Alan MacLeod

The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal.

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.

Spooks in Our Midst

Before entering academia, Dr. Yarhi-Milo served as an officer and an intelligence analyst with the Israeli Defense Forces. Given that she was recruited into the intelligence services because of her ability to speak Arabic fluently, her job likely entailed surveilling the Arab population.

After leaving the world of intelligence, she worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. While there, she met and married her husband, Israel’s official United Nations spokesperson.

Although she is now an academic, she has never left the world of international security, making the subject her area of expertise. She has made a point of trying to lift women’s voices in the field. One of these was the then-U.S. Director of National Security, Avril Haines, whom she spoke with in 2023. But even though Khalil was a student in her school, she had nothing to say about his arrest. Indeed, rather than speak out on the issue (as activists have demanded), she instead chose this week to invite Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022, to speak at Columbia. Students protesting Tuesday’s event were condemned by university authorities for “harassing” Yarhi-Milo.

Unprecedented Protests, Unprecedented Repression

Columbia was the epicenter of a massive protest movement across university campuses nationwide last year. It is estimated that at least eight percent of all American college students participated in demonstrations denouncing the genocidal attack on Gaza and calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel. The response was equally vast in its scale. Well over 3,000 protestors were arrested, including faculty members themselves.

The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.

“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Trump stated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s ominous threat, announcing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” In another clear threat, the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University, citing the institution’s failure to sufficiently crack down on “antisemitic” incidents on campus.

Khalil’s eight-month pregnant wife was initially told that he had been taken to a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In fact, he had been moved halfway across the country to a center in Jena, Louisiana. Journalist Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insider explained that ICE often goes “immigration ‘judge shopping’ by putting detainees in detention centers under jurisdictions of courts that very rarely decide in favor of migrants.”

The very high-profile attempt to deport the holder of a Green Card because of political speech criticizing a foreign government has left many civil rights lawyers deeply worried. Alec Karakatsanis, for example, stated that “I’ve never seen a more clear-cut First Amendment violation, or a more flagrant government declaration of intent to violate blackletter law.” “The government does not claim he committed a crime, just that he held views that the government doesn’t like about Israel. Bone chilling,” he added.

Columbia’s Billionaire Pro-Israel Backers

Much of Columbia’s funding comes from donations from billionaire benefactors. But those gifts come with strings attached. This became apparent in the wake of the protest movement, as many pro-Israel patrons demanded the university take action. Manufacturing magnate Robert Kraft, for example, publicly announced he was cutting his alma mater off from his lavish funding over its failure to effectively suppress the demonstrations.

Hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman did the same, demanding that Columbia’s “crazy kids” “have to be controlled.” These “kids” evidently also included 61-year-old Jordanian professor Joseph Massad, whose views on the Middle East Cooperman found intolerable, and called for his firing. Soviet-born oligarch Len Blavatnik, meanwhile, urged police to hold the protestors to account.

Between them, Kraft, Cooperman and Blavatnik are believed to have donated nearly $100 million to Columbia, giving them considerable influence over the political direction of the university.

There were also voices from within the university clamoring for the violent suppression of the student movement. Assistant Professor of Business Management Shai Davidai, for example, denounced the protestors as “Nazis” and “terrorists” and called for the National Guard to be set upon the encampment, obliquely referencing the Kent State University Massacre while doing so. Davidai, an Israeli-American, served in the IDF and has publicly expressed his pride in doing so.

Given its most recent addition, it appears unlikely that the School of International and Public Affairs will moderate its pro-Israel positions. In January, the school announced that Jacob Lew would join the faculty. Lew had just left his job as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel under the Biden administration, a role in which he facilitated American complicity in genocide, supplying Israel with weapons and providing it with diplomatic support for its efforts.

Defending Israel, Destroying Free Speech

Longtime readers of MintPress News will be less surprised than many to hear that Israeli military intelligence officials hold such important positions in American public life. Previous MintPress investigations have uncovered giant networks of former Israeli spies working in top jobs in big tech and social media companies, including Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Amazon. Even TikTok, often labeled a Chinese spying app, has hired former Israeli spies to run its affairs. And in October, we revealed that former Israeli spooks are writing America’s news, with multiple former agents working at top U.S. outlets, including CNN, Axios, and the New York Times.

