Tax committee Republicans press for Treasury crackdown on nonprofits promoting fraud, ‘anti-American’ hate

FIRST ON FOX: House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith and all 25 Republican members of the committee are urging Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to crack down on nonprofits accused of exploiting the tax code to operate tax-free while promoting “anti-American and/or pro-terrorist ideals” and committing fraud at taxpayers’ expense.

The request marks one of the most aggressive congressional pushes in memory to revoke tax-exempt status, expand audits and rein in what lawmakers describe as systemic failures in policing the nonprofit sector.

In the letter, obtained by Fox News Digital, Smith and the Republican lawmakers wrote to Bessent, who is acting IRS commissioner, and Frank Bisignano, who is the CEO at the IRS, and warned of a growing pattern of tax-exempt organizations pursuing activity that falls outside legitimate charitable purposes. 

Smith and the lawmakers said they were writing to “express concern” over “significant fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars” and urged the IRS to “transition from the laissez-faire approach implemented under the Biden administration and utilize a more hands-on approach” when overseeing nonprofits.

COMER VOWS MINNESOTA FRAUD PROBE WILL EXPAND TO OTHER STATES AMID MOUNTING SCRUTINY

They cited the massive fraud scandal in Minnesota, in which officials at the nonprofit Feeding Our Future were prosecuted and convicted for stealing an estimated $250 million from federal social welfare programs intended to feed low-income children. The case has resulted in dozens of indictments and criminal convictions. Amid the widening scandal, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz chose not to run for a third term.

Bessent announced last month that he was opening an investigation into allegations that some of the stolen funds may have been routed to regions of Somalia where they could have ended up benefiting Al-Shabaab, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

The case, Smith and the lawmakers wrote, “calls into question the current safeguards in place to protect taxpayer dollars.”

“It is unconscionable that the Biden Administration’s failure to hold the United States’s non-profit sector accountable has not only resulted in the theft of billions of American taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, but the potential enrichment of foreign terrorist organizations overseas,” Smith told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “As the Ways and Means Committee continues to investigate every corner of the tax-exempt sector to root out this waste, fraud, abuse and illegal activity, it is now abundantly clear the system is in desperate need of an overhaul.”

“I applaud President Trump’s bold move to hold bad actors in the Minnesota Somali fraud scheme accountable and look forward to working with his Administration to ensure this rampant fraud is ended once and for all,” Smith added.

Along with Smith, the other 25 Republican lawmakers from the Ways and Means Committee who signed the letter are: Reps. Jodey Arrington, Aaron Bean, Vern Buchanan, Mike Carey, Ron Estes, Randy Feenstra, Michelle Fischbach, Brian Fitzpatrick, Kevin Hern, Darin LaHood, Mike Kelly, David Kustoff, Max Miller, Nicole Malliotakis, Carol Miller, Blake Moore, Nathaniel Moran, Greg Murphy, Adrian Smith, Lloyd Smucker, David Schweikert, W. Gregory Steube, Claudia Tenney, Beth Van Duyne and Rudy Yakym.

The House Ways and Means Committee has referred 11 nonprofits to the Treasury Department for investigation and revocation of their tax-exempt benefits, citing allegations of antisemitism, illegal activity, terrorism ties and foreign influence. The organizations have denied wrongdoing.

They include The People’s Forum, a New York-based nonprofit that has organized nationwide anti-ICE protests over the past two weeks with its related organization, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The People’s Forum is under scrutiny for alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party through its funding networks. Its primary donor has been Neville Roy Singham, an American-born tech entrepreneur living in Shanghai who has publicly embraced Marxism and promoted China’s political and economic model.

The People’s Forum has organized a national day of protests Tuesday with other organizations, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, in their efforts to dismantle U.S. “imperialism.” 

In the letter, Smith and the Republican lawmakers said the committee is “actively investigating American non-profits operating as extensions of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Earlier this month, Smith referred the Council on American-Islamic Relations-California for investigation and potential revocation of its tax-exempt status, alleging it may have “materially supported unlawful conduct, including endorsing and assisting disruptive and illegal campus encampments that led to hundreds of arrests across California.” He also raised questions about the group’s “reported involvement in overtly political activity and protests that devolved into chaos, violence and law breaking” in “conduct that may violate longstanding restrictions on tax-exempt organizations.”

Section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code was enacted as part of the Revenue Act of 1913 to encourage and formalize charitable, civic, labor and other public-interest activities by granting tax-exempt status to qualifying organizations, and today it contains 29 categories of tax-exempt entities, including 501(c)(3) charities, 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups, 501(c)(5) labor unions, 501(c)(6) trade associations and other specialized nonprofit organizations.

There are an estimated 1.8 million tax-exempt organizations in the United States, according to the IRS, with an estimated $1.4 trillion in annual revenues, making tougher oversight potentially far-reaching.

An organization applies for the special status, and, if they qualify, they are exempt from paying federal income taxes on money they receive that is related to their mission, such as donations, grants and program revenue. In addition, contributions made to these nonprofit organizations are also tax-deductible for donors, making the status especially valuable.

CONGRESS OPENS ‘INDUSTRIAL-SCALE FRAUD’ PROBE IN MINNESOTA, WARNS WALZ DEMANDS ARE ‘JUST THE BEGINNING’

Last week, Bessent announced the launch of IRS audits of financial institutions that “facilitated the laundering of Minnesota funds,” along with the creation of a task force focused on fraud and abuse involving 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

In their letter, Smith and Republican lawmakers urged Bessent to “use your authority at the IRS to hold tax-exempt organizations accountable” and to ensure that schemes like Feeding Our Future “cannot happen again.”

Together, they said, the cases illustrate a systemic failure to police the nonprofit sector.

Nonprofit organizations drew particular scrutiny after they led anti-Israel protests following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists. In late September 2024, Smith sent a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James urging an investigation into The People’s Forum and the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation, known also as WESPAC, alleging they had “aided and abetted riots and unauthorized encampments across the country.”

“This conduct is designed to sow chaos and discord in our society,” Smith wrote, adding that it had “involved illegal activities.”

The committee has also urged the revocation of the nonprofit status of Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation and American Muslims for Palestine, warning about “alarming conduct” by the two groups in their anti-Israel protests. 

On July 24, 2024, Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, 26, a leader of the Richmond chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, climbed atop a monument at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station and spray-painted an ominous message: “Hamas is Comin’.” He included the inverted red triangle, which is a symbol that Hamas terrorists use to designate enemy targets. The FBI arrested Mahdawi for destruction of government property, and he was sentenced to 10 days in prison. The ANSWER Coalition, which works closely with The People’s Forum, obtained the permit for that day’s protest, where a U.S. flag was also burnt. 

Smith has also asked for the revocation of the tax status of the People Media Project, which publishes “The Palestine Chronicle,” alleging the group may have been “circumventing its tax-exempt charitable purpose by supporting the terrorist organization, Hamas.” The concern followed reporting that a contributor to the outlet allegedly participated in holding Israeli hostages in Gaza.

READ THE LETTER – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

He has also urged revocation of the nonprofit status of Jewish Voice for Peace, a co-organizer of many anti-Israel protests that have turned antisemitic, and the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) that served as the fiscal sponsor for Samidoun, a group designated by the Treasury Department as a “sham charity” that allegedly raises funds for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In November, former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams shut down her nonprofit, the New Georgia Project, after the Way and Means Committee raised questions about the 501(c)(3) organization contributing funds to Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial race.

Red-Washing: How the media sanitizes a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary as a ‘preschool teacher’

When police in Michigan arrested Jessica Plichta live on air as she finished a TV news interview supporting Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, she became an instant protest hero, seen as a victim of the heavy hand of law enforcement.

The 22-year-old from Grand Rapids was widely described in media reports as a “preschool teacher,” an “anti-war activist” and protest “organizer.” And while those descriptions are not wrong, they were hardly comprehensive. A Fox News Digital investigation reveals they are part of a pattern in the media in which the radical ties of leftist agitators are ignored, depriving readers of a deeper and more accurate picture of their sinister goals.

“Preschool Teacher, 22, Arrested on TV After Condemning Trump,” blared a headline in The Daily Beast, above an article that noted cynically, “Welcome to America.” The UK-based Guardian published an article framing her as a progressive “anti-war” activist. And Democracy Now, an anti-Trump platform, lamented, “Grand Rapids Police Arrest Protest Antiwar Organizer After She Condemns Trump.”

Few outlets reported that Plichta is a dedicated revolutionary in the radical Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a self-described Marxist-Leninist “organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States.” The FBI in 2010 investigated the group for alleged ties to terrorist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It is part of a sprawling network of Marxist-Leninist groups funded by a China-backed billionaire and committed to sowing chaos on American streets, using issues from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Elon Musk and President Donald Trump to fan the flames of discord.

But while the media worked to downplay or even hide Plichta’s radical ties, she has not been shy about her associations.

“I’m a proud cadre member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization!” Plichta declared at a pro-Maduro protest Jan. 3, just hours after U.S. military forces had captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, for alleged narcoterrorism.

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Plichta didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Plichta’s case is one in a series in which the media glosses over – essentially red-washing – the radical ideologies of far-left people and organizations involved in protests and agitation against the Trump administration. Similarly, the media has largely described anti-ICE protester Renee Nicole Good, killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis last week, as a “37-year-old mother of three” and “an amazing human being,” with little scrutiny of her participation in a militant anti-ICE group called “Minnesota ICE Watch,” which trains members to aggressively obstruct the work of ICE officers.

For the far-left, sanitizing protesters accomplishes an organizing strategy that its consultants recommend in information warfare: “lead with sympathetic characters.” The goal is often to disguise coordinated revolutionary activity as grassroots activism.

“It seems there is a widespread practice in the media of identifying conservatives by their political or group affiliations,” said Walter Kirn, a veteran journalist and editor-at-large at County Highway, a pioneering media publication. “They’re ‘MAGA.’ They’re ‘Trump supporters.’ They’re ‘far right.’

“Meanwhile, on the left,” Kirn said, “people are described sympathetically by their roles. They’re ‘moms.’ They’re ‘protesters.’ It’s an obvious double standard that should be corrected, particularly when membership in specific activist groups is involved.” Kirn also edits a Substack newsletter, “Unbound.”

In most cases, the activist groups are transparent about their work and proud of their objectives. The stated goal of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which planted its red “FRSO” flag on the street where Good was killed, is to subvert the U.S. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization receives 501(c)(3) nonprofit benefits through the Lucy Parsons Institute for Social Research, a small Chicago nonprofit which last reported $264,004 in revenues. 

Plichta’s arrest on Jan. 3 came soon after she led the pro-Maduro protest through the streets of Grand Rapids, blocking intersections. Despite multiple warnings from police, the group refused to move to the sidewalk.

She read her speech from her phone, a megaphone in her hand, and the young revolutionary didn’t mince her words. 

“Free Maduro! Free Maduro!” she shouted. “We demand his safe return to Venezuela!” 

“Join us in the struggle against imperialism!” she continued.

FAMILIAR PROTEST GROUPS MOBILIZE IMMEDIATELY AFTER ICE SHOOTING OF MINNESOTA PROTESTER

“Brick by brick…wall by wall…one struggle will free us all!” she yelled.

Soon after, at about 5:30 p.m., outside the Fountain Street Church, Plichta was giving an interview to the local TV station, WZZM 13 On Your Side, when two Grand Rapids police officers came up behind her and arrested her for obstructing a roadway and failure to obey a lawful command from a police officer. Her mouth fell open, and she slowly put her hands above her head, saying, “I am not resisting arrest. I am going peacefully.”

Local media immediately reported the story, describing Plichta simply as a “preschool teacher” and protester. On Monday, she complained in an interview that police put her in their cruiser “without buckling my seatbelt.” The interview was staged with her comrades behind her, including one carrying a signed branded “Freedom Road Socialist Organization.” There was no mention of Plichta’s radical ideological orientation in the story.

VENEZUELAN-AMERICAN JOURNALIST SOUNDS ALARM ON PRO-MADURO PROTESTS, CALLS THEM A ‘THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY’

National and international media soon followed suit, making Plichta a darling of the left. But to her self-described “comrades,” she and Freedom Road Socialist Organization were new stars in a sprawling movement, all under the International People’s Assembly, an umbrella group for about 200 communist, socialist and Marxist-Leninist groups worldwide. That group has more on its agenda than stopping the Trump administration from arresting illegal immigrants or even toppling South American dictators.

The International People’s Assembly is supported by controversial U.S. tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, currently under investigation by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee as an alleged propagandist for the Chinese Communist Party. Singham finances a number of groups in the U.S. in the socialist-communist network, fomenting anti-American sentiment on the streets, including The Answer Coalition, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, BreakThrough News and Code Pink, co-founded by his wife, Jodie Evans. 

In recent days, these groups have been actively mobilizing socialist, communist and Marxist-Leninist members nationwide to protest U.S. “imperialist” policies against immigrants, Venezuela, Palestinians and a host of other issues. Even there, major news outlets are largely ignoring the role of far-left groups in organizing the protests and describing them instead with sweeping statements framed as national consensus. CNN called the protests a “nationwide outcry,” while the New York Times described the demonstrations as a “mounting outrage. Neither CNN nor the New York Times described the demonstrations’ openly socialist organizers, even though the New York Times published two photos of the trademark black-and-white signs of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, its name in bold letters across the signs, and it even published one photo with “FRSO” and “Freedom Road Socialist Organization” across the bottom.

In its investigation of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, according to internal documents made public, the FBI launched its query in 2010 to see whether U.S. activists associated with the organization provided material support to foreign groups designated by the State Department as terrorist organizations. That investigation resulted in raids of activists’ homes and offices that the group called “repression” but didn’t lead to criminal charges.

CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION PROMOTES VENEZUELA REGIME CHANGE PROTESTS ORGANIZED BY SOCIALIST GROUPS

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization and its network of socialist organizations hosting the anti-ICE protests believe the U.S. capitalist system must be abolished, and they support the communist governments of Cuba, China, Russia and North Korea.

It framed Plichta’s arrest as part of a pattern of “repression” against revolutionary activists. 

Plichta’s case illustrates how revolutionary groups can embed themselves within mainstream protest movements, like an insurgency, leveraging popular causes to advance a far more radical political agenda.

Whether the media was oblivious or purposeful, the clues to Plichta’s ideological radicalization were all there. She emerged from her brief stint at Kent County Correctional Facility with a red shirt with “FRSO” visible behind her winter jacket. 

Inside the Fountain Street Church, the group’s organizational secretary, Tom Burke, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 26, gave the local chapter a pep talk in its defense of Maduro, its members leaning on their protest signs as they listened intently. One sign read: “Regime change begins at Home.”

Burke advised them to join other chapters and send a delegation to Maduro’s courtroom for his trial to “create havoc, make the country ungovernable for Trump and his friends and just stir it up everywhere we can.” 

“So, comrades, please join me, and we’re going to defeat Trump and his minions,” Burke said.

Next to him, Plichta nodded in agreement.

“Solidarity!” Burke closed.

Plichta joined the chant: “Solidarity!”

Socialist groups chant ‘Killer Kristi’ while escalating nationwide anti-ICE protests

NEW YORK – Socialist and communist protest groups ramped up their coordinated demonstrations in blue cities Thursday, escalating their anti-government messaging and vilifying Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis.

The groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and The People’s Forum, rallied their members in New York City, Chicago and elsewhere, while the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a self-described communist group, activated its members in cities from New Orleans to Minneapolis. 

The mobilization spawned demonstrations in multiple other cities, including Burlington, Vermont; Philadelphia; San Francisco; Seattle; Atlanta; and Washington, D.C.

Protesters chanted “Killer Kristi!” at a demonstration in downtown Manhattan, where Noem announced the arrest of 54 alleged Dominican Trinitarios gang members.

“Go to hell, Kristi Noem!” they yelled.

FOX NEWS POLITICS NEWSLETTER: JEFFRIES SLAMS NOEM OVER MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING RESPONSE

Other groups, closely aligned with the Democratic Party, including Indivisible and 50501, supported anti-ICE protests around the nation. By late Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nonprofit that has led anti-Israel protests for years, joined the cacophony of anti-ICE denouncements, declaring, “This is state violence.” 

In New York, a crowd of about 300 people carried signs that said “ICE Cold Killers” and “ICE is Trump’s Gestapo.” 

The demonstrations followed the fatal shooting of anti-ICE protester Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer during an ICE enforcement operation in South Minneapolis Wednesday. Demonstrators accused the ICE agent of “cold-blooded murder,” while Trump administration officials said he acted in self-defense after the woman drove her Honda Pilot SUV at him, threatening his life.

WATCH: Protests continue in Minneapolis following deadly ICE shooting

WHO WAS RENEE NICOLE GOOD, WOMAN KILLED IN MINNEAPOLIS ICE SHOOTING?

Extremism experts are warning that the highly coordinated and choreographed demonstrations risk inciting violence against law enforcement and may be designed to manufacture the appearance of widespread chaos while advancing a coherent ideological agenda that exploits domestic flashpoints to destabilize the country.

“I just wish the average American realized that there is a network of far-left agitators in America who are Marxist-Leninists, socialists, Maoists and even North Korean apologists,” Stu Smith, a researcher at the Manhattan Institute with an expertise on domestic terrorism, told Fox News Digital.

“As these ideologues say the issue is never the issue. It’s all about the revolution. After this terrible situation in Minneapolis, they used social media and their networks to mobilize and get on the streets to hurt America.”

AG PAM BONDI WARNS MINNESOTA PROTESTERS AFTER ICE SHOOTING: ‘DO NOT TEST OUR RESOLVE’

At Foley Square in New York, near local ICE offices, leaders from The People’s Forum, a nonprofit activist hub that has received funding from a tech billionaire, Neville Roy Singham, and has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, stage-managed most of the day’s protest. 

They arrived at 8:41 a.m., just minutes before the 9 a.m. start, hauling two shopping carts full of bullhorns and premade black-and-white signs printed with the message “JUSTICE FOR RENEE NICOLE GOOD” and a photo of Good with “PARTY FOR SOCIALISM AND LIBERATION” across the bottom. 

“Want a sign?” one of the organizers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation asked demonstrators, many of them standing with their hands in their pockets.

One man asked for a switch of signs.

“Can I have the sign that says, ‘ICE OUT OF OUR COMMUNITY’?” he said.

Beyond New York, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization led raucous protests near the site of the killing soon after news spread of the shooting.

According to internal FBI documents made public, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization has been the subject of federal scrutiny. In 2015, the FBI opened an investigation into the group to assess potential criminal activity. 

While no charges were filed, internal FBI documents described the organization as a “revolutionary socialist and Marxist-Leninist organization” and cited alleged ties to foreign Marxist-Leninist extremist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC.

At the New York City demonstration, protesters spoke bluntly about their ideological orientation.  

“I personally identify as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, following the teachings of [former communist China leader] Mao Zedong,” said demonstrator Tye Burrus, 18, who held a handmade sign depicting a hammer and sickle smashing a giant ice cube. 

