FBI and SPD infiltrated Seattle 2020 protests, used informants and surveillance | May 28–June 3, 2025 | Real Change

Five years ago, on the night of June 1, 2020, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent was punched in the face while on “an approved surveillance operation” inside Seattle’s 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, according to FBI intelligence reports. Punched so hard their nose was broken.

The next day, as protest crowds in Seattle grew to over 10,000 people, Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force officer Rik Hall recommended that SPD “pull their personnel out” of the crowd.
— Read on www.realchangenews.org/news/2025/05/28/fbi-and-spd-infiltrated-seattle-2020-protests-used-informants-and-surveillance

From Racket Theory to Real Domination | CTWG

In the early 1940s, the Frankfurt School developed a body of work—most of it only published posthumously decades later—that has been given the name ‘racket theory.’ That body of work is the topic of Section 2 of this essay.

The other subject of this essay is the French (post-) Marxist theorist Jacques Camatte. In what follows I will be mostly concerned with works dating to before Camatte’s turn towards holocaust denial,1 homophobia,2 transphobia,3 anti-abortion politics, and the nouvelle droite. With regard to the thematic material, I will be focused on drawing out the aspects of Camatte’s work that resonate with the Frankfurt School’s racket theory.

While my verdict on Camatte is fundamentally unfavorable, I have tried my best to keep the text from degenerating into an ultra-left version of the classic “my dad can beat up your dad” argument. Also, I started writing this before Camatte died; it is not a theoretical obituary. Special thanks to James Crane for translating most of the quotations from Horkheimer.
— Read on ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Rackets_Camatte/

Brian Eno calls for Microsoft to cut ties with Israel, donating his Windows 95 startup chime fee to Gaza victims

”I’m compelled to speak, not as a composer this time, but as a citizen alarmed by the role Microsoft is playing in a very different kind of composition: one that leads to surveillance, violence, and destruction in Palestine.”
— Read on www.brooklynvegan.com/brian-eno-calls-for-microsoft-to-cut-ties-with-israel-donating-his-windows-95-startup-chime-fee-to-gaza-victims/

Revealed: UnitedHealth secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers | US Medicare | The Guardian

A Guardian investigation finds insurer quietly paid facilities that helped it gain Medicare enrollees and reduce hospitalizations. Whistleblowers allege harm to residents
— Read on www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/21/unitedhealth-nursing-homes-payments-hospital-transfers

The Salvadoran trail of Ronald Johnson, Trump’s man for Mexico | U.S. | EL PAÍS English

The retired colonel’s tenure as ambassador to El Salvador lasted less than two years, but it was enough for him to forge a personal friendship with President Nayib Bukele. During the country’s civil war in the 1980s, he led combat and counterinsurgency operations
— Read on english.elpais.com/usa/2024-12-12/the-salvadoran-trail-of-ronald-johnson-trumps-man-for-mexico.html