Perhaps, then, the fact that the dean of the very school at the center of a worldwide media storm is a former Israeli military intelligence officer should not be such a shock. But it remains a stark reminder of the level of extraordinary institutional bias in favor of Israel displayed across the United States.

[…]

Via https://www.mintpressnews.com/professor-columbia-university-scandal-former-israeli-spy/289231/

Paul Craig Roberts

President Trump has given every indication that he is as concerned with Israel’s interest as he is with the interests of MAGA Americans.  I have expressed the hope that Trump’s sickening kowtowing to Israel is a strategy to keep the Israel Lobby off his back until he can deal with other opponents who stand in the way of his domestic agenda.  I still have this hope, but it has been shaken by the Trump administration’s sacrifice of constitutionally protected free speech in order to protect Israel from criticism.

Last Friday the Epoch Times reported that the Trump administration had cancelled $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University for failing to act on allegations of anti-semitism.  The Trump administration’s “Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” consists of the departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Resources, and the General Services Administration.  The members of this task force are well positioned to ingratiate themselves with Israel, which can easily result in well-enumerated positions after their time in government is over.

What does the Trump task force mean by “anti-semitism”?  It means protests against Israel’s destruction of Palestine.  It means that no matter how horrific Israel’s war crimes and no matter the ICC’s indictment of Netanyahu, for students and faculty to protest genocide or mass murder, if Israel is the perpetrator, is “anti-semitic.”  It is OK to protest against other countries, but not against Israel.

Protests against Israel’s actions are equated with harassment and persecution of Jewish students at Columbia. This equation implies that Jewish Americans identify with Israel and not with the United States. Does an immigrant from England feel harassed and persecuted if Americans protest against England?  President Trump has branded  protests against Israel  “illegal protests.”  In other words, Trump is saying that the exercise of free speech if Israel is the target is illegal because it is anti-semitic.  Protesters can say whatever they wish about Americans, Russia, China, Muslims, and Palestinians, but not about Israelis.

Trump is also guilty of conflating Israeli citizens with American Jewish citizens.  If Trump applied his Israeli standards to all ethnicities, no one would be able to express any criticism and protest any action by any government.

Trump declared: “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on … the crime, arrested.”  Trump did not explain how the First Amendment became illegal.  Does his dictate apply to Black Lives Matter and Antifa, to LGBTQ protests?

Do Trump, the DOJ and other departments realize that they have criminalized a constitutionally-protected right if that right is used to protest Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians?  In the United States is it now illegal to protest genocide if Israelis are the perpetrators?

I was surprised that Columbia, a wealthy private university, was receiving $400 million in US taxpayers’ money.  But it turns out that $400 million is only the tip off the iceberg.  The Epoch Times reports that Columbia “holds about $5 billion in federal grant commitments.”

This is big money even for Columbia.  In response to the money threat, the university’s administration accepted the Trump administration’s destruction of the First Amendment and quickly got on board with the Trump administration.  Columbia announced that its administration is “fully committed to combatting antisemitism” and “looks forward to ongoing work with the new federal administration to fight antisemitism.”

Trump and his supporters do not recognize the blatant contradiction between suppressing free speech and Making America Great Again.

America’s greatness did not come from tyranny.  America’s greatness resides in the civil liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution. It is disheartening to find the First Amendment under assault by the Trump regime.

[…]

Via https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/03/10/is-president-trump-an-israeli-puppet/

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi swears in Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Feb. 12, 2025 (Office of the Director of National Intelligence/Public Domain)

By Ray McGovern

All their clearances were X-ed out on “X,” on which Gabbard wrote:

“Per @POTUS directive, I have revoked security clearances and barred access to classified information for Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Mark Zaid, Norman Eisen, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, and Andrew Weissman, along with the 51 signers of the Hunter Biden ‘disinformation’ letter. The President’s Daily Brief is no longer being provided to former President Biden.”

Gabbard’s move will send a tidal wave through Washington D.C.’s Tidal Basin.  Creatures of “The Swamp,” plus allies in the media and Democratic Party, will raise a din. No matter. The intelligence chiefs who corrupted the profession in which I once took pride had it coming.

[Former C.I.A. agent John Kiriakou told Consortium News‘ CN Live! in February 2023 that while he was at the C.I.A. he often saw former senior agency officials hanging around headquarters discussing current intelligence and political matters. This should be harder to do now without their security clearances.]