Burrus, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation who self-identifies as transgender, said losing faith in the Democrats and never having faith in the Republicans led to embracing communism.

​​”So, now I am a communist,” Burrus said.

One demonstrator sold copies of the Workers Vanguard, which calls itself a “Marxist Newspaper” of the Spartacist League, the U.S. chapter of the International Communist League.

ICE AGENT’S ACTIONS IN MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING WERE ‘ABSOLUTELY REASONABLE’: EXPERT

“One dollar please,” she said, circulating in the crowd.

Another protester handed out copies of a newspaper, The Revolution, which urges readers to “join the fight for socialist revolution.” The paper, which identifies itself as a product of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth and its local chapter at the City University of New York, notes that it advocates “the program of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky.”

Yet another demonstrator, this one from the City University of New York student group, held a sign advocating “FOR A REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS PARTY,” a labor party inspired by Soviet communist leader Leon Trotsky. The bottom of the sign said, “REVOLUTIONARY INTERNATIONALIST YOUTH.” 

Members of Refuse Fascism, a group that describes itself as “anti-fascist,” moved through the crowd, handing out slick, freshly printed pamphlets titled “The People’s Indictment of Donald Trump,” outlining what organizers described as a history of alleged constitutional violations by Trump. Online, it announced plans for a protest at the White House on Saturday at 1 p.m., posting online, “Trump’s ICE Gestapo commits cold-blooded murder.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS’ CHOOSE ‘RAGE POLITICS’ OVER SANITY

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose endorsed candidate Zohran Mamdani recently won New York City’s mayoral election, attended the protest wearing red hats bearing the group’s “DSA” initials. Protest organizers declined requests for comment.

On X, Mamdani echoed the talking points of the protesters, alleging that “an ICE agent murdered a woman in Minneapolis — only the latest horror in a year full of cruelty.” 

Among the demonstrators, symbols from different movements appeared side by side. One woman carried a flag for Palestine, while a man banging a cowbell hung a flag of communist Cuba on his backpack.

As the demonstrators circled the sidewalk outside the World Trade Center with Noem inside, Manolo De Los Santos, a founder of The People’s Forum and a regular protest organizer, told the crowd that demonstrators weren’t allowed inside. 

“We are not going anywhere,” he shouted into a bullhorn.

On the spot, The People’s Forum posted De Los Santos’ defiant message on its X account: “NOW. MASSIVE PICKET AT WORLD TRADE CENTER.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

But not for long.

Soon after, the staged protest ended, the activists shuffled away and organizers from The People’s Forum bundled up their megaphones and rolled away with their grocery carts filled with signs, neatly stacked and ready for use another day.

Familiar groups mobilize immediately after ICE shooting of Minnesota protester

Within hours of a Minnesota protester being fatally shot after allegedly attempting to run over ICE agents, a familiar network of far-left protesters for causes ranging from communism to climate change mobilized across the country.

The deceased, identified as 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by the Minneapolis City Council on Wednesday afternoon, was killed at the wheel of her SUV just after 11 a.m. ET. 

Federal authorities said she had tried to run over ICE agents who were part of a 2,000-strong team sent to the Twin Cities to round up and deport illegal immigrant criminals.

“This appears to be an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said during a news conference late Wednesday in Minneapolis. “The ICE officer, fearing for his life and the other officers around him and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. He used his training to save his own life and that of his colleagues.”

MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF BLASTS ICE AFTER AGENT SEEN DRAGGING WOMAN THROUGH STREET, KNEELING ON HER BACK

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Good was shot in the head, and later pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.

“I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.”

Almost immediately, various groups with causes as diverse as socialism, communism, climate change, Palestinian rights and the Democratic Party launched what seemed to be coordinated protests online and in American streets, using similar language. 

The effort by left-wing groups with no obvious shared cause echoed protests over the weekend, when many of the same groups sprang into action in the hours following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

“It’s the same network of people that have thousands of Americans blocking the streets, waving communist and terrorist flags and attacking law enforcement and innocents,” said Brandy Shufutinsky, director of the Education and National Security Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “They are stoking the grievance industry that they built.”

While authorities said an investigation was underway, the protest groups were quick to brand the killing a murder. A sentiment analysis of relevant social media posts by left-wing groups showed the graphic and emotional language used in the posts was designed to provoke moral outrage and mobilize people to take to the streets. For example, posts told people to “get in the streets now,” “hit the streets” and “get to the White House ASAP.”

ICE OFFICERS INJURED AFTER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT STRIKES AGENTS, RAMS VEHICLES DURING ARREST ATTEMPT

“The state is the enemy, the state is the murderer! Resistance is justified,” wrote Fight for a Future, an organization who openly advocates communism.

At 1:24 p.m., the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression, a fixture in left-wing protests, announced an “emergency rally” in New York City’s Foley Square for Thursday. The rally was also promoted by a group dubbing itself “NYC ICE Watch.”

Indivisible, the Democratic Party-aligned nonprofit and PAC that was at the forefront of protests against Tesla and the Trump administration, shared a picture on Instagram of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees ICE, with two Xs over eyes, a symbol often used to portray someone as dead.

HOMAN VOWS TO ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAWS IN TWIN CITIES ‘WITHOUT APOLOGY’ AMID MAYOR OPPOSITION

“Kristi Noem get the f*ck out of NYC right now,” the post read in both English and Spanish. The post was shared by 50501, a newly established organization that played a lead role in the #NoKings protest against President Trump.

“EMERGENCY ALERT. THIS IS AN ALL HANDS ON DECK MOMENT!” wrote 50551 on Instagram at 11:50 a.m.

Indivisible’s post echoed the language of Frey, who had moments earlier called on ICE to “get the f— out of Minneapolis.”

ICE SAYS POLITICO REPORTER JOSH GERSTEIN IS ‘INCITING VIOLENCE AGAINST FEDERAL AGENTS’ AFTER X POST

At 2:44 p.m., Refuse Fascism, a socialist organization active in protests against Israel and the Trump administration, posted a message on Instagram decrying the incident.

“From Venezuela to the streets of Minneapolis, the trump [sic] regime murders and demonizes whole peoples and countries without any pretense of the rule of law,” the group wrote.

At 3:33 p.m., the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Columbus, Ohio, called for an “emergency protest from Columbus to Minneapolis.”

“ICE out! ICE has murdered a legal observer in Minneapolis,” the Instagram post read. “We fight back!”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

At 3:06 p.m., the Palestinian Youth Movement, which organized campus protests following the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas, weighed in.

“The time is rise and resist is now (sic),” the group posted on Instagram.

Second front: How a socialist cell in the US mobilized pro-Maduro foot soldiers within 12 hours

As the U.S. military carried out a daring operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, a second front opened up within minutes in the United States: an information warfare, psychological and propaganda operation run by a hardened cell of self-described Marxist, socialist and communist leaders.

For years, this cell has fomented anti-American hate in the U.S. under the cover of “anti-war” protests, rallying activists after the 9/11 attacks to condemn the U.S. response, appropriating “anti-racism” protests after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, marching with Antifa agitators, organizing antisemitic campus encampments after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and activating “working-class Americans” to support Maduro and his regime in a war against “U.S. imperialism.”

A Fox News Digital analysis of their minute-by-minute moves overnight reveals how this network activated a coordinated ideological and information warfare campaign, moving through digital social media channels with quickly produced posters to mobilize foot soldiers to the streets for an “EMERGENCY DAY OF ACTION” in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and an estimated 100 other cities, moving with the speed and discipline of an organized military operation.

At 1:35 a.m., as U.S. special forces teams had just landed in Venezuela, BreakThrough News, a socialist propaganda arm of the network, published some of the first video from the U.S. military strikes, blasting the Trump administration for waging an “illegal bombing campaign of Caracas,” the capital of Venezuela. It was a talking point that was going to stick.

TRUMP REVEALS VENEZUELA’S MADURO WAS CAPTURED IN ‘FORTRESS’-LIKE HOUSE: ‘HE GOT BUM RUSHED SO FAST’

Ten minutes later, at 1:45 a.m., one of the key leaders of this network, Manolo De Los Santos, executive director at The People’s Forum, a proudly socialist 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in New York City, echoed the narrative on social media of an “illegal bombing.” 

Less than an hour later, at 2:29 a.m., the ANSWER Coalition, a nonprofit co-founded by a proud Marxist, Brian Becker, published a red siren alert on the social media platform X with a slick new poster, calling supporters to the streets in Times Square for a protest Saturday to support Maduro.

“NO WAR ON VENEZUELA! STOP THE BOMBINGS,” the poster screamed, on brand.

EXPLOSIONS HEARD IN VENEZUELAN CAPITAL OF CARACAS: REPORTS

Minutes later, at 2:34 a.m., The People’s Forum shared the call-to-action, screaming: “EMERGENCY PROTEST”

Soon after, at 2:43 a.m., the Party for Socialism and Liberation shared the poster on X, saying, “Stop the bombings…!” 

Congressional lawmakers are already investigating this socialist network for its ties to Neville Roy Singham, a United States-born technology executive who relocated to Shanghai after selling his software firm and starting work that critics say is aligned closely with interests of the Chinese Communist Party. Singham didn’t respond to a request for comment.

MADURO MET CHINESE ENVOY HOURS BEFORE US CAPTURE FROM CARACAS AS BEIJING SLAMS OPERATION

By 3:21 a.m., Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, a research institute chaired by Singham that examines issues through the lens of “national liberation Marxism,” posted a message, denouncing the military action, declaring, “Down with US imperialism.”

Within a few hours, at 6:09 a.m., CodePink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans, condemned the “terrorist United States…”

MADURO JAILED AT NEW YORK DETENTION CENTER THAT HELD DIDDY, GHISLAINE MAXWELL, AND SAM BANKMAN-FRIED

From a military intelligence perspective, experts say the overnight sequence bears the hallmarks of a pre-positioned influence network executing a rapid-response operation. The synchronization of messaging, the staggered release of content across aligned platforms and the immediate transition from online agitation to physical mobilization point to an ecosystem designed not for spontaneous protest, but for ideological warfare.

In this framework, experts say, the nonprofit leaders are foot soldiers in Maduro’s war on the United States, acting as civilian operatives advancing the strategic interests of a foreign ideological project. Their role is not to fight with weapons, but to contest legitimacy, shape public perception, apply internal pressure on U.S. decision-making during moments of external conflict and further the cause of communism, experts say.

At the center of this domestic front is an international coordination structure known as the International Peoples’ Assembly, which functions as an umbrella organization and political command-and-control hub linking communist parties, socialist movements, activist organizations and state-aligned media outlets worldwide. 

One of its media arms, the People’s Dispatch, has explicitly framed its mission as mobilizing global resistance against “American imperialism,” including repeated calls to action on behalf of Venezuela. It lists Singham’s Tricontinental as one of its “partners.” The North America members of its “coordinating committee” include CodePink; the Popular Education Project, an initiative of The People’s Forum; and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Its Venezuelan member is a group called Francisco de Miranda Front, which works closely with its U.S. allies.

At 7:49 a.m., the International People’s Assembly shared the poster for the “EMERGENCY DAY OF ACTION.”

It quickly published a statement condemning the U.S. military action as reflective of the country’s “increasingly militaristic and hyper-imperialist orientation” and calling on members to “resist this pursuit of hegemony by any means necessary.”

TRUMP VOWS US WILL ‘RUN’ VENEZUELA UNTIL ‘SAFE’ TRANSITION OF POWER

The assembly operates in close alignment with Tricontinental, the SIngham organization that functions as an ideological production center, generating narratives, research and messaging disseminated through aligned media platforms and activated through street-level organizations. Singham’s wife, Evans, sits on the International People’s Assembly, tightening the operational loop between messaging, mobilization and leadership.

Experts say the ideological doctrine guiding this network is shaped in part by Prashad, who also serves as editor of People’s Dispatch. 

On the operational side, De Los Santos, executive director at The People’s Forum, has emerged as a visible field organizer. He is listed as a researcher at Tricontinental and has repeatedly appeared at regime-aligned events in Venezuela, functioning as a liaison between the ideological center and street-level mobilization abroad and at home.

MADURO GAVE STATE TV ADDRESS AS US STRIKES IN VENEZUELA BEGAN: REPORT

In 2003, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez backed a new group in Venezuela, the Francisco de Miranda Front, laying the groundwork for an international solidarity apparatus that joined the International People’s Assembly, working with U.S. groups. That infrastructure matured over time into a durable support system for Maduro when he was elected president in 2013.

By March 2019, that relationship was well-entrenched when De Los Santos organized a pro-Maduro protest outside Venezuela’s consulate in New York, physically denying opposition figures access to the building.

TRUMP CASTS MADURO’S OUSTER AS ‘SMART’ MOVE AS RUSSIA, CHINA ENTER THE FRAY

That month, the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Claudia De la Cruz jetted to Venezuela for a four-day conference of the International Peoples’ Assembly in Caracas, urging socialists to “collectivize” their efforts to fight the “capitalist crisis” in the world, according to a video shared from the meeting with the hashtag #HandsOffVenezuela..

“Venezuela is the epicenter,” she declared. “Venezuela is the personification of the anti-imperialist struggle.”

The next month, The People’s Forum hosted Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza during a talk in which he demanded the U.S. end sanctions on the country, according to an article in “Fight Back! News,” a publication by members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. “The evening concluded with Arreaza thanking the crowd and urging people to keep fighting and protesting,” the article noted. “Manolo de los Santos, the executive director of The People’s Forum, took up Arreaza on his request and called the crowd to action.”

WHAT IS DELTA FORCE AND WHAT DO THEY DO? INSIDE THE ELITE US ARMY UNIT THAT CAPTURED MADURO

In May 2019, when a coup attempt failed, De Los Santos appeared on teleSUR, the state-funded TV network in Caracas, saying he’d organized a press conference with religious leaders in New York City to “engage in the battle of ideas” against “imperialist aggression.”

Two years later, in November 2021, Prashad and De Los Santos shared a photo with Maduro, all of them flashing a thumbs-up, with Prashad writing, “Elections in Venezuela today!” He noted that he stood with De Los Santos and Maduro, supporting “sovereignty against imperialism.” 

The next month, De Los Santos participated in a Caracas conference livestreamed on Maduro’s X account, speaking at the 59-minute mark and holding up a manifesto, “Plan para salvar la humanidad,” or “Plan to save humanity.”

He returned to Caracas in April 2022 for the International Anti-Fascist Summit, posting a photo with Eugene Puryear, a senior figure in the Party for Socialism and Liberation, further reinforcing the operational linkage between U.S.-based activists and foreign political structures.

HOUSE DEMOCRAT CALLS TRUMP’S MADURO CAPTURE ‘WELCOME NEWS’ AS LEFT ACCUSES HIM OF ‘ILLEGAL ACTIONS’

The pattern intensified the next year when De Los Santos and De la Cruz attended a conference sponsored by the Maduro government to explicitly preserve the ideological legacy of “Comandante Chávez,” their term of reverence for Chávez.

In late April 2024, Maduro even recognized De Los Santos as he thanked attendees of a conference of the “Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America,” established by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004 to unite communist economic interests.

This past fall, a wide network that included the Communist Party USA, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party and the Struggle for Socialism Party supported an “urgent call for a week of coordinated protests” to support Maduro. Last month, the network took action again, organizing “NO WAR ON VENEZUELA” protests.

RUBIO TO CUBA: ‘I’D BE CONCERNED’ AFTER US MILITARY ARRESTS VENEZUELAN LEADER MADURO

The newest overnight campaign to support Maduro will likely send foot soldiers into the streets to support Maduro and his wife during any trials they face, not just as an expression of protest but as a continued campaign of information warfare on the domestic front. 

Experts say the network that spent decades legitimizing and defending communist regimes abroad and now functions as a rapid-response influence force inside the United States is a new threat matrix that amounts to something the FBI and intelligence agencies investigate as malign foreign influence.

Its members operate as ideological foot soldiers, advancing a foreign-aligned narrative during moments of conflict, seeking to fracture public consensus, delegitimize U.S. action and apply pressure from within.

SEE PICS: VENEZUELANS WORLDWIDE CELEBRATE AS EXILES REACT TO MADURO’S CAPTURE

By daylight Saturday morning, at 8:49 a.m., CodePink invoked a slogan used last year as a theme in anti-Trump protests, declaring, “HANDS OFF VENEZUELA,” and issuing a statement dismissing criminal proceedings against Maduro as a “sham” prosecution. 

By 8:57 a.m., the Democratic Socialists of America, which just saw its star politician, Zohran Mamdani, inaugurated as mayor of New York City, shared a message from U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of the organization, condemning the U.S. strike as “illegal.” 

At 10:29 a.m., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another member of the Democratic Socialists of America, chimed in, saying, “It’s about oil and regime change.”

On cue, at 1:06 p.m, Mamdani repeated the refrain established overnight by the socialist network that brought him to the mayor’s office in New York City, blasting the U.S. for the “military capture” of Maduro, calling it an “act of war” and “blatant pursuit of regime change.” 

The talking points of politicians, activist groups and foot soldiers in the socialist, communist and Marxist network in the U.S. echoed the statements that the two strongest communist powers in the world expressed about their ally, Maduro. China issued a statement saying it opposed the “blatant use of force” by the U.S. in Venezuela. Russia called the news an “act of aggression” against Venezuela.

By afternoon, within 12 hours of first hearing about the military operation in Caracas, the pro-Maduro network started churning out fast clips of its information war on the Trump administration.

MADURO-BACKED TDA GANG’S EXPANSION INTO US CITIES EMERGES AS KEY FOCUS OF SWEEPING DOJ INDICTMENT

At 1:34 p.m., the social media team at the ANSWER Coalition posted a closely cropped video of protesters, holding the ANSWER Coalition’s distinctive yellow-and-black signs and chanting in front of the White House, “Stop the war machine!” The Party for Socialism and Liberation immediately shared the video.

A little over an hour later, at 2:42 p.m., The People’s Forum shared a video of Becker, the co-founder of the ANSWER Coalition, from Times Square in New York City, a camera filming him from behind, as he declared, “This is a capitalist war! It’s a rich man’s war! The kidnapping of Maduro is an imperialist war for a capitalist class!”

MS Now, the new name for MSNBC, reported from the Times Square protest and its reporter only shared a throwaway line about the ANSWER Coalition having a “speakers’ program going on behind us,” without cluing viewers into the group’s proud Marxist politics. 

Online, at 3 p.m., wearing a black-and-white checkered collared shirt, the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Puryear hosted a YouTube livestream, joined by Tricontinental’s Prashad and others. BreakThrough News promoted the livestream with a new piece of graphic propaganda, showing Trump with a mouth gaping open and Maduro with his chin high, appearing stoic and regal.

IRAN AND MADURO TIES SUFFER MAJOR BLOW FOLLOWING US OPERATION AND CAPTURE OF VENEZUELAN DICTATOR

At 3:02 p.m., The People’s Forum shared a video clip on its X account of De Los Santos at the Times Square protest, a microphone in his hand as he scanned the crowd and railed against the U.S., calling the Trump administration a “criminal enterprise” for “kidnapping” Maduro.

