical leftists are threats. They’re saying the same thing about radical leftists. We are literally living “First they came for” in real time. First they came for the immigrants.Now, “First they came for” starts with, “First they came for the communists.” They’re doing that second now. But — but they are — they are really just — they’re, “Oh, you let us put everyone in these concentration camps without legal with — when we just said they were just, you know, threats. So now we’re going to — now we’re going to broaden that.” And even if we don’t have to actually fill these camps up, they’re tools of intimidation.VELSHI: Yeah. And, by the way, there are people in — in these detention centers who have habeas corpus cases to get out. And then a judge puts a bond on them because they are a flight risk. It’s like you’re, you’re trying to deport them. What’s — what’s a flight risk for somebody you’re trying to actually deport? They are putting every possible legal block up to do that. But we still have fighters in this country — people who are prepared to stand by these people. And I do want to point out you and Tim Snyder and Marci Shore are in my hometown, and you are building a world class department of study of, of authoritarianism and this kind of thing. And, as a result, we will all be better informed. So thank you as always, Jason. Good to see you. Jason Stanley from the University of Toronto.

Donald Trump cracked jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend. Yes, they actually rescheduled it after the failed shooting in April. That’s how much journalists enjoy giving themselves awards. Trump made them listen to his jokes, which they hated, especially the one about Kaitlan Collins looking like a transgender celeb.
The CNN host joined Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to discuss the offending joke and other aspects of Trump’s badness. Her fellow journalists were especially awed by Kaitlan’s courage. To the extent there is a difference, Democratic operatives were also eager to praise her professionalism and profound humanity.
Here are some of the posts we found most inspiring:
Jake Tapper 

Donna Brazile

Karen Finney

Matt Bennett

David Axelrod

Mimi Roach

Eric Schultz

Frank Garten

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New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani (D.) is under fire for snubbing Jews from an influential judicial advisory panel and blocking the nomination of a former judge, who is Jewish, because he once represented Ghislaine Maxwell. But Mamdani tapped a left-wing attorney who has represented multiple convicted cop-killers—including two black nationalists who murdered two New York City police officers—to serve on the committee, the Washington Free Beacon found.
Mamdani selected Soffiyah Elijah, founder of the Alliance of Families for Justice, to serve on the 18-member panel, which recommends judicial candidates to “help ensure that our judicial system reflects the city it serves.” Over the course of her legal career, Elijah has represented, befriended, and advocated for a slew of convicted cop-killers, including Sundiata Acoli, Marilyn Buck, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and members of the San Francisco 8, all of whom were convicted of murdering police officers, armed robbery, or terrorism-related offenses.
Elijah has described many of her clients as “political prisoners” and has called for the “repressive racist criminal injustice system” to be “radically changed.”
Her appointment comes as Mamdani faces backlash for appointing no Jewish members to the advisory panel, which evaluates judge candidates for the city’s criminal courts.
A Jewish lawyers’ organization said it was “deeply disappointed” by the absence of Jewish representation on the panel in a city where roughly 10 percent of residents are Jewish. In a letter to Mamdani, the group said the decision follows “a troubling pattern” amid rising concerns about antisemitism. The letter also criticized Mamdani’s rejection of former appellate judge John Leventhal, who had been recommended for the panel.
According to a Mamdani spokesman, Leventhal was rebuffed because he represented Maxwell, an accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein, on an appellate issue related to her sex-trafficking case.
Reached by phone, Leventhal called the decision “hypocritical” and questioned whether his Jewish identity played a role.
“It’s hypocritical to pick on the Maxwell case when people have other unpopular clients,” Leventhal told the Free Beacon. “The fact that I’m Jewish, it has a stink about it.”
Leventhal, who helped establish the nation’s first felony domestic violence court, said he does not fault attorneys for representing controversial clients, arguing that doing so is a fundamental part of criminal defense work. “To single me out because of Maxwell, if it’s not a pretense, it’s hypocritical,” he said.
“If not me, why not another Jew?” Leventhal asked.
Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who will oversee the advisory committee, has also represented controversial clients, including several al Qaeda detainees. Kassem is also the boyfriend of Darializa Avila-Chevalier, the socialist activist who is now a Democratic nominee for the congressional district covering Harlem and a swath of the Bronx.
Elijah spent decades representing Sundiata Acoli, a Black Liberation Army member convicted of murdering New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster in 1973. She also represented Marilyn Buck, a Weather Underground member convicted in connection with the 1981 Brink’s armored truck robbery that left a New York police officer and two others dead. Elijah successfully advocated for the release of both Acoli and Buck, and Buck lived with Elijah until her death.
She also represented members of the San Francisco 8, former Black Panthers charged in connection with the 1971 killing of San Francisco police sergeant John Young. Two of her clients, Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell, were separately convicted of murdering two New York City police officers in 1971.
Beyond her legal work, Elijah has maintained close relationships with several former clients. Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther convicted of murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, praised Elijah in a 2016 video message as a “freedom fighter in the law.”
“She laughs when I tell her I thought she was a Jewish woman years ago,” Abu-Jamal said in the message.
Elijah’s public views on the criminal justice system have also drawn attention. In a 2006 filing on behalf of Abu-Jamal, she argued that the trial judge should have recused himself because of his membership in the Fraternal Order of Police, claiming it created an appearance of bias. In a 2020 essay, she wrote of wanting “a world where punishment is not society’s default response to wrongdoing.”
She has also written sympathetically about individuals she considers “political prisoners.” In one essay, Elijah criticized the 150-year sentence given to Donald Taylor, a member of the De Mau Mau group, whose members were convicted in a racially motivated killing spree in Chicago in 1972 that included the murder of a family of four.
Elijah’s nonprofit, the Alliance of Families for Justice, has also included several former leaders of Weather Underground. Kathy Boudin, convicted in the Brink’s robbery, served as a founding board member of the alliance, while Susan Rosenberg, who was convicted in connection with terrorism-related crimes, serves on the organization’s board.
Mamdani’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Trump had all the power he needed to dismiss Fauci. He just chose to run his administration dysfunctionally.