Director Gabbard’s action is a clear warning that her boss told her to shut down the deep-state cottage industry of former spies able and willing to interfere in U.S. elections. Besides, a security clearance is a privilege, not an entitlement. President Trump said, “These are people we don’t respect.”

Trump has learned that the hard way – before and during his first term. The abundant evidence of intelligence officials meddling in domestic politics during the debunked Russiagate “scandal” justifies the step he ordered Gabbard to take.

How Far Will Gabbard Go?

There is more housecleaning to do. Gabbard should have a well-informed ally to assist her in cleaning the Augean stables -– new F.B.I. Director Kash Patel.

Among other key positions he held, Patel was a senior staff investigator on the House Intelligence Committee. He prepared a damning critique of the so-called “Intelligence Community Assessment” of Jan. 6, 2017, which blamed – with no hard evidence – the Russians for “hacking” those DNC emails so prejudicial to candidate Hillary Clinton, and which launched Russiagate into full swing.

Thanks to the suppression of news by Establishment media, few Americans are aware that the “Russia hacking” charge was disproven more than seven years ago, by the fellow who knew, CrowdStrike President, in sworn testimony.

While Clinton kept claiming that the evidence-free claims of the “Intelligence Community Assessment” were supported “by all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies”, Patel’s investigation of classified material proved that to be a whopping lie. Rather, it was put together by four or five “handpicked analysts” led by then-C.I.A. Director John Brennan (amongst those now stripped of their clearances by Gabbard).

State Department Intelligence, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and a dozen other agencies were excluded. Brennan got only NSA and the F.B.I. to endorse it, and the NSA reluctantly.

Speaking Freely

New FBODirector Patel spoke freely to journalist Aaron Mate about this and other experiences, just after he left government in February 2021. In this candid interview, Patel lamented that, although Trump declassified his House Intel Committee investigation of the so-called “Intelligence Community Assessment”, it somehow remained classified.

Not for long, I would wager (assuming at least one copy has escaped the shredder). I would guess this may be Gabbard’s next step as she moves to fix intelligence analysis.

For example, she may wish to follow up on Patel’s earlier study by interviewing one Michael van Landingham, an intelligence analyst who is proud of having written the first draft of the cornerstone “analysis” of Russiagate; that’s right, I mean that “Intelligence Community Assessment.”

Last August, I wrote on his crowing about his role. The headline was: “Decay, Decrepitude, Deceit in Journalism.” I should have added … and in Intelligence.

In sum, DNI Gabbard, with the help of Patel, certainly has her work cut out for her. The good news is that some of the buried bodies are not very deep.

[…]

Via https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/11/ray-mcgovern-gabbard-defangs-ex-intel-officials/

Graphic by Peggy Hall.

Comments by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

It is truly amazing how so many people in the “Health Freedom Movement” who opposed the COVID shots, are now continuing to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, and his pro-vaccine agenda.

After his editorial on Fox News supporting the deadly MMR vaccines, some “big names” in the movement have taken it upon themselves to criticize people like myself who continue to publish the truth about RFK Jr. as he endorses the CDC Child Immunization schedule.

The latest names are Dr. Elizabeth Vliet, and Ty and Charlene Bollinger. I have intentionally hyperlinked their names so you can click on them and see all the fine articles I have written about these people over the years, as they warned people about the dangers of vaccines.

But now they are turning against anyone who criticizes their hero, RFK Jr., and his pro-vaccine agenda.

Peggy Hall has just written an article and published a video in response, as she too has taken heat for calling out those who continue to support RFK Jr.

Hall correctly articulates the issue: This is not about “whose side are you on,” it is about whether or not your support the TRUTH.

[…]

Via https://vaccineimpact.com/2025/peggy-hall-calls-out-maga-supporters-of-rfk-jr-who-still-defend-him/

Homeless in LA

RT (2024)

Film Review

https://en.rtdoc.tv/films/1188-homeless-in-la

According to this film, roughly 10 million Californians lack stable housing, some despite working two to three jobs. This represents an increase of 12% since 2023. In Los Angeles, known as America’s homeless capitol, there are 80,000 “unhoused” living in LA. Some live in their cars, some couch surf and some live on the streets. Third world visitors are shocked to see homeless tents lining the streets on so many Los Angeles streets, especially in Hollywood.