“Shame!” the crowd responded, in a typical refrain for the group’s protests.

Back on the BreakThrough News livestream, Puryear asked Becker about the “quick turnaround” on organizing the protests.

NYC MAYOR STRONGLY CONDEMNS TRUMP’S CAPTURE OF VENEZUELAN LEADER MADURO AS ‘ACT OF WAR’

Becker spoke about the night before like a field marshal. 

“A few of us stood up all night last night when we heard the news, conferring with each other, conferring with other organizers and, by 3:30, 4 o’clock this morning, we put out the call for demonstrations to happen today, Saturday, Jan. 3,” he said. 

Between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., he said, leaders of anti-Trump groups, including 50501, which organized “HandsOff” and “TakedownTesla” protests, reached out to the pro-Maduro organizers to join their protests, and the protest numbers swelled with the “entrance” of the groups more closely aligned with the Democratic Party.

Now, he bragged, the results were protests in “100-plus cities.”

As the jet with Maduro and his wife touched down in the U.S. at Stewart Airport in New Windsor, New York, agents with “DEA” across their jackets boarding the plane, the caption on the livestream said proudly: “ANTI-WAR PROTESTS SWEEP U.S.”

“We should be raging!” Becker declared, stoking the “working class” to join the “class war, global war, anti-imperialist war.” 

The protests today, he warned, “are a harbinger of what’s coming.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

FBI probes possible ties of National Guard shooter to shadowy group, a ‘catalyst’ for jihad

Late last month, when former Afghan commando fighter Rahmanullah Lakanwal vanished without warning from his home in Bellingham, Wash., his wife, Khamila, called his phone, trying to learn where he had gone, according to people familiar with the matter. 

“Where are you?” she asked in one call, speaking in their native language of Pashto, according to people briefed on the communications. 

He told her, “I’m busy with some friends.”

Hours later, she called again. This time, he allegedly answered differently.

FOUR YEARS AFTER ABBEY GATE, VETERANS WHO SAVED CIVILIANS DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY

“I’m with Tablighis.”

He continued, “I’m doing Tabligh,” according to sources.

To his wife, the word “Tablighi” had immediate meaning, family contacts said, setting off alarm bells that she shared with Lakanwal’s older brother, Ismail Khosti. In Afghanistan, surnames may vary among family members as they choose different tribal or geographical affiliations. The family is from Lakan district in Khost province.

Tablighi is an Arabic word that means to “inform” or “convey” and it refers today to Tablighi Jamaat, a global Islamic missionary movement established in 1926 in British India as a revivalist wing of the strict Deobandi religious school of thought that today fuels the tyrannical interpretation of Islam practiced by the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani militant groups. Much like its sister group, the Muslim Brotherhood, established in 1928, and other Muslim groups preaching the extremist Wahhabi and Salafi interpretations of Islam, counterterrorism experts say it acts like a conveyor belt to extremism.

Based in Pakistan and India, Tablighi Jamaat’s influence is transnational, with networks operating in mosques and informal religious circles in at least 150 countries, including the U.S. It denounces terrorism publicly, but a report, “Tablighi Jamaat and Its Role in the Global Jihad,” by Brussels-based think tank the South Asia Democratic Forum warned the group serves as a “catalyst, gateway, springboard or antechamber” for Islamic radicalization. Several Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran, have banned Tabligi Jamaat, along with Russia, which disbanded a terror cell in 2020. In 2021, Saudi Arabia called the group a “danger to society.” In the U.S., its missionaries operate freely.

Fox New Digital has learned that Lakanwal’s brother has shared details from the phone calls, previously unreported, with FBI agents. Now, FBI and Department of Homeland Security investigators are scouring the country to see if anyone tied to the Tablighi Jamaat network radicalized Lakanwal, facilitated his cross-country trip or offered assistance, encouragement or financial support for his Thanksgiving eve ambush of West Virginia National Guard service members Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, as they quietly patrolled 17th Street NW, near the White House. Beckstrom died from her injuries. Wolfe remains critically injured.

TRUMP ADMIN ‘ACTIVELY RE-EXAMINING ALL OF THE AFGHANS IMPORTED INTO THE COUNTRY’ FOLLOWING DC SHOOTING

On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem hinted at this new information, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “We believe he was radicalized since he’s been here in this country. We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state.”

Amid reports that Lakanwal was isolated, depressed and psychologically distressed, counterterrorism experts said the new details add a critical dimension to the investigation,  noting that untreated trauma, isolation and grievances can create psychological conditions for extremist ideology to gain a foothold, creating “wound collectors,” a term that retired FBI special agent Joe Navarro coined to describe extremists, from Usama bin Laden to “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, who use perceived injustices to justify violence with “no statute of limitations on their suffering.”

Flashback: Tablighi to American Taliban

While Tablighi Jamaat’s leaders say their movement is apolitical, focused on , an Arabic word for evangelizing or proselytizing, counterterrorism experts have said the movement’s insular missionary culture has appeared along the early radicalization paths of some extremists, including “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh, a convert to Islam who attended Tablighi Jamaat retreats in northern California in the 1990s, including at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds.

After U.S. forces dropped bombs in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, CIA paramilitary officers captured Lindh in a prison near Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, among imprisoned Taliban militants who revolted, overpowering guards and killing CIA paramilitary officer Mike Spann, the first U.S. casualty of the war. Convicted in 2002 for serving as a soldier for the Taliban, Lindh was freed from jail in 2019 and is free on probation in the U.S. today, tracked by the FBI.

While the Trump administration issued an executive order last month to designate some of Muslim Brotherhood’s chapters as terrorist organizations, Tabligi Jamaat hasn’t been on its radar for action.

ALLEGED DC SHOOTER ENTERED US UNDER AFGHAN RESETTLEMENT PUSH MAYORKAS VOWED WOULD BE DONE ‘SWIFTLY AND SAFELY’ 

Ironically, Deobandi Islam is the religious ideology of the Taliban fighters that Lakanwal and his brother battled for years as members of the “Zero Units,” covert forces within the Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, funded, trained and supported by the CIA’s secret “Special Activities Division” to fight the Taliban. 

While these Afghan fighters battled extremist interpretations of Islam in Afghanistan over the past 24 years, following the 9/11 attacks, counterterrorism experts note that organizations and mosques established by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood and Tablighi Jamaat have spread worldwide. Tablighi Jamaat representatives in Pakistan and India didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

A Brother’s Shame

The irony is not lost on Lakanwal’s brother, Khosti, a former company commander in NDS-03, known as the Kandahar Strike Force, where his brother worked as a paramilitary officer, former colleagues said. Over the past several days, he has told former Afghan military and intelligence veterans that he is “ashamed” of his brother’s murderous rampage and he wants the full truth to emerge of how he ended up on 17th Street NW, turning his weapon on the very troops he had spent years protecting. 

Literally translated, Lakanwal’s brother said, “This was a wrong action,” using the Pashto word to describe something that is wrong to do.

He told his former colleagues, “I am ashamed of this action,” using the word , a derivative of the Pashto word for shame, a powerful dynamic in the honor culture of Pashtunwali in which many of the men grew up.

ABBEY GATE GOLD STAR FATHER BLISTERS BIDEN AFTER AFGHAN NATIONAL ALLEGEDLY AMBUSHES 2 NATIONAL GUARDSMEN IN DC 

Afghan Lt. Gen. Haibatullah Alizai, 40, the final commander of the National Defense and Security Forces after the president and defense minister fled Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, told Fox News Digital that he was sickened by the news of the attack and solving the mystery of Lakanwal’s path to extremism is now a personal quest.

“It’s a serious question how Rahmanullah Lakanwal became radicalized in the United States,” Alizai said. “I feel responsibility for this. I was overall commander of the Afghan armed forces. We must get to the bottom of this because we cannot allow this kind of violence in America or anywhere. We fought Islamic extremism every day against the Taliban. It is our duty as Afghans to help America get justice.”

It’s understood Lakanwal’s wife has since moved with her five sons into the home of her brother-in-law and sister-in-law in the San Diego area.

Countering social media rumors, Lakanwal’s brother also told former colleagues that his only other brother, Mohammed Rasul Khan, is not working for the terrorist Haqqani network and died of a heart attack in 2021 in Dubai.

Now, as federal investigators zero in on Lakanwal’s final words to his wife about being with the “Tablighi,” they are examining his life in the U.S. over the past four years. 

In recent days, media reports have pointed to two emails shared by a volunteer caseworker working with Laknawal to highlight possible psychological issues Lakanwal might have faced, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. After receiving the two emails from the case worker, Shawn VanDiver, president of a nonprofit, Afghan Evac, said he shared them with journalists to highlight unmet needs among Afghan military and intelligence veterans who worked beside U.S. forces.

HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE SAYS ‘NATIONAL SECURITY BLUNDERS’ OF PAST 4 YEARS HAVE EMBOLDENED TERRORISTS

Secretive ‘Manic’ Road Trips 

The emails, shared with Fox News Digital on condition they not be published fully, reveal something else: eight references to “manic” road trips and periods when Lakanwal vanished for days with little communication. While investigators haven’t yet established a direct link between the travel and any religious activity, analysts note that Tablighi work requires men to take small-group mission trips, called , lasting from a few days to several months, to mosques and communities.

According to the emails, after U.S. forces flew Afghan fighters from the “Zero Units” out on Aug. 15, 2021, Lakanwal and his family were moved to the furthest corner of the continental U.S. in Bellingham, a small seaside town, in January 2022. By March 2023, a volunteer case manager wrote in the emails that Lakanwal had lost his job, and he started engaging in “reckless travel,” “manic” bursts, where “he will take off in the family car and drive non stop to A. Chicago B. Arizona this time.” 

In an email on Jan. 11, 2024, she lamented, My Afghan families, now in WA almost two vears are not thriving.” She added, “No matter how many Pashto interpreters we use, and interventions, they are steering their families in ways that in the USA will lead to catastrophe.’

She noted, “They have 3 of us White, American women volunteers trying to patch benefits together and chase [Department of Social and Human Services] requirements and English classes that none of them attend.”

Overwhelmed, she wondered, “Perhaps is there a Pashto speaking Afghan male leader or advisor or resource that we can bring to these men to help them collectively and individually make better choices for their families ?”

ALINA HABBA BLASTS BIDEN IMMIGRATION POLICIES AS ‘ABSOLUTE FAILURE’ AFTER DEADLY NATIONAL GUARD AMBUSH

By Jan. 31, 2024, the caseworker wrote a series of bullet points, including this: “He drives day and night, and sends map pins to one of the volunteer sponsors, and we can grab photos from Instagram stories, but no other communication. His family generally does not know where he is or when he will be back.”

She added, “As far as we can tell, these trips are not for any productive purpose.” She said he paid for gas with the EBT stipend he received from the government.

She continued: “The last time he came home from a trip, (chicago) he demanded that his wife divorce him, (in front of sponsors who witnessed this).” He apparently deployed a Thabligi interpretation of Islam that says husbands can say, “I divorce you,” three times to end a marriage.

Her last bullet point was: “Right now, since he is off on a manic trip that has taken him from Bellingham to Phoenix to Indianapolis, his wife, Khamila, has been home with the boys in a period of relative stability.”

Khosti now tells Afghan friends that he wonders how his brother financed the 2,800-mile one-way trip from Bellingham to Washington, D.C., and how he obtained a firearm. 

A Company Commander’s Grief

VETERANS GROUPS URGE TRUMP ADMIN TO CONTINUE AFGHAN ALLY SUPPORT PROGRAM AMID BUDGET CUT CONCERNS

When Lakanwal’s company commander, Mohammad Iqbal Selanee, learned the news of the shooting, he was on the job as a janitor in a San Diego-area hotel. He wasn’t embarking on life-or-death missions, like he’d been doing beside U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but he was grateful to America for the gift of a new, safe start for his family. 

Looking at the photos of the National Guard soldiers shot by Lakanwal, he said he recalled the faces of U.S. servicemembers he’d fought beside. He also thought of his daughter, 11, as he focused on the image of Beckstrom, the young woman from West Virginia murdered. Spread across the U.S. at far-flung posts, he was hundreds of miles away from Lakanwal as his former charge had fled his home for secret road trips. 

Now, he has spent the past several days piecing together Lakanwal’s alleged descent in the U.S. into a new army of zealotry with the Tablighi Jamaat.

“He’s been with Tablighi Jamaat,” in the U.S., he said. “He isolated himself. He was away from his friends and family. Some people hurt themselves. He hurt the whole nation.”

“I’m not a commander anymore in the military, but as a human being, this is my responsibility to uncover what happened to Rahmanullah, for the safety of everyone. This is a big tragedy. For 20 years, we have fought beside Americans like brothers, and Rahmanullah betrayed that friendship. It is inhumane what he did.”

Lakanwal attended the Bellingham Masjid, operated by the Islamic Center of Whatcom County, blocks from his apartment, mosque officials confirmed. In a statement issued on Saturday, mosque officials said Lakanwal was “not an integrated part of our community.”

‘A Cover for Jihadists’ 

For Ismail Royer, this investigation hits home on another level. A convert to Islam, Royer went to Pakistan in the 1990s after embracing an extremist interpretation of Islam and joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group. He later pleaded guilty to weapons charges related to violating U.S. neutrality laws and served 14 years in a maximum security prison. While behind bars, he crossed paths with Muslims convicted of terrorism charges, including Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a plane over the Atlantic by lighting explosives in his shoe, and Lindh, the “American Taliban.” 

Working now to counter extremism, Royer said Tablighi Jamaat can serve “as a cover for jihadists” and it can be “a waystation, a stage in the path of someone from irreligious to religious,” and then, sometimes, violent extremism.

Alizai, the final commander of Afghan military forces, said he fears that religious fundamentalists stoked Lakanwal’s frustrations and urged him to lash out with violence.

“Lakanwal was not a terrorist in Afghanistan. He was fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. We know how these mosques and these Tablighis can play a role to radicalize anybody.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

An easy path would be to shame an Afghan military veteran, he said, by saying, “You worked with the U.S.? You were a soldier? So, you killed the Afghans? You killed Muslims? Now they have brought you here. You have no job. You have nothing. You must restore your honor. They act like well-wishers, but they are actually your enemy.”

After hunting Taliban extremists in Afghanistan with American soldiers, Alizai said he and fellow Afghan veterans, including Lakanwal’s brother, his company commander, Selanee, and members of the NDS-03 unit are on a new quest.

“We are on a mission to uncover the truth that led to the tragedy on the streets of Washington, D.C.,” he said, one West Virginia family in America’s rural hinterland grieving and the other keeping vigil by a hospital bedside. 

Socialist group ‘By Any Means Necessary’ escalates campaign to ‘stop’ Turning Point USA

In a Sunday afternoon meeting called a “tribunal,” Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley, Calif., public school teacher and a local fixture among self-professed “anti-fascist” agitators, joyfully led about 40 members of the socialist organization By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) in an after-action report on the group’s “victory” last week in a bloody battle at the University of California, Berkeley against supporters of Turning Point USA. 

At the meeting’s end, Fox News Digital learned Felarca, once arrested for inciting a riot, moved for a vote on the next phase of the operation: to “stop” Turning Point USA chapters, not only on college campuses but also in public K–12 schools, beginning with Berkeley High School, where she teaches.

The motion passed unanimously to “stop fascist recruiting in schools” by amplifying the work of “By Any Means Necessary,” which collects tax-deductible donations under the 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella of the Detroit-based nonprofit, Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality.

The members closed the 90-minute meeting with one-word salutations.

UC BERKELEY TPUSA MEMBERS NAVIGATE POLARIZED CAMPUS FOLLOWING PROTESTS AND ARRESTS

“Solidarity!” said Felarca.

This year, Democratic activists and far-left groups have increasingly exploited the term “fascist” as a sweeping label to justify denying political opponents their constitutional rights. The word was allegedly scrawled on the bullet casing left by the man arrested for killing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, in a chilling reminder of how language can be weaponized to rationalize violence.

In November 2019, the Sacramento district attorney dismissed felony assault charges and misdemeanor rioting charges against Felarca and two co-defendants after requiring them to complete 90 hours of volunteer work. A video from a protest showed Felarca hitting and yelling at a man she opposed as a “Nazi” and “White nationalist” until he fell and Felarca’s allies pummeled and kicked him.

At Sunday’s meeting, Felarca told fellow members that her response to Turning Point USA organizing at Berkeley HIgh School was, “What, no, no way.”

Using the “fascist” term to vilify youth, Felarca continued: “And so, you know, I just think it’s super incumbent on us to, like, work, talk to, obviously, other teachers, but also, most importantly, students to really stop this and prevent Turning Point or any fascist organizing to take place.”

The group talked about a protest activated this month against a new youth Turning Point USA chapter at Royal Oak High School in Royal Oak, Mich.

Representatives from Berkeley High School and Berkeley Unified School District didn’t respond to requests for comment.

ANTIFA VIOLENCE EXPOSES UC BERKELEY’S HYPOCRISY ON FREE SPEECH AND TOLERANCE

“I know it’s possible to stop it, and if we take the same approach that we took to protesting Turning Point last week – to not just ignore this, because then they’ll just go away or, you know, but to also use collective action, and it was crazy, like, find ways to express collectively the power of the movement and not just leave it and hope that the administration will take care of it, because they’re clearly not,” Felarca said. “They’ve already approved the group. Then it’s super, super important that we do that.”

The group’s members also voted unanimously to move forward with a plan to “stop and block” law enforcement officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In one plan, they agreed to order “ICE whistles,” increasingly used in neighborhoods in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City to alert residents that ICE officers are in the area. Felarca said they would brand the whistles with the “By Any Means Necessary” name.

The escalation comes at a moment of intense scrutiny from the Trump administration, which has opened a federal investigation into whether “By Any Means Necessary” and allied groups engaged in an organized conspiracy to deny Turning Point USA participants their free speech rights through coercion and disruption at last week’s UC Berkeley event.

Far from a spontaneous gathering, Fox News Digital reporting reveals the protest was premeditated and coordinated by a network of seven organizations, most of them enjoying tax-free benefits, at least six days before it occurred, signaling advance coordination. 

U.S. Assistant Attorney for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, who flew to Berkeley to lead the civil rights investigation into the case, is well familiar with Felarca and “By Any Means Necessary.” In 2018, her former law practice, Dhillon Law Group, won a lawsuit against Felarca for filing a frivolous restraining order against then-Berkeley College Republican president, Troy Worden, as Felarca led protests on campus against Trump, and an Alameda County Superior Court commissioner ordered Felarca to pay Worden $11,100 in legal fees.

Earlier, in February 2017, “By Any Means Necessary” leaders bragged that they got right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos canceled from a talk on the campus of UC Berkeley. 

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show” and spokesman for Turning Point USA, said the new escalation by Felarca and “By Any Means Necessary” is “fundamentally un-American” and represents a “conspiracy to silence the free speech of others.”