The United States and Israel are considering some form of a land blockade to crank up the economic pressure on Iran as the war against the Islamic Republic enters its sixth month, the Washington Free Beacon can report. The land blockade would complement the sea blockade that’s been in effect for some time.
“What if you just block the land? Suppose Iran can’t bring anything in, cannot take anything out,” a senior Israeli official told the Free Beacon—raising one possibility the two countries have been discussing.
The high-level official said such a blockade would be part of an “economic element” that could bring sufficient pressure to bear against Iran, which has so far proved stubbornly resistant to American and Israeli military power.
Iran has long borders with seven different countries—Turkey, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia—countries that each have different and complicated relations with the United States and Israel. It’s unclear how such a land blockade could work in practice.
“You need the whiteboard, and you have to go through that … put in all the various options. And usually, if you have enough experience, you can choose correctly between the options,” the official said.
In the days since the United States restarted its campaign against Iran earlier this month, Israel has stayed mostly on the sidelines, declining to reprise its attacks at the start of hostilities in February.
While Iran has attacked multiple Gulf nations, it has refrained since early June from launching strikes against Israel—something the official noted would guarantee the country’s reentry into the war.
“What would cause Israel to join? I’ll tell you one thing that would cause us to join immediately: an attack by Iran. We will respond very, very forcefully and very quickly,” the official said.
The comments come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wraps up his eighth visit with President Trump since his return to office in 2025.
The pair’s meeting was businesslike and almost totally focused on Iran and Gulf issues—and various options for managing the war in the weeks and months ahead.
“The Commander-in-Chief has all options at his disposal,” a White House official told the Free Beacon.
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The Senate’s constitutional duty is to check presidential abuse of power. Our job in assessing nominees is to strive for consistency.