Nearly all analysts link California homelessness to the skyrocketing cost of housing. Renting a single room in Los Angeles runs around $1400 a month and a studio apartment $3,500-4000. Sadly a November 2024 citizens referendum to enact rent control was defeated, thanks to a massive media campaign by the California Apartment Association (representing wealthy landlords)

Most agree that the Covid lockdowns caused the biggest increase in homelessness. Prior to Covid, the homeless were required to take their tents down during the day.

The film features interviews with a representative of a non-profit group providing free portable showers for LA’s homeless, the manager of a free food pantry serving large numbers of the city’s homeless and a dozen LA residents living on the streets. About one-third are mentally ill and another third have jobs. There are also large numbers of disabled veterans and seniors living in cars because social security benefits are too low to cover rent.

The mentally ill end up on the streets because affordable outpatient mental health services. It’s typically for hospitals to treat them for three days and then discharge them to the streets. Recently a Nevada state hospital dumped 500 of their mentally ill patients in Tucson, 500 in Sacramento and 500 on skid row in LA.

The food pantry manager blames California’s broken foster care system, which suspends all aid to kids removed from troubled homes at age 21. Approximately 70% of foster children become homeless at some point. They are also at high risk for addiction, mental illness and imprisonment.

The filmmakers follow one homeless couple through their day. They offer tips on making signs for “spangling” (panhandling using a sign) and begging for food at outdoor restaurants. Some offer unusually sophisticated explanations for their predicament, eg the growing number of billionaires and their growing control over a government that no longer serves the interests of working people.

Most LA homeless look to private charities, rather than government, for help, as it can take more than a decade to qualify for government subsidized housing. The filmmakers visit Skid Row Rescue, run by a Christian charity receiving limited government subsidies. It currently houses 600, mainly families with children. They also visit a low rent building owned by a non-profit housing group

2nd Smartest Guy in the World

Just like the Intelligence Industrial Complex, their various Federal agencies, “nonprofits,” and corporate partners-in-crime created the PSYOP-19 scamdemic, so too has H5N1 PSYOP-BIRD-FLU been cooked up via gain-of-function (GOF) by yet another criminal government entity in the USDA.

And just like during the last viral crime against humanity, the solution is once again far worse than the disease; in other words, just like the Modified mRNA slow kill bioweapons that were injected into millions of fearful humans, so too does the USDA, CDC, FDA, NIAID, NIH, et al. want to poison all of the livestock with their latest PSYOP-BIRD-FLU “vaccines” that they are also angling at some point in the not so distant future to inject into humans as well.

Thankfully, Kennedy is opposing this bioterror democide of humans and animals alike; to wit:

MAHA BACK ON TRACK: RFK Jr. Opposes Mass H5N1 Animal Vaccination & Is Going After The BigFood Industrial Complex

2nd Smartest Guy in the World

10 Mar

 

After Kennedy’s recent faux pas of having framed the useless yet extremely dangerous MMR vaccine in a positive light…

Read full story:

There is now compelling evidence that this latest Bird Flu strain, just like COVID, originated in a lab and is yet another manmade “pandemic” which deliberately took a mild wild virus and GOF’ed it into a more virulent variant:

These “biosecurity” protocols are designed to put pressure on the food supply, destroy perfectly healthy animals, decimate livelihoods and further impoverish Americans such that they are even easier to control and scare into taking the next rounds of BigPharma eugenics injections.

The research paper entitled, Proximal Origin of Epidemic Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b and Spread by Migratory Waterfowl…

…concluded with the following:

The proximal origins of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b may be the USDA Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory (SEPRL) in Athens, Georgia and the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Genetic evidence and historical context suggest that laboratory activities, including serial passage and GOF research, could have contributed to the emergence of H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b. However, causation has not been established, and further investigation is urgently needed to confirm these findings and to identify all H5N1 laboratory leaks that may have occurred with a focus on mallard ducks and other migratory waterfowl, which have the potential to infect a large number of poultry and livestock facilities around the world. A moratorium on GOF research including serial passage of H5N1 is indicated to prevent a man-made influenza pandemic affecting animals and humans.

A moratorium on GOF is long overdue, as are mass arrests.