CALIFORNIA WOMAN CHARGED IN CONNECTION WITH DISRUPTING APRIL TURNING POINT USA EVENT ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS

“Turning Point USA has grown over the years not because we tried to silence others or that we engaged in some operation to shut the voices of others,” said Kolvet, who was a close friend of Kirk. “We grew because Charlie believed that our ideas were better, and that if more young people heard them they would be convinced and persuaded to believe them too.”

Kolvet directly addressed the campaign by leaders of “By Any Means Necessary” against the constitutional rights of Turning Point USA members, saying, “Any organization formed or animated by a guiding mission to harass, heckle and attack events hosted by other groups — just because they don’t agree with their ideas — is fundamentally un-American and is engaging in a conspiracy to silence the free speech of others. This is especially egregious given that Turning Point USA’s events involve minors. These are young kids being attacked by left-wing radicals who are adults! This 100% should be investigated by authorities.”

During the Sunday meeting, Ronald Cruz, an attorney for “By Any Means Necessary,” described moving from classroom to classroom across the UC Berkeley campus, including at a class on environmental racism, to mobilize opposition not just to Turning Point USA’s viewpoints but to the physical presence of Turning Point USA speakers and attendees on university property. 

“We’re ‘By Any Means Necessary.” We’re a militant organization,” Cruz said.

Cruz heralded activists for pivoting quickly as police attempted to contain last week’s demonstration.

“I’m very proud that we were very intelligent about how we approached the day and made it as militant as possible,” he said, congratulating the group for being “unfazed” by the Justice Department’s investigation. “We were able to lead that day,” he said. “We were the unquestionable leadership of the day.”

Felarca did not respond to a request for comment.

INSIDE THE CHAOS OF BLOODY BERKELEY AS PROTESTERS GO WILD DURING TURNING POINT USA EVENT

The escalation by the group “By Any Means Necessary” also reveals a deeper structural concern first surfaced in earlier reporting: the group’s formal financial and legal infrastructure is housed inside the “United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund,” a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

The metadata on the protest flyers directly identify “United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund” and Cruz as the owners and creators of the posters designed to coordinate the protest and smear Turning Point USA. This relationship raises questions about how the nonprofit sector is being used as a legal shield for activities that appear non-charitable and also potentially unconstitutional, including coordinated attempts to suppress one political viewpoint, intimidate political opponents and interfere with lawful assemblies. 

Federal law grants 501(c)(3) charities tax-exempt status to support education, research and legitimate public benefit, not to wage political operations under the banner of intimidating opponents “by any means necessary.” Experts warn this case highlights a growing vulnerability in the nonprofit regulatory framework: ideological organizations leveraging the credibility and financial protections of charitable status while engaging in conduct that would disqualify traditional nonprofits and undermine core constitutional rights.

The distinction between lawful protest and unconstitutional coercion is central to federal case law. Courts have repeatedly ruled that public institutions — including K–12 schools and universities that receive federal funding — can’t block specific viewpoints outright or allow administrators and staff to encourage or enable mob pressure that suppresses a single perspective. 

If one viewpoint can be suppressed as dangerous, legal scholars note, then all viewpoints are vulnerable to governmental suppression, mob censorship or the “heckler’s veto,” as legal experts call it. 

During the clash, police arrested a protester, Jihad Dphrepaulezz, 25, for allegedly stealing the chain necklace of an attendee wearing a “Freedom” T-shirt, similar to the shirt worn by Kirk when he was assassinated. Authorities say police made multiple arrests of protesters.

The seven organizations involved in the efforts to intimidate ticketholders at the Turning Point USA event come from the world of nonprofit philanthropy, the global socialist network and the international “anti-fascist” network, operating with militant tactics, even if few adopt the Antifa name formally.

UC BERKELEY’S BLOODY PROTEST OF TPUSA ALLEGEDLY FUNDED BY FAR-LEFT NONPROFIT 

The seven groups involved in the coordinated campaign against Turning Point USA are: 

• “By Any Means Necessary,” a far-left initiative operating and collecting donations under the umbrella of a Detroit-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund, tax ID number 38-3626850.
• “Gabriela Berkeley,” a chapter of an international organization, Gabriela: Alliance of Filipino Women, aligned with the communist National Democratic Front of the Philippines, dedicated to removing U.S. military presence in the Philippines and bringing a socialist system to the Philippines; it is listed as a fiscal sponsor of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Tides Foundation, tax ID number 51-0198509, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars from billionaire Warren Buffett’s Novo Foundation, also a 501(c)(3).
• “JVP UC Berkeley,” the Berkeley chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that seeks to eliminate the state of Israel and rename it Palestine; the national group last reported about $3.3 million in annual revenues under its nonprofit, with tax ID number 90-0018359.
• “Koreans 4 Decolonization UCB,” a Berkeley student chapter of “Koreans 4 Decolonization,” aligned with organizations that want to expand North Korea’s communism to South Korea and dismantle U.S. military presence in South Korea;
• “Students for Socialism,” the student wing of “Party for Socialism and Liberation,” a self-described Marxist-Leninist group that runs candidates for U.S. president and vice president and leads national protests against the U.S.; its tax status is unclear.
• “Young Democratic Socialists of America,” the youth wing of Democratic Socialists of America, opposing America’s free enterprise system, as a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit, with the tax ID number 13-3109557; it last reported $6 million in annual revenues.
• “Students Organizing for Liberation,” a Berkeley student organization that is opaque about its funding, leadership and organizing structure.

Hatem Bazian, a co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, an anti-Israel group that has gotten 501(c)(3) tax benefits and tax-deductible donations through a fiscal sponsor, the WESPAC Foundation, took video of the protests, building support among his followers. The organizations didn’t return requests for comment.

Details discussed at the Sunday meeting and a timeline of events reveal a coherent, coordinated strategic campaign behind the bloody Berkeley battle last week, including several elements that federal investigators can investigate as a possible conspiracy: coordinated classroom canvassing on the UC Berkeley campus to get students to the protests; pre-advertised flyers designed to produce confrontation “by any means necessary” and intimidate attendees; and physical intimidation to shape political outcomes. 

Felarca said she plans to make Berkeley High School inhospitable to youth members of Turning Point USA. Felarca immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines at the age of three with her parents, who she said, in a first-person narrative, “left to get away from the authoritarian Marcos regime,” of Ferdinand Marcos, who declared martial law in 1972, saying that he faced communist and Islamic insurgencies.

In April 2019, a judge ordered Felarca to pay the organization, Judicial Watch, $20,000 in legal fees for challenging a public records request that Judicial Watch had filed in 2017 with Berkeley Unified School District, seeking all emails related to Felaraca and the words “antifa” and “BAMN,” the acronym for “By Any Means Necessary.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

As she took the vote on Sunday, Felarca invited anyone who opposed their escalated campaign against Turning Point USA to speak up. 

She was met with silence.

UC Berkeley’s bloody protest of TPUSA allegedly funded by far-left nonprofit

Last month, a band of demonstrators marched across West Temple Street in downtown Los Angeles in the national anti-Trump #NoKings protests, carrying a banner that read: “DEFEAT TRUMP’S FASCIST TAKEOVER. Stop ICE raids and deportations by any means necessary.”

In one corner, four bold letters stood out: “BAMN,” an acronym for “By Any Means Necessary.” The rest of the banner spelled out clues to the group’s full name in smaller print: “Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary.”

That organization – one of 266 groups with combined annual revenues of $2.9 billion identified by Fox News Digital leading the #NoKings protests – would soon reappear at this week’s flashpoint on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley.

On Monday night, the group proudly broadcast videos on its Instagram channel of its leaders stoking an angry mob on the streets again, this time on the Berkeley campus, staging a protest that turned into a bloody brawl outside a Turning Point USA event, leading to the arrest of several people.

‘NO KINGS’ ORGANIZER DISCOURAGES VIOLENCE FOLLOWING COAST-TO-COAST ARRESTS

A flyer circulated before the demonstration urged participants to “End Fascist Turning Point’s Youth-Oriented Campaign of Incitement to Violence!” It announced a rally outside Zellerbach Hall an hour before doors opened for the event.

At first glance, the flyer appears like many other activist handouts. But its digital trail tells a deeper story.

A QR code printed on the flyer leads to a page on BAMN.com, a domain displayed on the #NoKings banner weeks earlier for the group, “By Any Means Necessary.” On the page, visitors could directly download a “PDF of flyer” and “PDF of poster.” Journalist Andy Ngo, the author of a book on far-left violence and the Antifa network, shared the flyer on social media, warning that “By Any Means Necessary” is a long-standing fixture within the chaotic ecosystem of groups associated with the “anti-fascist” movement.

TURNING POINT LEADER DEMANDS REPERCUSSIONS FOR UCHICAGO PROFESSOR ARRESTED AT ANTI-ICE RALLY

Fox News Digital examined the metadata embedded in both documents to follow the money on “By Any Means Necessary.” Each file was created on Nov. 9, a day before the protest, and both listed the “owner” as “ronald.cruz@ueaa.net.” The email domain, ueaa.net, links to a far-left Detroit-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, “United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund,” which “By Any Means Necessary” describes as its nonprofit “affiliate.” They act as a seamless entity at protests, from #NoKings to anti-Israel actions after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas terrorists.

Ronald Cruz, a licensed attorney in California, is listed in state bar records as a counsel for “United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund.” Tax records show it has been federally tax-exempt since March 2022. Cruz didn’t return a request for comment.

What’s more, under a label for “Storage Used,” both documents note the files are “Owned by UEAA Legal Defense Fund.” By Any Means Necessary and the United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund didn’t respond to a request for comment.

MEET THE RADICAL DC ACTIVIST MOBILIZING GANG MEMBERS, ‘HARDCORE MEN’ TO TARGET FEDERAL TAKEOVER: ‘REAL ENEMY’

On its official “Donate” page, the leaders of “By Any Means Necessary” confirm the connection. They instruct visitors on how to make a tax-deductible donation, enthusiastically noting, “You can make a contribution to our 501(c)(3) affiliate, United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund (UEAALDF)! Money goes toward our legal cases and broader organizing and education.” With one click, visitors are directed to the “UEAALDF website” at “ueaa.net,” legitimizing the activist network under the guise of charity.

While the organization’s balance sheet is small, with reported tax-deductible “public support” totaling $99,348 over five years from 2018 through 2022, the most recent year available, the implications are significant.

As experts note, the case illustrates how organizations leverage nonprofit status to claim moral and legal legitimacy while allegedly fomenting organized street violence, sectarian division and communal hate, activities outside the boundaries of “charitable” purpose.

MILLIONS EXPECTED TO FLOOD STREETS AT ‘NO KINGS’ PROTESTS TARGETING TRUMP ACROSS ALL 50 STATES

In the wake of the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk in September, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance called for closer scrutiny of nonprofits that receive tax benefits while allegedly promoting political violence.

The convergence of tax-exempt organizations, campus unrest and politically motivated violence underscores an emerging challenge in the nonprofit sector. Groups like “By Any Means Necessary” allegedly exploit the credibility and financial protections of charitable status while acting as de facto political operatives, often in coordination with broader ideological movements like Students for Justice in Palestine, first established at UC Berkeley by Palestinian American academic Hatem Bazian.

The metadata and cross-linked digital trails for the UC Berkeley protest reveal a well-coordinated infrastructure beneath the seemingly spontaneous protests, raising questions about accountability, transparency and the weaponization of the tax code for political warfare.

ANTI-ISRAEL RADICALS FROM ‘GLOBAL INTIFADA’ MOVEMENT JOIN ‘NO KINGS’ PROTESTS

The contrast between “By Any Means Necessary” activists marching relatively peacefully in last month’s #NoKings protest and the violent clash their protests helped incite at UC Berkeley this week highlights how some groups exploit nonprofit status to appear charitable one day while allegedly fomenting chaos, sectarianism, hate and violence the next day.

The UC Berkeley protests also raise questions about malign foreign influence. On its “Affiliates” webpage, “By Any Means Necessary” includes a link to the website for the “International Trotskyist Committee for the Regeneration of the Fourth International,” which is organizing “militants” who support early 20th century Soviet communist leader Leon Trotsky and the rise of a global “revolutionary Marxism.” The committee includes the Revolutionary Workers League and the Revolutionary Internationalist League, both self-declared communist groups.

A flyer, “Victory to the Palestinian Struggle,” includes the logos for “By Any Means Necessary” and the communist groups.

The violence at Berkeley prompted Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon to open a federal anti-terrorism investigation into the agitation. In a letter to UC Berkeley administrators and the UC Berkeley police, Dhillon directed officials to preserve all records related to the protest as she investigated whether the university violated federal civil rights or free speech protections. She told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the protesters exercised a “heckler’s veto” against Turning Point USA, and she would be investigating whether university officials and agitators conspired to deny political conservatives equal protection under the law.

In its most recent tax filing, “United for Equality and Affirmative Action” lists four officers: Shanta Driver, president and director; Mark Airgood, secretary and treasurer; Yvette Felarca, director; and Hoku Jeffrey, director. They didn’t return requests for comment.

One Instagram video featured a note across the front, noting, “BAMN National Organizer Hoku Jeffrey speaks out against Turning Point.” In the video, Jeffrey told the rally that he wanted the protesters to communicate to Turning Point USA attendees that “this is not a campus where they are welcome at.” “What Hitler got away with, Donald Trump and his fascist movement never can get away with,” he said.

Meanwhile, in its tax filing, the United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund claims its “primary exempt purpose” is straightforward: “Further the Civil Rights movement; educate the public on civil rights; conduct research on civil rights matters.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Its homepage features Instagram videos its leaders posted from the UC Berkeley protest. Its website is dominated by anti-Israel protests and calls for “Victory to the Palestinian Struggle!” It invites visitors to sign a petition to oppose a lawsuit against UC Berkeley and the University of California system for allegedly allowing antisemitism against Jewish students on their campuses.

It declares, “Defend the free speech and academic freedom for supporters of the Palestinian struggle!”

Linda Sarsour tells followers she will ‘hold Zohran accountable’ if Mamdani wins NYC mayoral race

Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour issued a thinly veiled warning Saturday night to New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani, saying she will “hold Zohran accountable” to fulfill campaign promises, including dismantling an NYPD unit that polices terrorism threats, protests and riots.

In a livestream on Instagram, obtained by Fox News Digital, Sarsour told her followers that electing Mamdani doesn’t mean that the network that supports him will “let him do whatever the hell he wants when he gets to City Hall.”

“I just want you all to know I’m not going to work for the Zohran administration,” Sarsour said. “I’m not going to work in City Hall, because, guess what? There gotta be people like me willing to stay outside.”

“Our friends on the inside need people on the outside to hold them accountable. To say, ‘We see you. We’re paying attention.’”

Neither Sarsour nor MPower Action, the political nonprofit she co-founded, responded to a request for comment.

INSIDE THE MAMDANI MACHINE: SOROS CASH, SOCIALISTS AND RADICAL IMAMS ENGINEERED ZOHRAN MAMDANI’S PATH TO POWER

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America along with Mamdani, Sarsour has been like a political mentor to Mamdani. In 2017, they canvassed together for a city council candidate, Khader El-Yateem, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, in a race he lost. Not long after, Mamdani joined the board of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, which Sarsour co-founded. She endorsed Mamdani’s winning race for the New York General Assembly and was an early supporter when he announced his race for the mayor’s job.

MPower Action is one of 110 groups in a wide coalition of Democratic Party affiliates working with labor unions and Muslim and South Asian groups to elect New York City’s first Muslim mayor.

In the livestream, Sarsour said she and her coalition will be vocal should Mamdani fail to meet expectations.

“When he does something when he’s in City Hall and he’s wrong, I’m going to tell him he’s wrong,” she said.

MAMDANI’S PAST ‘VISCERAL DISDAIN’ FOR POLICE ‘SCARES A LOT OF NEW YORKERS’ FOR GOOD REASON: NYC CRIME EXPERT

“Voting for Zohran is not, ‘We’re going to vote for Zohran and just let him do whatever the hell he wants when he gets to City Hall.’ Our job as a movement is we have to hold whoever goes to City Hall accountable,” Sarsour said.

Despite Mamdani regularly invoking his religious roots through the campaign, Sarsour rejected claims that Mamdani’s campaign is centered on religion. 

“Our candidate is out there and just happens to be a Muslim,” she said.

She noted that he refrained from expressing his pro-Palestine activism.

“None of the campaign was ever like ‘Free Palestine’ or the Muslims are going to get extra rights. It just happens to be something that’s part of who Zohran is. But that’s actually not been his campaign.”

MAMDANI RIPPED BY RIVALS FOR UNPOPULAR STANCE DURING FIERY NYC DEBATE: ‘YOU WON’T SUPPORT ISRAEL’

The Mamdani campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani said he would keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner and said later in a podcast that he would expect her to follow his directives, including disbanding the NYPD’s elite Strategic Response Group, which polices terrorism threats, protests and riots.

“I think everyone will follow my lead. I’ll be the mayor,” Mamdani said in the podcast.

Established in 2015, the NYPD has deployed the Strategic Response Group to anti-Israel demonstrations since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel, when protests erupted across New York City, many led by the same groups now backing Mamdani’s campaign. Sarsour and Mamdani have participated in those protests. In November 2024, New York Mayor Eric Adams appointed longtime police veteran Tisch to be the city’s police commissioner.

MAMDANI’S GOD SQUAD: THE CLERICS, ACTIVISTS AND POLITICAL OPERATIVES WHO HAVE HIS BACK

Sarsour said, “I wasn’t really happy about the news that he was going to keep Tisch on for the NYPD.”

She struck the same chord as Mamdani, saying, “What’s most important is that in New York City, the police commissioner works for the mayor. They are not a separate elected official. So that means if Zohran says to Tisch, ‘You gotta do A-B-C,’ Tisch gotta do what the mayor says.”

“Now, if she doesn’t do that and goes against the mayor, then that’s when we’re going to have to go to Zohran and be like, ‘You definitely made the wrong decision here,” Sarsour continued. “What are you going to do to hold your police commissioner accountable to the plan?’”

MEET MAMDANI’S RADICAL ADVISORY CIRCLE THAT INCLUDES COMMUNIST ACTIVIST, ANTI-ISRAEL ADVOCATES

Sarsour tacitly acknowledged the messaging success of Mamdani’s seemingly contradictory alliance of the Democratic Socialists of America with controversial clerics, like Siraj Wahhaj, who served as a character witness for one of the architects of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people.

“You can’t be a Marxist and a jihadist and an Islamist and a fundamental Muslim, or whatever they call him, all at the same time,” Sarsour said. “You gotta pick a side. Either we’re theocrats or we’re leftists. Like these things don’t go together.”

Sarsour told her followers Mamdani will owe her and his other supporters if he wins.

“When Zohran gets inaugurated in January, and as we move forward with this mayor, we have to be the people outside,” she said. “Zohran is going to have to tell his own critics that are on the other side to basically say, ‘Look out that window, those people outside, these constituents, these activists, these organizers that are outside, I’m accountable to them, because they’re the ones that helped me get there.’”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Sarsour also expressed support for two other Muslim candidates: Minneapolis mayoral candidate Amar Fateh, and Jersey City mayor Mussa Ali, who is endorsed by Emgage Action and CAIR Action, two 501(c)(4) Muslim political nonprofits also endorsing Mamdani.