With the Federal Communications Commission just weeks away from possibly stripping The View of their status as a purported “bona fide news program,” and the fight over the license renewal of ABC-owned affiliates just heating up, the left was still trying to muster their defenses. However, the coalitions of liberal former FCC officials and far-left activist groups coming out of the woodwork on Disney and ABC’s behalf could not make any sound legal argument to counter the evidence provided by the Media Research Center, with some even taking nip at the companies in their support letter.As reported by Variety, a letter showing support was signed by a slew of leftist organizations and delivered to Disney CEO Josh D’Amero. The signatories included: the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fall of Freedom, Issue One, LGBT Tech, National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America, People for the American Way, Public Knowledge, TechFreedom, The Media and Democracy Project, The Trevor Project, The Tully Center for Free Speech, and UnidosUS.“We urge you to continue to defend and exercise your First Amendment rights, so that we can all continue to exercise ours,” the collective proclaimed. 

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ABC via SnapStream

 The letter did seem to suggest that they felt ABC and Disney were being too silent about what they were going through and they needed to do more:“Meaningfully fighting back requires more than strongly worded regulatory filings. It requires that you make clear to the public what is happening to you and to them — that the government is violating the First Amendment,” the letter to D’Amaro reads. “Remember: the public rebelled against the heavy-handed attempt to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and stood with you. Disney now has the opportunity to stand with all of us in protecting our rights to watch, read, and access information the government wishes we would not. Illegal jawboning demands decisive and vocal resistance. Your rights, and all of our rights, depend on it.”As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC had waited until the final day of public comment to launch their audience write-in campaign.In a response to the Media Research Center’s petition to deny the renewal of broadcast licenses for eight ABC-owned affiliates, a laundry list of former FCC officials spilled 28 pages of ink without laying down a good legal argument in Disney and ABC’s favor. They were helped along by the leftist Protect Democracy Project and a collection of others likes Gigi Sohn of G Squared Strategies, Berlin Szoka of TechFreedom, and Andrew Jay Schwartzman.“This early license renewal proceeding is unprecedented in the history of the Federal Communications Commission and a grave violation of both the Communications Act and the Constitution. Through this proceeding, the FCC seeks to censor Disney’s and ABC’s speech and send a chilling message to all broadcasters: carry speech we don’t like at your peril,” they proclaimed.At no point did the group argue that MRC’s evidence of license violations (i.e. electioneering, promotion of political violence, abdicating their duty to act in the public interest etc.) were wrong or inaccurate in anyway.Instead, they falsely suggested it was part of ABC’s “editorial discretion” and right to flout their responsibilities as a broadcaster:Invoking the news distortion policy and equal opportunities requirement, these petitions ask the Commission to interfere with the stations’ First Amendment-protected editorial discretion: word choices, fact-checks, time covering certain topics, personnel, and the licensees’ perceived viewpoints. These are not legitimate subjects of FCC regulation. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may not “un-bias” what it thinks is biased. The news distortion policy has never authorized the type of interference with editorial discretion that the petitions call for. And, as a group of us argued in a separate petition, the policy is inherently vulnerable to abuse and should be repealed. Nor does the equal opportunities requirement permit investigation into whether, across all content, a licensee harbors partisan bias.Without ever addressing any of the MRC’s specific arguments, they contended, “The Commission has always underscored that ‘mere inaccuracy or difference of opinion’ cannot constitute a news distortion violation.”In fact, they took it a step further and demanded that the FCC repeal their policy to examine and discipline broadcasters for “news distortion.”“Both petitions ask the Commission to scrutinize and second-guess ABC’s editorial decisions at the microscopic level—word choices, fact-checks, the number of minutes spent covering particular topics, even personnel. These petitions only underscore the danger created by failing to repeal the news distortion policy,” they wrote.Yes, ABC does have editorial discretion. However, they can’t use that discretion to willingly violate the responsibilities they agreed to when they sought their licenses. This also wasn’t an effort at censorship because even if they lost their license, they could still compete as a cable news outlet like CNN and MS NOW.