An incredibly important aside here is that no vaccine can prevent any respiratory disease, not a one, not in humans, birds, cows, swine or for that matter any other carbon based life form.

Any “expert” who claims this is possible is straight up lying; in fact, Dr. Mengele 2.0 aka Dr. Fauci is well aware that no vaccines are safe or effective and that every single one of them is dangerous and ultimately deadly; to wit:

Behind-the-scenes even Fauci admitted to RFK Jr. that none of 72 mandatory vaccines for children has ever been safety tested:

“For many years, I was saying that not one of the 72 vaccines mandated for children has ever been safety tested in pre-licensing, placebo-controlled trials,” began Kennedy, speaking at a Hillsdale College event. “Not one.”

Fauci went so far as to call Kennedy “a liar.”

When then-President Trump appointed Kennedy to run a vaccine safety commission, Trump ordered Fauci and Collins to meet with him along with White House counsel present.

Kennedy told Fauci, “You say I’m lying. For eight years you’ve been saying I’m lying,” and challenged Fauci to “show me the study” which shows that the multitude of vaccines America’s children are required to receive have been safety-tested.

Fauci claimed that he didn’t have it with him. “It’s back in Bethesda. I’ll send it to you.”

“I never got it,” said Kennedy, “so I sued him.”

“After stonewalling us for a year, their lawyers met us on the courthouse steps and said, ‘Yup, you’re right. We never had any study,’” said Kennedy.

[…]

Kennedy went on to explain how lucrative government-mandated children’s vaccines have been for the pharmaceutical industry:

There’s no downstream liability, there’s no front-end safety testing – that saves them a quarter billion dollars – and there’s no marketing and advertising costs, because the federal government is ordering 78 million school kids to take that vaccine every year.

What better product could you have? And so there was a gold rush to add all these new vaccines to the schedule that we don’t need. Most of these vaccines are unnecessary. Many of them are for diseases that are not even casually contagious.

It was a gold rush, because if you get onto that schedule, it’s a billion dollars a year for your company.

And in many cases, NIH is earning the royalties.

According to Kennedy, more obscene than the huge profits being horded by Big Pharma are the vast number of negative side-effects from all those untested vaccines.

“Neurological diseases” have “exploded,” he said.

“ADHD, sleep disorders, language delays, ASD, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, ticks, narcolepsy. These are all things that I never heard of,” said Kennedy. “Autism went from one in 10,000 in my generation according to CDC data to one in every 34 kids today.”

Not a single vaccine study shows safety, efficacy or necessity, not a one.

Not a single vaccine is safe, effective or necessary, not for measles, tetanus, PSYOP-19, PSYOP-BIRD-FLU or any other disease whatsoever, and all of the grifting murderous bioterrorist “experts” know it.

[…]

Via https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/the-us-department-of-agriculture

By Christina Laila

That was quick.

Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire with Russia after negotiations with the United States.

Late last month Trump abruptly ended his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after a blow-up in the Oval Office.

A defiant and ungrateful Zelensky was told to leave the White House and not come back until he’s ready for peace talks.

.@VP: “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”@POTUS: “You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards … You’re… pic.twitter.com/iTYyAmfuCJ

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 28, 2025

Following the Oval Office blow-up, President Trump paused all military aid to Ukraine after Zelensky suggested the war with Russia would last a long time.

The pause halted all military aid that was currently in transit to Ukraine.

President Trump also stopped sharing critical intelligence with Ukraine until Zelensky moved toward a peace plan with Russia.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Ukrainian delegation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this week and after several hours of negotiations, Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire.

In a statement, the US said it “will immediately lift the pause on intelligence sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine.”

CBS News reported:

Ukraine said it would accept a 30-day ceasefire with Russia after talks with the U.S. in Saudi Arabia aimed at ending the fighting on Tuesday, according to a statement issued by the U.S. and Ukraine.

The agreement came after more than eight hours of negotiations between Ukrainian officials and a U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

“Ukraine expressed readiness to accept the U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and which is subject to acceptance and concurrent implementation by the Russian Federation,” the U.S. and Ukraine said in a joint statement released by the State Department. “The United States will communicate to Russia that Russian reciprocity is the key to achieving peace.”

[…]

Via https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/03/just-ukraine-agrees-ceasefire/