Invoking the Arabic phrase for “God willing,” she added, “Inshallah, you know, we start a new type of politics, right?”

Mamdani’s God Squad: The clerics, activists and political operatives who have his back

When New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani stepped to the microphone outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx last week near Yankee Stadium, his voice broke as he spoke about “the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after Sept. 11 because she did not feel safe.”

Behind him, a Yemeni-American educator in sunglasses named Debbie Almontaser nodded. 

Almost two decades ago, in 2007, she was forced to resign as principal of a city school after defending a T-shirt with the slogan “Intifada NYC.” 

City officials viewed it as a call to violence. She said it was benign. Her case became a rallying cry for Muslim American activists who cast her as a victim of “Islamophobia.”

FBI AGENTS FROM ’93 WTC ATTACK BLAST MAMDANI FOR EMBRACING RADICAL IMAM

Now, Almontaser was back, this time as a senior advisor to Emgage Action and a board member of Yemeni American Merchants Association Action, two of 110 political nonprofits, community groups and political action committees backing Mamdani as he alleges “Islamophobia” against him. Recently, when critics questioned Mamdani’s ties to hardline Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, she sprang to action, helping to organize a protest to defend Wahhaj. 

That rapid, coordinated response captured the modus operandi of a network of political operatives and clerics intertwined with the shared mission of catapulting Mamdani into the mayor’s office.

Mamdani’s background diverges from many of his co-religionists. In an interview, he said he is a Khoja Shia Muslim, part of a small, relatively liberal sect with roots in India. Many of his New York-area allies are religiously strict Sunni Muslims who practice more conservative interpretations of the faith. But they find common ground in politics.

“It’s a sophisticated fusion of religion, politics and identity,” said Mansour Al-Hadj, a Washington-based researcher on Muslim political movements and extremism. “The same networks that once focused on community services are now mobilizing voters and producing candidates. This is how political Islam adapts inside democracy.”

Mamdani’s God Squad includes about a few dozen key players who specialize in painting any critique as an attack on their faith, accusing critics of Islamophobia even as many of them have engaged in strident rhetoric against the U.S., Israel and capitalism.

The Original Imam: America is “filthy and sick”

Mamdani set off a firestorm Oct. 7 when he walked into Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn and later posted a photo of himself beaming beside the mosque’s imam, or prayer leader, Wahhaj.

The imam’s checkered past goes back decades. In a 1992 talk, he said American Muslims should elect an “emir” rather than choose between George Bush and Bill Clinton. Soon after, he served as a character witness in the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “Blind Sheikh” convicted for plotting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people. 

“You know what this country is?” Wahhaj said in 1995. “It’s a garbage can. Filthy. Filthy and sick.”

In 2018, three of Wahhaj’s children were arrested after authorities found 11 malnourished children in a New Mexico compound tied to his family; a grandchild had died in what authorities described as an attempted exorcism. He told local news reporters, “Whatever they did wrong … it’s not acceptable to us.”

The Youth Imam: Resist “by any means necessary”

In New York, the Muslim American Society recently signed on to a letter to challenge “unmistakably Islamophobic, anti-Black, and xenophobic” attacks on Mamdani. Signatories included CAIR National, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter, Islamic Circle of North America’s New York chapter, the Islamic Center of Five Towns, Muslim American Society of New York, Muslim Community Network, Rockaway Islamic Center and a “Syosset Muslim Community.”

Members of the Muslim American Society have long been quick to accuse others of Islamophobia even as they unabashedly call for violence against their perceived enemies.

At an Eid celebration earlier this year, a cleric at the Muslim American Society cast Muslims as victims worldwide. Mohammad Badawi, youth director at the Muslim American Society, declared the local community’s joy would only be complete when Muslims are “victorious worldwide,” adding they would celebrate “after the destruction of the illegitimate Zionist occupiers,” Israel.

He regularly organizes anti-Israel protests in a campaign against “injustice and oppression.” At one protest, Badawi urged youth to “fight back” against injustices “by any means necessary.”

The Street Protester: “Globalize the intifada”

Abdullah Akl, a charismatic organizer with the Muslim American Society Youth Center, leads many protests under the banner of “Within Our Lifetime,” with founder Nerdeen Kiswani. Mamdani joined them before his run for mayor.

Akl calls the street protests “sacred activism,” a mix of faith and resistance that will “free Palestine.” Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the Muslim American Society Youth Center has organized prayer protests on Wall Street outside the New York Stock Exchange and street protests for “Nakba Day,” calling the day Israel was created a “catastrophe,” and youth-led demonstrations outside BlackRock.

Akl turned a subway car into a protest zone with chants of “Globalize the intifada… There is only one solution: intifada revolution.”

When the New York Police Department arrested Akl and other activists, the Council on American-Islamic Relation’s New York chapter sent out a press release demanding their release.

During the Oct. 7 protests this year against Israel, Akl shouted, “We did not act enough! We will show up, stronger than we did the first Oct. 7.” In response to criticism, he posted a message on social media, doubling down and saying, “Saying we didn’t act enough to stop a full blown genocide against palestinians [sic] is incitement?? Saying we need to be louder and protest more and continue to speak up for gaza [sic] is a crime? Zionist tears once again for the most documented genocide in modern history.”

CAIR: ‘We will teach these folks a lesson’

For decades, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has served as an aggressive and litigious watchdog for a host of Muslim figures and causes, often at the forefront of fighting legitimate bigotry. But CAIR has also courted controversy. 

Federal prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism-financing case against the Holy Land Foundation, a nonprofit based in Texas. In 2008, five Holy Land leaders were convicted of funneling $12.4 million to Hamas. Ultimately, no CAIR officials were charged in the case.

Years ago, Mamdani recorded rap lyrics celebrating the “Holy Land Five,” urging listeners, “My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ‘em up.” 

Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations California chapter and one of the founders of a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit, CAIR Action Inc., now seems to be pursuing a new and entirely legal means of financing causes, taking a page from the powerful pro-Israel political action committee AIPAC. He told a meeting of the Islamic Circle of North America, “AIPAC has had the run for 60 years, but it is over now.

“We will teach these folks a lesson … we are coming.” In another speech, he said, “The game has changed. AIPAC has been around since 1961…and now they have a formidable foe!”

The Former Al-Jazeera Host: ‘Make American Planes Crash Again’

This summer, Mehdi Hasan, a former host at Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV network, sat down with Mamdani for a sympathetic interview. As the campaign heated up, Hasan became a full-time defender on social media, swatting at critics and framing Mamdani as the right kind of provocateur, a “once in a generation political talent.”

Hasan’s own record includes sermons likening non-Muslims to “animals” and comparing gay people to “sexual deviants.” He has said his views have become more progressive since then.

After a series of plane crashes earlier this year, Hasan wrote on social media, “Make American Planes Crash Again.” 

He deleted the message amid criticism and said, “I deleted this sarcastic quote-tweet because MAGA and Islamophobic folks are clipping it out of context and trying to ridiculously suggest I’m inciting violence. I was obviously mocking the MAGA slogan ‘Make America… Again’ slogan and highlighting the shocking number of plane crashes under Trump and the FAA cuts. But this tweet was in poor taste, poorly worded, and has allowed people in bad faith to call me a terrorist…”

The Global Imam: Read ‘The Hoax of the Holocaust’

Yasir Qadhi, a high-profile American imam and founder of the AlMaghrib Institute and MuslimMatters.com, selling the puritanical Salafi interpretation of Islam, literally wrote the book on “Understanding Salafism.” Recently, he posted a two-part thread on X endorsing the idea of Mamdani’s win as a “civilizational victory.”

He urged Muslim Americans to move beyond “naive” religious critiques of politicians who are more socially progressive than they are comfortable.

Meanwhile, Qadhi once mocked European Jews as “white, crooked nose, blonde hairs” and “not a Semitic people.” In the same lecture, he recommended a book, “The Hoax of the Holocaust.”

Most recently, he has backed the controversial Muslim housing development outside Dallas, “EPIC City.” He noted in his Instagram post, “open to non-Americans as well.”

He touted some of its features, writing, “Islamic schools, college, masjid.”

The Popular Chaplain: Build ‘Our Own Space’

Imam Khalid Latif is a popular chaplain at the Islamic Center of New York City, a $22 million project to build a hub and “our own space” on Sixth Avenue for young Muslim professionals. He endorsed Mamdani earlier this year and has been an ardent supporter. He has called him “a bearer of compassion in a time where it is far too rare.”

In 2012, Latif led a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that included Omar Mateen, who would later murder 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest anti-LGBTQ attack in U.S. history. He has denied radicalizing Mateen, and he hasn’t faced the same type of allegations that surround other imams.

After the backlash to Mamdani’s meeting with Wahhaj, he posted, “Happy birthday to my brother Zohran… Keep showing them who we are by showing them who you are.” 

He invoked the divine to bless Mamdani’s mission, revealing the fusion of religion and politics for the Mamdani God Squad: “May your 34th year be one of clarity, courage, and closeness — to your purpose, your people, and your Creator,” ending with the Arabic word for amen, “Ameen.”

On Monday, Latif posted a sassy video from the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, saying, “The name is Mamdani, M-a-m-d-a-n-i,” with Latif mouthing the part where the narration turns to, “You should learn how to say it.”

That day, Latif delivered a speech to support Mamdani, pivoting to allege Mamdani was now a victim of “anti-Black racism,” saying, “Anti-Muslim sentiment is always” a symbol of “anti-Black racism.”

The ‘Home Girl in a Hijab’ from Brooklyn: ‘I wish I could take their vagina away’

In a glowing portrait, The New York Times called Palestinian American political organizer Linda Sarsour a “Brooklyn home girl in a hijab.” Over almost a decade, she has been a political mentor to Mamdani, inviting him into the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, which she co-founded. She later endorsed his race for the New York General Assembly, which he won.

All the while, she has been a polarizing figure, once saying about two critics, author and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali and activist Brigitte Gabriel, “I wish I could take their vagina away  – they don’t deserve to be women.” Ali is a survivor of female genital mutilation, a practice that involves cutting the clitoris of a young girl with the idea that it will inhibit sexual promiscuity.

As a co-founder of the Women’s March, Sarsour stepped down amid criticism of alleged antisemitism and not welcoming Jewish feminists who support the state of Israel, or “Zionists.”

At a rally on Sunday night with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Imam Latif told 13,000 people, “This is our city. This is our moment.”

Some Muslims beg to differ. 

“It’s not moment,” said Al-Hadj. 

“Across the boroughs, the Mamdani God Squad is banging a drumbeat of grievance after grievance, from Staten Island to Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Long Island,” he said. “Across the city’s Muslim institutions, you hear the same drumbeat: They smeared us. They silenced us. They fear us.

“In that rising volume, something is lost: Muslim pluralism. The God Squad does not speak for every Muslim in New York — nor for every Shia, every Sunni, every immigrant family, or every second-generation kid trying to thread faith and freedom. It speaks for a coalition committed to illiberal ends, with socialist capture of city politics on the one hand and puritanical religious rhetoric on the other. They insist that to oppose them is to betray the community, so they actually push their own tyranny.” 

Win or lose next week, Al-Hadj said, the Mamdani God Squad had actualized the words that had gotten Almontaser into so much trouble years ago: “Intifada NYC.”

Inside the Mamdani Machine: Soros cash, socialists and radical imams engineered Zohran Mamdani’s path to power

In late September 2017, Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour, once the darling of the Women’s March and the self-declared face of the “resistance” against Donald Trump, was facing mounting criticism for antisemitic remarks and her embrace of extremist views. 

But, beaming in a photograph taken on a city sidewalk, Sarsour appeared unfazed, her iconic fist pumped in the air as she knelt shoulder-to-shoulder with campaign volunteers for City Council candidate Khader El-Yateem. The photo was posted by El-Yateem on the Facebook page he used to promote his campaign, which he lost, but among the smiling faces was a young organizer named Zohran Mamdani.

That photo would mark the start of a carefully constructed political project that, in less than a decade, would propel a now-34-year-old socialist newcomer to the precipice of running America’s largest city – even while campaigning with radical imams, some of whom have supported terrorists and terrorist financiers.

A Fox Digital investigation reveals that Mamdani’s rise was no accident. It was engineered.

SEN. SLOTKIN SAYS DEM SOCIALIST NYC CANDIDATE MAMDANI REPRESENTS ‘NEW GENERATION’ OF LEADERS YOUNG VOTERS WANT

A database of 110 groups backing Mamdani exposes a tight inner circle of organizations that identify as Muslim or socialist, working hand-in-glove with 76 Democratic Party affiliates, allied groups and unions. Particularly important in this political machine are two networks – Sarsour’s MPower organizations and another constellation of groups called Emgage, with which she works closely.

The organizations have been generously funded. In total, billionaire George Soros’s Open Society philanthropies have given MPower and Emgage nearly $2.5 million in recent years, according to tax filings. 

“We fund a range of civil society organizations that work to deepen civic engagement through peaceful democratic participation, counter discrimination including against Muslim Americans and advance human rights,” a spokesperson for Open Society Foundations told Fox News Digital. “The grants that you cite all occurred years before the mayoral race, and we are a nonpartisan organization that does not fund political candidates and their campaigns.”

Mamdani, Sarsour and the groups supporting Mamdani’s campaign didn’t return requests for comment.

MPower and Emgage have been part of a tight inner circle of 30 ethnic and religious groups, that also includes CAIR Action, the 501(c)(4) political wing of the 501(c)(3) Council on American-Islamic Relations nonprofit, the Islamic Circle of North America,“ “Muslim Action Coalition,” Yemeni American Merchants Associations Inc., the “Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group” and “Desis Rising Up and Moving.” They have pumped up Mamdani’s campaign with social media campaigns, canvassing, voters and buzz.

Altogether, they have annual revenues of about $24 million, and they have worked to promote Mamdani’s campaign with endorsements, fund-raising, social media campaigns and canvassing.

The result: a carefully constructed political career that mainstreams the socialist goals long embraced by Sarsour and fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

It’s a machine that is expressing itself in races from New York to Virginia, Minnesota, Texas and California with MPower and Emgage aligning with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party to propel candidates who may share their views. In a campaign called “Defend and Advance,” Emgage SuperPac is pushing Mamdani and Democratic Virginia Lt. Governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi as its “star candidates.”

Emgage’s “Defend and Advance” roster of supported candidates and office holders includes Dearborn, Mich., Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.

“I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,” Hammoud recently told a Christian pastor who objected to a proposal to name a street in honor of a local man who had allegedly praised terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. “And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.”

Emgage’s donations include $175,000 from a group little-noticed by political observers but important in Islamist circles: Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, based in Herndon, Va. It is part of a network of groups that FBI agents raided in 2002 as part of wider investigations into the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas. Federal prosecutors ultimately didn’t file criminal charges against any officials at Sterling Charitable Gift Fund.

MEET MAMDANI’S RADICAL ADVISORY CIRCLE THAT INCLUDES COMMUNIST ACTIVIST, ANTI-ISRAEL ADVOCATES

Over almost a decade, Sarsour and her allies have orchestrated a network of well-financed and tightly connected socialist activists, radical imams, political organizers and nonprofit organizations funded with millions of dollars by major philanthropies including Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Ford Foundation, Macarthur Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

The confluence of big philanthropy, partisan operatives and clerical authority has helped drive Mamdani’s ascent. Its architecture combines nonprofit activism with faith-based politics and the precision of a professional campaign operation. 

“To the casual observer, Zohran Mamdani’s rise might appear meteoric – a story of grassroots energy and demographic change in America’s largest city,” said Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American Muslim who is running against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, with Omar supported by the same kind of political machine being unleashed to propel Mamdani to office.

“The data, the money trail and the affiliations, from the Democratic Socialists of America to the Islamists, tells a different story.”

“Mamdani’s ascent is the product of deliberate design: a sophisticated collaboration between socialist activism and Islamist organizing, lubricated by millions in foundation grants and political donations and normalized through a revolving door of political operatives and nonprofits who embrace Islamists, the destruction of the state of Israel and hostilities to the police, the U.S. and the West,” Al-Aqidi said.

The timeline of Mamdani’s rise tracks precisely with the growth of this network. In 2012, as a student at Bowdoin College, in Maine, he cofounded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus organization known for its rabid anti-Israel activism. By 2017, he was canvassing for El-Yateem’s campaign with Sarsour’s mentorship.

In 2018, Mamdani formally entered Sarsour’s orbit through the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, an organization she co-founded in 2013 to mobilize Muslim voters and elect progressive Democrats to local office. The Muslim Democratic Club of New York served as both incubator and amplifier for Sarsour’s political brand, one that fused progressive politics with an explicitly Islamist social identity. By December 2018, Mamdani joined the board, in an announcement in which the group said, “Help build Muslim power across the city with us!”

UNEARTHED VIDEO EXPOSES MAMDANI’S ‘UNABASHED’ COMMITMENT TO SUPPORTING ANTI-ISRAEL SANCTIONS AS LAWMAKER

With his new role, Mamdani gained access to an emerging infrastructure of influence: voter lists, donor networks and organizing muscle that would later power his campaign to a seat on the New York General Assembly. The Muslim Democratic Club endorsed Mamdani.

Around that time, Sarsour was building her own empire, founding MPower Change as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit housed at Neo Philanthropy Inc. Public filings show MPower Change took in at least $2.4 million between 2017 and 2024, the latest year available, with Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society giving her organization $1.125 million and the Macarthur Foundation funneling her $450,000. It would become a flagship digital organizing hub for not just Sarsour but Mamdani. 

Meanwhile, Emgage Action was expanding its footprint nationally. Also backed by the Open Society network, Emgage Action received a share of $42.5 million that Soros’ foundations pledged to Muslim, Arab and South Asian civic groups beginning in 2021. It has received $1.8 million from the Open Society Policy Center and another $1.35 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Together, MPower Change and Emgage created an unprecedented financial and political ecosystem, leveraging big philanthropy’s dollars and digital strategy to elevate candidates like Mamdani under the banner of Muslim empowerment.

In 2020, Mamdani won his first election to the New York State Assembly, with Sarsour’s explicit endorsement and fundraising help.

By 2020, Mamdani was being featured in Sarsour’s #MyMuslimVote summit, promoted by MPower Change as the face of a new generation of unapologetic Muslim progressives. By this year, his campaign for mayor became the culmination of that project — backed by PAC money, boosted by clerical endorsements and legitimized by an activist ecosystem that had spent a decade grooming him for this very moment.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK LABELS NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATE ZOHRAN MAMDANI A ‘JIHADIST’

To push Mamdani toward the helm of the nation’s biggest city, the network extended far beyond activist circles. Central to Mamdani’s political ascent was a series of carefully cultivated relationships with clerics with some troubling views.

In January, Mamdani courted Imam Muhammad Al-Barr of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, visiting his mosque just months after Al-Barr had publicly prayed to “annihilate” Israel.

In May, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the longtime imam of Brooklyn’s Masjid Al-Taqwa, personally donated $1,000 to the Unity and Justice Fund. More recently, Mamdani met with Wahhaj and called him “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community.”

Wahhaj, who served as a character witness in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” later convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has a long history of calling for the exploitation of America’s democracy to further a conquest for Islam.

“You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do,” he said in a videotaped 1991 sermon. “You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.” 

Wahhaj has also denounced the U.S. government as “controlled by Shaitan,” the Arabic word for the devil, urged Muslims not to befriend “non-believers,” condemned homosexuality as “a disease of this society,” and supported Islamic laws that punish sex outside of marriage with 100 lashes and stoning. In 2011, Wahhaj urged Muslims to donate to the legal defense of the since-convicted Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist dubbed “Lady Al Qaeda” for attempting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Over the years, Wahhaj’s sermons have praised “jihad” without “a gun,” called for an Islamic America governed by sharia law and urged the creation of an “army of 10,000 men in New York City.”

Other imams now backing Mamdani’s mayoral run have also been controversial. Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, a cleric leading the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem, co-founded the Muslim Alliance in North America, alongside Wahhaj. In 2005, Abdur-Rashid publicly defended Rafiq Sabir, an American doctor who joined Al Qaeda and was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison.

DNC EMBRACES SOCIALIST MAMDANI AS RESURFACED ANTI-ISRAEL REMARKS RAISE ALARM: ‘BIG TENT PARTY’

In 2008, Abdur-Rashid defended Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian American professor whom the U.S. later deported to Turkey for “conspiring to provide services” to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Still in the U.S., Al-Arian’s wife joined the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University.

In September, Mamdani appeared as the special guest speaker at Abdur-Rashid’s annual gala. A month earlier, Muslim Association of North America’s social media featured Abdur-Rashid visiting Wahhaj’s mosque, underscoring the continued collaboration between the two imams.

In Manhattan, Imam Khalid Latif, the executive director of the Islamic Center at New York University, has been another prominent Mamdani backer. Latif publicly endorsed Mamdani on Facebook in June, calling him “a bearer of compassion in a time where it is far too rare.”

In 2012, Latif led a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that included Omar Mateen, who would later murder 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest anti-LGBTQ attack in U.S. history. He has denied radicalizing Mateen and he hasn’t faced the same type of allegations that surround the other imams.

For many Muslim political organizations backing Mamdani, these clerics are not liabilities but assets, serving as trusted gatekeepers to the city’s growing community of Muslim voters.

After Mamdani visited Wahhaj’s mosque earlier this month, he tweeted out a photo of the two with the caption: “Pleasure to meet Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders.” When a firestorm ensued, several allies rose to his defense: Sarsour, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the leaders at Emgage Action.

Sarsour shared a selfie with Mamdani, beaming, like they did back in 2017, and wrote, “May Allah continue to bless and protect you.”

A defiant Wa’el Alzayat, the executive director of Emgage Action, sent out a dispatch to followers on Tuesday, amid criticism for their political work, promising, “We are in this for the long haul.”

Back in Minnesota, Al-Aqidi closely watched the defense of Mamdani.

“For over a decade, Linda Sarsour and her network of allies have built the Mamdani machine piece by piece: the institutions, the donors, the narratives and now, the candidate. There was no way they were going to throw him under the bus for one photo with one imam whom they happen to love,” said Al-Aqidi. “Mamdani is the fresh face of a radical coalition, and I hope New Yorkers will reject him. Win or lose, one fact remains undeniable. His rise was not spontaneous. It was engineered and the machinery behind it is only getting stronger.”

Al-Aqidi said; “I hope New Yorkers will shut the Mamdani machine down.”

‘Untold damage’: Global assisted suicide movement targets children

In the spring of 2022, Canadian teenager Markus Schouten’s dying wish was that no child should be forced to choose between life and death.

Markus had just learned he was about to die. His oncologist broke the news to him and his family on the eighth floor cancer ward at British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. They held each other, weeping.

Weeks later, lying on his family’s living room sofa, Markus dictated a letter to the Canadian Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, established to set guidelines on a federal law that allowed “assisted suicide” in Canada in 2016.

Markus opposed lobbying efforts to expand the law to children under the age of 18.

‘LOVE YOU FOREVER’ AUTHOR MAY SOON DIE BY ASSISTED SUICIDE, PRO-LIFE GROUPS CALL DECISION ‘HEARTBREAKING’

“That’s because life is worth living and we should always work to alleviate suffering without eliminating the sufferer,” read the final letter, which was signed by his parents.

The letter closed, “Life is worth living, even when we are dying.” 

A month later, Markus died, surrounded by his family and friends, telling them, “See you in paradise.” 

Three years later, his parents, Mike and Jennifer Schouten, are carrying the torch for Markus in a mission to block efforts to allow “mature minors” the right to choose to die through assisted suicide. They now work alongside a global network of like-minded advocates, including disability rights groups, who argue the assisted-suicide industry targets vulnerable people who would benefit from assisted living services. Already, in Canada, the law is expected to expand to patients with severe psychiatric disorders, as early as 2027.

But they are up against a powerful, well-funded machine. A Fox Digital investigation reveals the Schoutens and other opponents of euthanasia face a multimillion-dollar global lobby that could be called Assisted Suicide Inc., a sprawling network changing laws worldwide, developing euthanasia services for funeral parlors, selling “suicide pods,” promoting “suicide tourism” and even training “doulas for death.”

“As we continue to expand the euthanasia regime, all the safeguards and windows have gone out the window,” said Mike Schouten. “And it becomes open season for anyone to choose death, including children.”

AUSTRALIAN MOTHER CALLS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AGE RESTRICTIONS AFTER DAUGHTER’S SUICIDE

What began as a limited effort to provide adults with terminal illnesses the ability to end pain and suffering has now grown into an international industry. According to a database compiled by the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative, at least 96 organizations worldwide are now part of this movement. 

The global lobby cloaks assisted suicide in the language of civil rights and human rights, using euphemisms in their names, such as “assisted dying,” “medical assistance in dying,” “dying with dignity,” “choice,” “end of life,” “completed life,” “final exit,” “free exit” and the “right to die.”

These groups have a presence on every continent, but are predominately found in the West, which also faces alarmingly low birth rates. There are 41 groups in Europe; 31 groups in North America, with 25 of them in the United States, four in Canada and two in Mexico; 13 in Oceania, with most in Australia and one in New Zealand; and only five in Asia, two in Africa, and three in South America.

While most of their work has focused on adults, with Robert Munsch, the Canadian author of the best-selling children’s book, “Love You Forever,” the latest high-profile person to recently announce he was approved for assisted suicide after being diagnosed with dementia. “Hello, Doc — come kill me!” he joked, sharing the news.

The boundaries are shifting. Behind the push to extend these laws to children lies a legal Trojan horse: the “mature minor doctrine.”

This concept, first established in a 1967 Washington Supreme Court case, Smith v. Seiblyonce allowed limited medical discretion for minors. But over decades, it has metastasized into a sweeping jurisdiction for granting children autonomy – and secrecy – over their medical decisions. Today, it lets minors make choices without parental involvement on gender pronouns, gender transitions, contraception and abortion. In 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, minors can even obtain abortions without parental knowledge.

FEDERAL COURT REJECTS CHALLENGE TO OKLAHOMA LAW BANNING GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR MINORS

Now, advocates are leveraging that same doctrine to argue that children should have the “medical autonomy” to choose death. The “National Youth Rights Association,” a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Hyattsville, Md., uses the “mature minors” to die by physician-assisted suicide.

Euthanasia is already legal for adults in Australia, Belgium, Colombia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and 11 U.S. states. But three countries – the Netherlands, Belgium and Colombia – have gone further, allowing “mature minors” to die by physician-assisted suicide.

In February 2023, despite the pleas of Marcus and his parents, Canada’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying recommended extending the right to some youth, declaring that parents should be “consulted” but that the “will of a minor” with decision-making capacity “ultimately takes priority.”

The same debate has now reached the United Kingdom, where a bill to allow adult euthanasia is moving through the British Parliament. Earlier this year, the British House of Commons narrowly voted 259 to 216 to bar physicians from discussing assisted suicide with youth, meaning nearly half of lawmakers supported discussing assisted suicide for youth.

Katharine Birbalsingh, a British educator known as “Britain’s Strictest Headmistress,” believes it’s only a matter of time before youth are included.

“Assisted suicide will spread, full stop,” she told Fox Digital. “And the people allowed to do assisted suicide will grow, making it younger and younger.”

Birbalsingh argues that Western societies have fallen for the dangerous illusion that “the child must lead,” leading to thinking such as “Oh, he wants to change his gender, or he wants to commit suicide.”

“Once upon a time,” she said, “adults used to say, ‘No, the child is not capable of leading, because he is a child.‘ In the West, we have forgotten that we’re meant to be in charge as adults.”

“There’s just a million reasons why young people would want to choose death,” said Birbalsingh, the founder of the Michaela Community School in London. “You know, young people are compulsive, they make whimsical decisions. They make irresponsible decisions. They’re young. That’s sort of the definition of a child.”

“That’s why they need looking after,” Birbalsingh added. “That’s why we need to look after them as adults. That’s our job. It’s our role in life, to keep and protect them, sometimes from themselves. The people making these decisions just don’t understand young people.” Lawmakers said there was a “very real risk” that proposed assisted suicide legislation, called the “Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill,” would be expanded to include children if they didn’t vote for her amendment.

ITALIAN LAW WOULD REGULATE GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR MINORS

British Labour Party MP Meg Hillier voiced similar concerns during parliamentary debate, warning that teen brains make them particularly “susceptible to being influenced, including into dangerous and risky behavior.”

She said, “In a number of countries, assisted dying laws have been expanded to allow children and young people to end their lives. We need to be alert to that very real risk.”

Another MP, Sorcha Eastwood, cited social media’s toll on youth brain health, saying, “If we throw this into the mix, it has the potential to do untold damage.”

So far, pro-euthanasia groups in the U.S. have remained quiet about extending assisted suicide to minors, but critics fear it’s only a matter of time.

The British Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza warned that the proposed changes would allow doctors to discuss assisted dying with 17-year-olds “deemed competent,” preparing them for the choice upon turning 18. In a May report, she said that she had convened a panel of youth to discuss the issue.

In Canada, the euphemism “MAID,” or “Medical Assistance In Dying,” has softened the conversation. But the statistics are stark. In 2023, about 15,000 Canadians died through “MAID,” about one in every 20 deaths nationwide, a 16% increase from 2022, making assisted suicide the fifth leading cause of death. 

The movement is also big business. Dying with Dignity Canada, based in Toronto, reported $3 million in expenses in 2024, including $803,555 for advertising and promotions. It publicly argues that “mature minors should be allowed the right to choose MAID,” calling it “unfair” to deny a 17-year-old what a 70-year-old is granted.

The British Columbia Humanist Association, the Canada chapter of Humanists International Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in New York City, likewise demands MAID access for “mature minors” and “those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness,” It insisting there is “no moral or ethical distinction between a mature minor and a young adult.” It argues: “Ensure Dignity in Death.” The “high priestess” of euthanisia, Dr. Ellen Wiebe, also supports extending assisted suicide to children. 

The Netherlands offers a preview of what comes next. Legal since 2002, Dutch euthanasia laws permit doctors to end lives of children as young as 1, including newborns “suffering unbearably with no prospects of improvement.” 

By 2024, euthanasia accounted for 9,958 deaths in 2024, or 5.8% of the country’s deaths.

DEMOCRATIC STATES SUE TRUMP ADMIN OVER ENDING SEX CHANGE SURGERIES FOR MINORS

A recent study published in the International Journal of Psychiatry found that among Dutch euthanasia applicants, 73% were young women with psychiatric diagnoses including major depression, autism, eating disorder, trauma-related disorders and a “history of suicidality.” The researchers acknowledged there is an “urgent need” to study “persistent death wishes” in this “high-risk group.”

In one chilling case, a boy with autism, aged 16 to 18, ended his life after describing it as “joyless” and “lonely,” according to the 2024 annual report of the Regional Euthanasia Review Committees, which approves medical-assisted suicides. His doctor “had no doubt about his decisional competence.”

Last year, 14 Dutch psychiatrists urged prosecutors to investigate a case involving a 17-year-old girl, Milou, who died by euthanasia after years of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, following childhood sexual abuse. They warned against the “widespread promotion of euthanasia” leading to “unnecessary deaths.” The Royal Dutch Medical Association scolded the psychiatrists, and prosecutors declined to act.

In 2014, Belgium became the second country in the world to allow child euthanasia, requiring parental consent. The Belgian Federal Euthanasia Review and Evaluation Committee says that six youths have requested euthanasia between 2014 and 2024. Last year, one young person made the request. 

The industry has faced allegedly criminal revelations. In Australia, one alleged “euthanasia ring kingpin,” Brett Daniel Taylor, faces prison for selling vulnerable people lethal veterinary drugs nicknamed “the Green Dream.”

Back in Canada, Mike and Jennifer Schouten remain committed to fulfilling their son’s wish. 

Michael remembers Markus lying on the sofa, dictating the words that became his son’s final message to lawmakers.

One day, in his final days, Markus said to his parents, “I can see what you are doing with your work is connected to what we’re going through. If we can share our story, we should.”

Now, Michael says, “I feel he is blessing our work.”

Anti-Israel radicals from ‘global intifada’ movement join ‘No Kings’ protests

New York City organizers embedded in the global intifada to destroy the state of Israel moved Friday to join the controversial “No Kings” protests planned for today, despite the peace deal reached between Israel and Hamas.

“UAW Labor for Palestine” and “NYC Labor for Palestine” quietly posted a call-to-action for the “Palestine Labor Solidarity Contingent” to meet Saturday at 11 a.m. at Duarte Square between Grand Street and Canal Street in lower Manhattan and then flow into the #NoKings protests planned to protest President Donald Trump.

They’re not alone. Around the country, anti-Israel blocs are slotting themselves into the “No Kings” protests as a “Palestine Contingent” and “Socialist Contingent,” positioning their messages “front and center,” as Seattle activists put it, “from Providence to Palestine.”

‘NO KINGS’ ORGANIZER DISCOURAGES VIOLENCE FOLLOWING COAST-TO-COAST ARRESTS

The alignment underscores a strategic pivot in the global intifada’s next phase, experts say, carrying the anti-Israel message into any high-energy civic protest, even after Hamas agreed to a ceasefire by linking “Free Palestine” to domestic fights like ICE, police and “fascism.”

Billionaire donor George Soros is reportedly funding many of the organizations leading the “No Kings” protests, like Indivisible, whose co-founders, Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, received a $3 million two-year grant last year from Soros’s Open Society Foundations for “social welfare activities.” Details about the “Palestine Contingent” weaving into the “No Kings” protests raises new questions about the way big Democratic donors like Soros are funneling nonprofit dollars into a professional protest industry that is fractious, divisive and partisan, potentially in violation of tax and nonprofit laws.

‘NO KINGS’ MOVEMENT AND WHAT IT WANTS: INSIDE THE MESSAGE DRIVING SATURDAY’S NATIONWIDE PROTESTS

Behind the emotion and patriotic imagery of the protests, a Fox News Digital investigation revealed that the movement’s polished “pro-democracy” branding masks a coordinated network of Democratic tax-exempt nonprofits and labor unions, political action committees, coalitions and for-profit protest consultants that include some of the most virulent activists against Israel, including self-declared socialist groups like the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Democratic Socialists of America and Students for a Democratic Society. 

According to a public database of the protest’s organizers, compiled by the Pearl Project, a journalism initiative, the protest’s “partners” include 265 mostly nonprofit organizations, including some anti-Israel groups, like Jewish Voice for Peace, exploiting their nonprofit benefits to wage a political war against the sitting president. Their nonprofit status shields them from paying taxes on most of their total annual revenues of $2.9 billion, even while they engage in partisan work they aren’t supposed to be doing. Critics say they are allegedly skirting, if not violating, tax and nonprofit laws. Event organizers didn’t return requests for comment.

“They call it ‘No Kings,’ but what they’ve built is an empire of tax-exempt organizations doing the Democratic Party’s work on the taxpayer’s dime,” said Jennica Pounds, a computer scientist who runs a platform, DataRepublican.com, following the money on these organizations. “They are using every excuse in the book, from immigration to Israel, to rage-bait America. There is nothing ‘charitable’ about their professional protest enterprise, and they should be investigated for fomenting so much hate in America behind the shield of ‘charity work.’” 

Already, Trump has said that he has directed the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has opened an investigation that follows the money to anti-Israel groups, including some of the groups who will be bringing their protest signs to the “No Kings” demonstrations. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital, “The Trump administration and the Republican Congress are committed to countering this network of left-wing violence.”

Last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson called the protests a “hate America rally.” Indeed, on June 14, at the “No Kings” protest in Philadelphia, activists from the “Palestinian Contingent,” including activists from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Democratic Socialists of America, hissed as a woman sang the national anthem. 

“Booooo! Boooooo!” they yelled, covering their faces in keffiyehs, carrying Palestinian flags and heckling bystanders, “Zionist!” 

While organizers insist the movement transcends party lines, its structure tells a different story. 

The protest network’s official “partners” include 24 Democratic political action committees that make no secret of their partisan agenda, dedicated to electing Democratic politicians. Among them are the mega-organizing groups Indivisible Action, Hollywood Democrats and the Democratic National Committee’s Washtenaw County Democratic Party in Michigan, Westside Democratic Headquarters in Los Angeles, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club in northern California, 504 Democratic Club and College Democrats of America.

“They call it ‘No Kings,’ but what they’ve built is an empire of tax-exempt organizations doing the Democratic Party’s work on the taxpayer’s dime.”  — Jennica Pounds, of DataRepublican.com

The motto of Field Team 6, another political action committee, is “Register Democrats. Save the World.” However, those PACs are just one layer of a much larger partisan infrastructure. 

About one-third, or 79 groups, behind the “No Kings” protests hold 501(c)(3) status, meaning their donors receive tax deductions while the groups face strict restrictions to do “charitable” work, not political work. They are supposed to be nonpartisan. Yet most have clearly stated political agendas. 

On its donation page, one of the protest partners, “Build the Resistance,” states a partisan mission to “fight against autocracy, fascism, and donald [sic].” Donations go to Oil and Gas Action Network, a 501(c)(3) that reported $1.9 million in revenues in its last tax filing.

Another 100 are 501(c)(4) political nonprofits that may do limited lobbying but still cannot devote themselves primarily to political work. Meanwhile, 24 are 501(c)(5) labor union nonprofits, like the labor unions marching against Israel in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, that also have limits on the amount of political work they can do.

It’s clear that the protests are all about politics. The protest’s own internal online “toolkit” mentions Trump 12 times and describes the mobilization explicitly as a direct stand against “the Trump administration,” “Trump and his enablers,” “President Trump’s authoritarian takeover” in a partisan-centered campaign.

In Rhode Island, the “Free Palestine Contingent” activists will march “FROM PROVIDENCE TO PALESTINE” to “FIGHT FASCISM! FIGHT GENOCIDE.” It connects the battles against ICE law enforcement officers and the battles of Palestinians, noting, “Military occupations and ICE violence are wreaking havoc in Black and brown communities in D.C., L.A., Chicago — and here in Providence. On the streets of U.S. cities, the same weapons and surveillance technologies the Israeli military has used to devastate Gaza are being used in escalated ways against us. What we allow fascists to do in Palestine, they will do to the entire world — and it is our duty to resist them and fight for a free Palestine.

In northern California, activists at “Bay Area Labor 4 Palestine” and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 announced yesterday, “The fight for a liberated Palestine is not over and cannot be ignored,” over a graphic for the “No Kings” protest. They instructed followers to “Bring flags, signs, keffiyehs and art” to the “No Kings” march in Oakland, Calif., at Wilma Chan Park off Jackson Street. 

In New York City, the “Palestine Labor Solidarity Contingent” said its message would be very specific: “STOP ARMING ISRAEL! FUND OUR COMMUNITIES, NOT GENOCIDE & OCCUPATION! END ICE, MILITARY & POLICE TERROR…HANDS OF VENEZUELA!”

Across the country, in Washington state, activists from “Seattle Against War” yesterday celebrated local organizers adding an anti-Israel activist, Tariq Ra’ouf, to the official #NoKings speaker lineup, noting it will be a “great opportunity for us to support the demands of Palestinians from the belly of the beast!”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation’s local chapter in Syracuse, N.Y., posted a similar poster with the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, which has Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as its political candidate in New York City.

In Charlotte, N.C., the local chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation put out a call to members to assemble at 10 a.m. tomorrow for the local #NoKings protest at First Ward Park: “JOIN THE PALESTINE CONTINGENT @ THE ‘NO KINGS’ RALLY…MEET AT THE PLAYGROUND.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

With local partners, including the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Jewish Voice for Peace, activists at the Party for Socialism and Liberation noted that, post-ceasefire, they will “continue to fight for a free Palestine.” Some of the groups in the Palestine Contingent are part of the wider network of publicly acknowledged partners of the protests, like 50501.

In Eugene, Ore., activists with the Party for Socialism and Liberation are rallying members to meet the “Socialist Contingent” at the corner of Mill Road and Eighth Avenue to “march for a free Palestine” and get ICE officers “OUT of our communities.”

In Portland, a local Palestinian American activist announced, “The Nakba Is Still Not Over!” in a reference to the “humiliation” over the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. She summoned activists to the “No Kings” protests: “‼️SHOW UP FOR PALESTINE‼️”

Public school teacher reveals years-long effort to expose alleged student abortion scandal

On a recent morning, Centreville High School teacher Zenaida Perez had a surprise visitor at the northern Virginia school where she teaches English as a second language: a high-powered lawyer investigating allegations that Perez had made public that a school social worker coaxed and funded a student’s 2021 abortion. 

The Clifton school district’s superintendent, Michelle Reid, responded to the allegations the next day, claiming the school system had just “learned yesterday” about the potential scandal. Last Thursday, Reid emailed Centreville High School parents, again claiming that the district had taken “immediate action to engage an external independent investigator to get all the facts.”

VIRGINIA SCHOOL SYSTEM INVESTIGATING CLAIMS STAFF ARRANGED STUDENTS’ ABORTIONS WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT

Perez’s visitor was Mary McGowan, a retired lawyer from Blankingship & Keith, a longtime go-to firm for Fairfax County Public Schools. In a nearly three-hour interview, Perez told McGowan how she had blown the whistle seven times about the abortion scandal since May 2022, only to be ignored and then retaliated against.

School district officials were “covering up” the alleged abortion scandal, Perez said she told McGowan. in the interview.

“Your recollection is outstanding,” McGowan acknowledged at one point, according to Perez. Indeed, a detailed review of hundreds of pages of documents, emails and records confirm Perez’s timeline. 

Perez told McGowan that she issued her first warning on May 5, 2022, in a meeting with then-principal, Chad Lehman, and an assistant principal. She said that a school social worker had allegedly facilitated and financed a 17-year-old student’s abortion the year before, without her guardian’s knowledge. 

Perez said she raised her concerns a second time in a letter sent on May 13, 2022, and she met again with Lehman in November 2022 to revisit the issue a third time, confirmed by an audio recording of the meeting.

FCPS policy states that “every effort shall be made to encourage and support students suspecting pregnancy to discuss their concerns with their parents or guardians.” However, it does not say FCPS employees should inform parents about those conversations.

“As this is an ongoing personnel matter, we are not able to comment at this time,” a spokesman for Fairfax County Public Schools said when asked about Perez’s account.

Born in Cuba, Perez migrated to the U.S. in 1990 after earning a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language, often called “ESOL.” After teaching at Sarasota Public Schools in Florida, she moved to Virginia, ultimately landing a coveted job as a teacher in Fairfax County Public Schools.

The high school is “majority-minority.” Almost 20% of students are learning to speak English, according to school demographic data. About one in four students live in low-income homes and qualify for free or reduced-fee meals.

In the spring of 2022, Perez told the school board investigator she was blindsided when Lehman asked her if she’d given a pregnancy test to a student. She hadn’t, but she did learn that a teen student from Guatemala told her that the school social worker had made an appointment for the student to get an abortion at a Falls Church, Va., clinic in November 2021, and paid the expenses.

In a statement written later that fall, the student detailed what allegedly happened when she saw the social worker. “She helped me with a pregnancy termination, or abortion,” she wrote, according to a translation from its original Spanish. “[She] made the appointment for me at the abortion clinic in Fairfax. She paid for the procedure and kept quiet about it, not letting my family know. I was worried that my family would react very badly if they knew about my pregnancy and the abortion.”

“When the abortion was performed, I was only 17 years old,” she concluded. The student and her guardian couldn’t be reached for comment.

Perez told Fox News Digital the student’s guardian, an uncle, didn’t know about the abortion and was “livid.”

VIRGINIA SCHOOL DISTRICT ACCUSED OF RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION IN TRANSGENDER LOCKER ROOM CASE

A week after the May 2022 meeting with Lehman, Perez says she sent the then-principal a follow-up email, dated May 13, 2022, reiterating that the school social worker had allegedly helped the student “solve the pregnancy issue.” 

Perez had another meeting with Lehman in November, a recording of which she shared with Fox News Digital. Perez asked what he had meant when he had previously told her the abortion allegations were “concerning.” Lehman responded: “I don’t remember the statement or the context of it, so I couldn’t answer that question with you right now. I don’t remember there being a conversation about that specifically.”

She reminded the principal she had repeated her concerns in a letter. When she raised her concerns again about Diaz facilitating an abortion, Lehman responded that he didn’t believe the social worker in question would have arranged an abortion for a student.

Julie Perry, a teacher at Centreville High School, recalled how she met Perez for the first time that fall, as Perry stood outside Room 222A on the school’s second floor. It was about 7:45 a.m., as students scurried into classrooms for their first period. Perry had just run on the Republican ticket for state House of Delegates, losing in a district that is majority Democratic.

“I feel strong. I have truth and God on my side.” – Zenaida Perez

“God bless Zenaida for fighting through this,” said Perry. “What’s so sad are the higher-ups. They’re not concerned about the truth. They’re concerned about keeping silent about these abortions.”

On March 7, Perez told McGowan that she raised her concerns again – now, for a sixth time – in a Zoom call with Heidi Siegmund, an attorney at McGuireWoods, a law firm based in Richmond, Va., investigating a separate issue of alleged workplace harassment at the school.

On March 19, Siegmund wrote to Perez and said: “We will also make sure the Division Counsel’s office is aware of your concerns,” according to a copy of the email.

The division counsel’s office has for years hired lawyers from Blankingship & Keith as outside counsel.

In May, Perez says she learned more shocking news: A teen told her that the social worker had offered to help her get an abortion when she was five months pregnant. The teen didn’t have an abortion and is now a young mother, Perez said.

The young mother wrote a statement about her experience, according to a copy of the letter, written in Spanish, saying a school health provider “gave me the option to have an abortion.” Perez said the student told her the same social worker had given her the advice.

Last week, as news of her allegations spread, Perez watched in disbelief as the school superintendent, Reid, claimed that school district officials had just learned about the concerns Perez had raised three years earlier and many times over. 

Early Monday morning, Perez returned to Centreville High School from summer break, armed with new resolve now that her warnings have been heard beyond Fairfax County Public Schools.

“I feel strong. I have truth and God on my side,” she said.

Global intifada movement rocked by #MeToo allegations against Jewish anti-Israel actor and accused grifter

The global intifada movement, dedicated to destroying the state of Israel, is splintering publicly for the first time, as a fiery Palestinian-American activist who made her name leading New York City protests is accusing a Jewish American actor and self-professed ally of the movement of being a sexual predator and “grifting off of a genocide.”

In a nine-point allegation published on the X social media platform Friday, Nerdeen Kiswani calls Jacob Berger a “failed OnlyFans creator” who rebranded as a “Palestine supporter.”

THE GLOBAL INTIFADA IS HERE. HAMAS-ALIGNED NETWORKS BROUGHT TERROR TO US SOIL AND WE NEED TO STOP IT

“Since then, he’s taken sponsorship deals, asked for donations nonstop and monetized every angle of his supposed activism,” Kiswani alleged.

Kiswani, whose protests shut down Manhattan’s Grand Central Station and have polarized neighborhoods, accused Berger of harassing female fellow activists.

“He sexually harasses and fetishizes Arab women, according to multiple reports,” she said. “Several women have described feeling unsafe around him, especially in activist spaces.”

Neither Kiswani nor Berger responded to requests for comment, but Berger published a video response to Kiswani in which he denied her claims. He said “some heavy allegations have been leveled against me” and called the charges a “personal vendetta” that arose after he did an interview with a podcast host critical of Kiswani. 

In a reverse Uno move straight out of a Muslim soap opera, Berger accused Kiswani of causing “baseless fitna.” Fitna is an Arabic word that means civil war and carries with it serious negative subtext among ideologues bound to a collective identity of one “ummah,” or Muslim community.

The allegations are particularly awkward because, since the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel by Hamas, Berger has become a virtual rock star in the anti-Israel scene, publishing selfies with activist luminaries, including socialist politician Cornel West, political scientist Norman Finkelstein, previously-detained protest leader Mamoud Khalil, Hollywood actor Rami Malek and rapper Macklemore.

In June, former Democratic New York U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman interrupted his own re-election rally, railing against Israel and Republicans, to give Berger a shoutout and handslap.

“Jacob Berger’s the man… He’s a brilliant artist, brilliant human! Jacob, thank you for being here. Appreciate you,” Bowman said as Berger beamed for the camera.

Last month, popular Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef, now living in the U.S., recorded a video, “Hey, Jacob BURGER!… I’m a big fan. I love you, man.”

Days later, in an Instagram Live video, Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib gushed over Berger, as he stood on the “Freedom Flotilla,” sailing toward Gaza. “Thank you, Jacob!” Tlaib said, leaning into the camera to throw him kisses.

None of these activist luminaries have issued a public statement on Kiswani’s claims.

Apologizing for his “white privilege” and “Jewish privilege” as an Ashkenazi Jew with ancestral roots in the former Soviet Union, Berger has crisscrossed the globe from the Bronx to Cairo, and he now draws 2 million followers on TikTok and a million on Instagram, publishing dozens of viral selfie sizzle reels, wearing a trademark look of a keffiyeh and baseball cap at protests and, other times, bare-chested in bed.

The clash offers a window into the murky dynamics of the anti-Israel movement, which has branded itself as moral and virtuous, calling for a “resistance” to “genocide.” While it welcomed Berger, he had previously been known for creating a library of social media content that critics say “fetishizes” not only Arab women but also cleavage-popping Hispanic, Black and Asian women.

In late February 2022, Berger had a very different business model. A former mental health and substance abuse counselor with a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, according to an official bio, Berger had switched careers to become an actor. That month, he launched a new business on the OnlyFans platform for sexually-charged video content, promoting himself as “The Instagram Cop.” He dressed in a New York Police Department uniform while performing sexual capers around town with buxom women, usually earning less than 100,000 views on TikTok.

FOX NEWS ‘ANTISEMITISM EXPOSED’ NEWSLETTER: IS COLUMBIA FINALLY GETTING IT?

“You have a right to remain silent!” OnlyFans wrote, announcing Berger’s new offering. “Prepare for a barrel of laughs…”

After Oct. 7, 2023, the Columbia University graduate made a sudden pivot. A week later, he posted an earnest video on Instagram, speaking to the camera in a NASA T-shirt, decrying the “genocide of the Palestinian people,” calling Israel an “apartheid state” and ending with a chant, “Free Palestine!” 

By the end of the month, wearing a white New York Yankees baseball cap without a keffiyeh, he joined a slow-moving protest in Washington, D.C., led by a group, Jewish Voice for Peace, aligned with Kiswani, heading from Union Station to the back of the U.S. Capitol. The crowd chanted “Ceasefire now,” as protest paparazzi took their images to post later on social media accounts in the emerging global intifada movement.

The next month, Berger posted a selfie video from another protest Kiswani led on the Williamsburg Bridge, between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Wearing a “Bronx Native” baseball cap, protesting Israel’s military response to the attacks, he chanted along with demonstrators: “Free, free Palestine.”

“He centers himself in everything,” Kiswani alleges. “Even when talking to Palestinians and on livestreams, it’s ‘me me me,’ how he suffers, how he is censored, how he gave up fame, while [he is] literally grifting off of a genocide.”

All along, Berger has been blatant about his sexual content, posting videos with scantily-clad women from his first days of anti-Israel protesting. As he joined the post-Oct. 7 protests and befriended Kiswani, he still had fresh on his social media feed a video he’d posted of a woman in a bra and thong underwear, with the caption, “When she likes it rough.” In another video he had on his public feed, he squeezed a Black woman’s buttocks, visible under lace hose and thong underwear, with the caption, “When cops stop you for being thick.”

After joining the protests, he stayed on script with his sexual content, showing two busty women spilling out of their bras, cavorting with each other behind the caption: “When wifey won’t share her girlfriend with you.” He earned 52,666 likes.

By late November 2023, Berger wrapped a black-and-white checkered keffiyeh, the symbol of the global intifada, over his shoulders, under a Pittsburgh Pirates beanie and marched near Kiswani and a banner that read, “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.” That post garnered 2.6 million views.

“Ten toes down for 🍉,” he wrote, using the watermelon emoji that’s become a symbol for Palestinians, its red, black and green colors matching the colors of the Palestinian flag.

Days later, in a show of force against support for Israel, he marched to the Christmas tree lights at Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan with Kiswani, who gave her activist group the name “Within Our Lifetime,” seeking to claim Israel as the nation of “Palestine” within a generation. She established the group as an offshoot of the New York City chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, known for its virulent antisemitism.

Over the years, Kiswani has chanted, “We want to see Israel fall within our lifetime,” telling protesters: “We need allies who are gonna help us achieve a victory, not allies who are gonna tell us to be nonviolent.” She has said, “No Zionists are welcome in our city,” and she has declared, “We don’t want two states. We want ‘48,” meaning the land in 1948 before Israel was created.

Her organization’s website now hosts a “rally toolkit,” with a “roadmap for how your organization or coalition can put on a successful rally and build the movement for Palestine from wherever you are.” It offers a “rally checklist,” with “chants, logistics, outreach, materials, assigned roles, security recommendations, follow up, playlist,” with three “Palestinian resistance songs.” The “donate” button currently doesn’t work.

Kiswani didn’t publicly challenge Berger over the next two-and-a-half years, as he embedded himself deeper in the anti-Israel protest movement with often-cringey content about chasing “Habibti,” or Arab women, and declaring, “Asian Women Are Thick Now♥️,”

“It’s a handful of videos out of hundreds,” Berger says, in his video response to the allegations against him. “I’m an entertainer, comedian and a streamer. I say funny things. Her trying to haram police my content and my live stream style is just insane and out of line.”

Kiswani now faces her own backlash. A self-described “Arab alphamale” supporter of Berger says, “Nerdeen is good at being a dictator,” “acting retarded,” running a “useless organization,” storming Grand Central Station “like idiots” and making Palestinians “look stupid.”

By August 2024, Berger journeyed to Egypt to raise funds for “orphans and single moms from Gaza,” displaced by the war. 

Kiswani alleges: “He reportedly made videos with Palestinian children on a ‘field trip,’ asking people to donate for these ‘orphans’ without consent from their families. When they found out and asked him to take it down, he blocked them.”

Berger denies the charges and says: “But this is, unfortunately, a very ugly side of the humanitarian world that we, as people that work in this field, try to keep to ourselves, because it’s so messed up that if you know these kind of details, it could affect people’s trust in donating to Palestinian causes, period.”

“Jacob Berger’s the man… He’s a brilliant artist, brilliant human! Jacob, thank you for being here. Appreciate you.” – former Democratic New York U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman introducing Berger at a rally

Meanwhile, he kept posting his racy videos. In September 2024, in Dearborn, Michigan, at ArabCon, he filmed a skit promoting a dating app, Olive, throwing a keffiyeh over his shoulders as he chased attractive Arab women, with the caption, “How to find that perfect Habibti😍,” and asked the question, “Y’all wanna go free Palestine together?”

By October 2024, Berger moved to live in Cairo. Kiswani accuses him of “getting a free apartment, not paying for anything, and living comfortably while volunteers around him were actually working.” He denies the charges as “so laughable.”

The next month, Berger shared a supposed message from a follower: “As beautiful Muslim women, I feel we should give anti-zionist Jewish guys a shot. I feel like it isn’t Haram,” or Islamically illegal, “if he rides with Muslims”

By the end of the year, Berger posted a skit of himself hitting on a dark-haired woman in torn jeans, her midriff bare under a jean jacket, tube top and caption that read, “How to get a womans [sic] attention in an Egyptian club.”

Months later, in the spring of 2025, Kiswani flashed a wide smile and “V” for victory with her fingers, in a video with Berger from an anti-Israel protest, both draped in keffiyehs.

Now, Kiswani says, “If you’ve felt uneasy about him, you’re not alone… This isn’t cancel culture. It’s protecting the movement from exploiters. If your solidarity is self-promotion, it’s actually extraction.”

A few months ago, in early May, wearing a Yankees cap, Berger stood somber-faced next to climate activist Greta Thunberg, promoting a “Freedom Flotilla” to “break this siege” in Gaza. In mid-June, he celebrated Iranian air strikes against Israel.

By mid-July, now aboard a new sailing of the “Freedom Flotilla,” he debated TV host Piers Morgan over the alleged “kidnapping” of Thunberg by Israeli officials, who had detained and released her as she sailed off the shores of Israel. 

Last week, as he returned from his own aborted mission of the “Freedom Flotilla,” with “GAZA” across his military green T-shirt and a keffiyeh over his shoulders, activists lined a lobby in the arrivals lounge at JFK. International Airport, yelling, “Jacob! Jacob!” as he exchanged high-fives with them.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“Protests in the street are not enough,” he told a cameraman. “One day we will see Falasteen free, Inshallah,” invoking the Arabic term used by Muslims for “God willing.”

“Inshallah,” the cameraman responded. 

Within days, Kiswani leveled her accusations against Berger as a grifter and sexual predator, and a detractor accused him of helping the cause of Zionism, or belief in the state of Israel, labeling him “a Zio in Kefiyeah [sic].”

‘Queen Reid’: Embattled Virginia schools boss demands personal bodyguard on top of lavish salary, perks

Three years after leaving a sleepy Seattle suburb to run the school district in Fairfax County, Va., outside the nation’s capital, Michelle Reid earns more money than the U.S. president and gets a car allowance. Now she wants a taxpayer-funded personal bodyguard.

In new job posting No. 25212BR on BrassRing, an online recruitment platform, the Fairfax County public schools superintendent is advertising for an “Executive Protection Agent,” based at the school district’s C-suite headquarters on Gatehouse Road in Falls Church, Va. The deadline for applicants is Aug. 5.

SCANDAL-PLAGUED SCHOOL DISTRICT REFERRED TO DOJ AFTER ANOTHER TRANSGENDER LOCKER ROOM CONTROVERSY

The new job would earn between $84,552 to $143,880, according to the FCPS pay scale for a “Unified Scale-Schedule B/Grade 006” job, paying far more than the starting salary of about $58,000 that a new teacher gets in the school district.

“The Executive Protection Agent is responsible for ensuring the personal safety, security and operational continuity of the division superintendent across school campuses, public events, official travel, and private residences,” the job description reads.

The new position comes at a time when public school officials, like Reid, are facing heightened accountability in the post-COVID era over curriculum, contracts, budgets and “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies. In 2021, the Biden administration targeted parents for charges of alleged “domestic terrorism” for raising concerns at school board meetings, but new email records have revealed the allegations were overblown and politicized.

Since taking over on July 1, 2022, Reid has come under fire for allegedly covering up scandals over improprieties in football recruiting, the withholding of National Merit awards from students and, most recently, defying Department of Education orders regarding Title IX protections for girls in sports and schools. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights just announced that Fairfax County Public Schools and four other northern Virginia school districts, including Loudoun County Public Schools, violated TItle IX protections by discriminating against students on the basis of sex.

Last November, the all-Democratic school board voted unanimously to renew Reid’s four-year contract and increased her annual salary to $424,146 from $380,000, more than the salary of New York City’s education chancellor. Board members also gave her a $12,000 annual car allowance. In contrast, the U.S. president earns $400,000 annually.

Over her tenure, Reid has been notoriously suspect of leaks, which occurred this week with frustrated school district personnel anonymously raising the alarm bell over the new bodyguard position. The job description notes three times that applicants must demonstrate “discretion,” noting in one mention that applicants “must demonstrate a high level of discretion and maintain strict confidentiality in all aspects of the role.”

The hiring of a personal bodyguard for a school superintendent is unusual, say experts. The 12th-largest school district in the U.S., Fairfax County Public Schools includes 180,714 students in 223 schools, according to the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Services. 

Meanwhile, the third-largest school district in the country, Chicago Public Schools, is about double the size as Fairfax County Public Schools, serving 322,809 students in 643 schools, according to the latest data, and its superintendent, also called its chief executive officer, doesn’t have a personal bodyguard. 

School district spokeswoman Mary Ann Ferguson said, “Chicago Public Schools does not employ a personal bodyguard position for our superintendent/CEO.”

Talk of the new job has angered local parents and school district staffers.

“Queen Reid demands all the luxuries suitable to her station. It’s all ‘equity for thee, but not for me,’” said Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a local mother who has challenged Reid on numerous district policies.

“They are basically asking for a personal bodyguard for the superintendent,” and that “is not a normal or customary position.” – Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services

Unlike a teacher, the new bodyguard job doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, but rather any “combination of education and experience equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, security management, or a related field.”

In the ad, Reid stipulates the job demands “exceptional flexibility,” with an “unpredictable” schedule, “driven by the superintendent’s daily activities and security needs.”

The ad notes: “Must be available for irregular hours, including early mornings, evenings, weekends, holidays, travel, and extended on-call duty.”

The job requires “knowledge of protective intelligence, behavioral analysis, and threat mitigation strategies,” not to mention “skill in surveillance detection, open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools, and incident reporting.”

Reid has a few other requirements that frame the job as a clear bodyguard detail: “Ability to remain calm and make sound decisions under pressure, especially in sensitive or high-risk situations.” 

Reid seeks an applicant with “experience in threat assessment and protective intelligence, a “focus on conducting investigations and executive protection” and “completion of executive protection training.”

Steven Brasley, media outreach specialist in the district’s Office of Communications, insisted nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Fairfax County Public Schools has long provided a security presence for the superintendent at public‑facing events, as part of the broader safety framework implemented by the Office of Safety and Security,” Brasley said.

The Office of Human Resources, led by William Solomon, and Chief of Safety and Security Brian Lambert, recently “collaborated” on a “new Executive Protection Agent position description,” Brasley added.

Brasley said the role “formalizes responsibility for executive protection — including personal security for the superintendent during various activities — while also supporting a wider array of responsibilities within the Office of Safety and Security that support the entire school division.”

The school district’s official explanation didn’t include any reference to specific threats Reid faces.

Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, based in Cleveland, Ohio, said, “They are basically asking for a personal bodyguard for the superintendent,” and that “is not a normal or customary position.”

He noted, “The job description is one of the shortest I have ever seen for any school security department job,” adding the job boils down to a “one-liner,” looking for “executive protection” at work, public events, travel and “private residences.”

Trump said, “It does not reference other duties which one would expect if, indeed, the job extends to other tasks. There is not even the typical ‘and other duties as assigned’ on the posted job description, which could encompass other tasks beyond the executive protection of the superintendent.”

Brasley said the new job “is designed to bolster FCPS’s work,” “identifying, assessing and mitigating risks of targeted violence against students, staff and schools.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

There is no mention of “students, staff and schools” in the job description.

Brasley said that protection of the superintendent is “a component” of the role,” but the role “participates in larger security and investigative initiatives across the district, such as the ongoing implementation of a new emergency response system and weapons screening.”

There is also no mention of a “new emergency response system or weapons screening” in the job posting.

Zohran Mamdani’s DSA sponsors protest with ‘death, death to the IDF!’ war cry

WASHINGTON — Here on the corner of 16th Street NW and H Street NW, just steps from the White House, across Lafayette Park, a war cry rippled out among a swarm of demonstrators against Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces.

“Death, death to the IDF, the IDF, the IDF! Death, death to the IDF!” they chanted.

They denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was meeting with President Donald Trump, as a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas loomed.

ASRA NOMANI: IRAN’S IDEOLOGICAL FOOT SOLDIERS WAGE PROXY WAR IN AMERICA

Last week, British punk rapper Bobby Vylan shouted the incendiary slogan at the Glastonbury Festival, leading Secretary of State Marco Rubio to bar him from entering the U.S. Yet, his words have now crossed borders, absorbed into the militant propaganda of anti-Israel activists, including groups aligned with Hamas. The rallying cry has become the newest chant for a radical protest network spanning ideologies and continents. And despite demanding a ceasefire for months, their messaging on Monday night made one thing clear: they aren’t satisfied with a ceasefire. They want the end of the state of Israel.

According to new analysis from the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative that is tracking the professional protest industry in a comprehensive public database, a coalition of 40 organizations – with combined annual revenues of $19.2 million –  organized the “Noise Out” protests this week against Israel, with the call for “Death, death to the IDF.”

In this network, 25 organizations — or about two of three — are self-described socialist, Marxist, Leninist, communist, or socialist-adjacent. Another 15 groups — or about one of three — are Muslim or Arab organizations.

It’s an intersectional convergence of extremist ideologies — Marxist, Islamist, and radical anti-Americanism — masquerading as “social justice.”

As the crowd chanted against the IDF, local artist Rafikki Morris, a leader in the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party — which seeks to create an “all-African socialist government” — turned toward the noise and smiled.

“Death, death to the IDF!” Morris responded to the protestors who started the chant. “They’re reading my mind, you know.” The crowd cheered.

A protestor with his face covered in a black-and-white keffiyeh held a sign high — “DEATH, DEATH TO THE 🔻 IDF 🔻” – punctuated with two inverted red triangles — a symbol used by Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, to identify Israeli military targets. (The sign added the words: “Jews for Intifada.”)

One man wore the Hamas red triangle on his shirt. Another carried a sign: “RESISTANCE🔻IS 🔻JUSTIFIED.”

Hours later, the Israeli military announced Hamas fighters killed at least six IDF soldiers in an ambush near the town of Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

The self-declared Marxist, socialist, or communist organizations involved in the protest include:

• Democratic Socialists of America, a 501(c)(4) political nonprofit with about $6.2 million in annual revenues; member Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination for NYC mayor.
• Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a 501(c)(3) hardline Marxist-Leninist group “recruiting and building towards the creation of a new Communist Party.” Its members were at the demonstration, “FRSO” across their shirts.
• Party for Socialism and Liberation, tied to an American millionaire, Neville Roy Singham, aligned with the Chinese Communist Party; it churns out trademark black-and-white protest signs.
• American Party of Labor, which describes itself as a “Working Class Communist Party.” Its member
• All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, which seeks the “total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African Socialist Government.”
• Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, whose founding constitution declares it “dedicated to popularizing Socialism as the correct path after national liberation” in Puerto Rico.

The Muslim organizations involved in the protest include:

• Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, the “9/11 mosque,” known for ties to al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and the Muslim Brotherhood.
• Council on American-Islamic Relations, a 501(c)(3) with $7.9 million in annual revenues; its cofounder Nihad Awad said he was “happy” about the October 7 massacre by Hamas. It was founded in 1994 in a Philadelphia meeting where CAIR leaders referred sympathetically to Hamas using coded language and euphemisms, including saying its name backwards as “Samah.”
• Muslim American Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with almost $1 million in annual revenues; it has been repeatedly scrutinized for its ideological roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim American Society has promoted interpretations of Islam that are hostile to LGBTQ+ rights and women’s equality, and its members have been tied to terrorism.
• Palestinian Youth Movement, a fiscally-sponsored program of WESPAC Foundation Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; it stylizes protest with fashion-forward keffiyehs and Instagram-friendly branding, while promoting a hardcore agenda to destroy the “ongoing Zionist colonization and occupation of our homeland.”
• American Muslims for Palestine, reportedly tied to Hamas.
• Virginia is for Palestine, a decentralized, grassroots Muslim network across cities including Alexandria, Arlington, Blacksburg, Fairfax, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Richmond, Roanoke, Winchester, and the Shenandoah Valley.  Its model is the grassroots cell system — difficult to track, but strategically effective.

The involvement of the Democratic Socialists of America is particularly important politically. With Mamdani’s win as the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, the Democratic Socialists of America are poised to shape the political future of America’s largest city, as it aligns with a movement that supports Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, revolutionary Marxism and chants of “Death, death to the IDF.”

In front of Lafayette Park, Morris led chants of “Smash Zionism! Smash Zionism!” Earlier, a local leader of Jewish Voice for Peace — a protest co-organizer also opposed to the existence of Israel — explained that Zionism is simply the belief that Jews should have a homeland. “I’m thinking maybe we’ve reached the point where we need to be doing something we wouldn’t normally do,” Morris added cryptically. The crowd interpreted it as a call for violence — and cheered.

A white-haired man in a “STOP THE GENOCIDE” T-shirt pushed back: “Violence doesn’t work either!”

Morris snapped: “We will not stand idly by as violence is perpetuated against us!”

Nearby, demonstrators pounded pots and pans and hurled shoes at a large cutout of Netanyahu. “Oh my gosh, he deserves so much more,” said a man who identified himself only as Mohammad, after spitting on the cardboard portrait.

Another protester waved an oversized key — a symbol of the network’s demand for a “right of return,” which would allow millions of Palestinians and their descendants worldwide to move into Israel. If implemented, this demand would drastically alter Israel’s demographic makeup. Today, about seven million Jews and two million Arab citizens live in Israel. But an estimated 15 million Palestinians worldwide, including those in Gaza and the West Bank, claim the right to return. Granting this would make Jews a minority and effectively erase Israel’s identity as a Jewish state — a goal openly promoted by this protest movement.

Underscoring this demand, the crowd chanted in Arabic, “Palestine is Arab! Palestine is Arab!”

Behind the protest signs and slogans lies a broader political campaign powered by malign foreign influence — propaganda, funding, and messaging rooted in authoritarian regimes and global networks that seek to destabilize America from within.

U.S. lawmakers are now investigating three of the protest’s organizing groups — CodePink, the ANSWER Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation — for alleged financial ties to American tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, profiled by the New York Times for funding a “global web of Chinese propaganda.” CodePink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $1.2 million in annual revenues, denies receiving Chinese Communist Party money, but its cofounder, Medea Benjamin, refused to answer my questions about how much she allegedly receives from Singham. 

Earlier in the day, officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations stood at Lafayette Park, shoulder-to-shoulder with CodePink and a wider coalition of anti-Israel Muslim organizations, demanding the U.S. end its support for Israel and furthering their claim of the nation for Palestinians.

Online, their messaging is polished. On the streets, the mask comes off. One regular Palestinian American anti-Israel activist, Haitham Arafat, stormed at an international tourist inadvertently riding a scooter through the protest, shouting at her repeatedly: “Get the f— out of here!” He didn’t return a request for comment.

The night before, at a precursor event to the main Monday night protest, a man, who refused to give his name, led the crowd in chants: “There is only one solution! Globalize the revolution!”

He continued: “From D.C. to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine.”

As I reported on the protest, Michael Beer, director of Non-Violence International, a D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $3 million in annual revenues, blared his megaphone into my ears, while others shoved a Palestinian flag in my face and also shouted in my face.

Meanwhile, the crowd chanted: “It is right to rebel! Israel, Israel, go to hell!”

By Monday night, the full network was activated. 

Benjamin, the CodePink cofounder, appeared like a field marshal entering the fray — petite, stringy blond hair, ballet flats. She hugged a journalist with a Pacifica Radio press pass, while her partner, Tighe Barry, posed in a Netanyahu mask and prison uniform.

Collectively, these groups are not just agitating against Netanyahu. They are part of a long-term effort to mainstream Islamist political narratives in American discourse.

Zuhdi Jasser, cofounder of the Clarity Coalition, a group fighting political Islam, or Islamism, summarized the danger clearly: “What we’re seeing in these protests isn’t just street theater — it’s a warning. Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America is part of a movement that’s teaming up with radical mosques like Dar Al-Hijrah — the same mosque where 9/11 hijackers prayed.”

“His Democratic Socialists of America are marching side-by-side with Islamists and communists who hate everything America stands for. This isn’t about justice. It’s about power.”

During the protest, comrades in the Party for Socialism and Liberation passed out flyers with the headlined, “WE NEED A NEW SYSTEM.” Another friendly local comrade from the Progressive Labor Party handed out a write-up on its work with Democratic Party organizations in the recent #NoKings actions, protesting Trump. And she handed out copies of “Challenge,” the “Revolutionary Communist Newspaper” of the party, with a call-to-action: “Join the International Fight for Communist Revolution.”

The radicalism of the Marxist ideology on the left is matched by on the Islamist flank.

Among the most concerning participants is Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center, widely known in counterterrorism circles as the “9/11 mosque,” practicing an interpretation of Islam aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization that seeks to establish a global caliphate. One imam, Shaker Elsayed, even publicly supported female genital mutilation. 

When I asked Benjamin about the mosque leader’s position on female genital mutilation, she paused and said: “I don’t know anything about this.” It was widely covered by the media.

When I asked her about how much the tech millionaire Singham gives CodePink, she refused to answer, saying, “Can we talk about genocide, which is what we’re here to talk about?”

In 2001, 9/11 hijackers prayed at Dar Al-Hijrah before launching their attacks on America, and a young imam, or prayer leader, Anwar al-Awlaki preached there, before decamping to Yemen and becoming a top propagandist and recruiter for al-Qaeda. His sermons radicalized a generation of extremists, some of whom later joined the Islamic State.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The contradictions within this network are startling. 

A protest leader, Red Canary Song, describes itself as a grassroots collective of Asian and migrant sex workers, advocating for the full decriminalization of “sex workers.” Since 2021, Iranian-American eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam have funneled at least $400,000 to the group through Democracy Fund Inc. Red Canary Song is allied on the same protest flier as Muslim American Society and Dar Al-Hijrah, whose leaders preach strict religious codes for women.

After last year’s protests, Netanyau quipped in an address to the U.S. Congress: “Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming ‘Gays for Gaza.’ They might as well hold up signs saying ‘Chickens for KFC.’”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

That day, the protests in D.C. against Netanyahu ended with vandalism at the Columbus Memorial at Union Station, where a leader from American Muslims for Palestine painted “HAMAS IS COMIN” in blood-red letters. A member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation stole an American flag from the flagpole and burned it to ashes. The FBI arrested both men last year for destruction of property. 

Both are now free, able to circulate again in protests like the one this week in front of the White House, where the new war cry echoed on a loudspeaker, as demonstrators twirled in dance: “Death, death to the IDF.”

ASRA NOMANI: How Socialist Muslims pulled off a 20-year takeover of the Democratic Party

Many people are wondering how Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old socialist Muslim who wants to defund the police, globalize the intifada, and destroy capitalism, has emerged as the Democratic Party’s nominee for New York City mayor, with leaders like former President Bill Clinton fawning over him.

To understand Mamdani’s political ascent, you have to trace the red-green-blue spider’s web that brought him here. This isn’t a complete map — I’ve written a book, “Woke Army: The Red-Green Alliance That Is Undermining America’s Freedom,” to document that story — but it is a snapshot of key turning points over two decades of strategy, narrative manipulation, and activist training.

CITY-RUN GROCERY STORES, DEFUNDING POLICE, SAFE INJECTION SITES: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT NYC’S NEXT POTENTIAL MAYOR

A critical moment traces back to a Friday night in 2008, according to investigative reporting I’ve done at the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative. It reveals how socialists (red) and Muslims (green) seized the Democratic Party (blue) over a long 20-year campaign. At 9:28 p.m. on Dec. 12, 2008, former ACLU civil rights lawyer Ann Beeson sent an email to former Clinton administration senior advisor John Podesta. 

“Hi John,” she began.

Beeson was executive director of U.S. Programs at George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, where she said she oversaw $150 million in annual grants to “promote human rights, social justice and accountability nationwide.”

In her email, publicly discussed here for the first time, Beeson wrote, “I’m writing to follow up on one topic we discussed — what the incoming Administration could do to address domestic national security policies and practices that unfairly target Muslim, South Asian, and Arab communities in America.”

She attached a memo from Farhana Khera, then executive director of Muslim Advocates, a group based in San Francisco, and Aziz Huq, then the director of the “liberty and national security project” at the William J. Brennan Center for Justice, both Open Society “grantees.”

As a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has investigated the convergence of radical leftist politics and Muslim political activism for decades, I have followed a paper trail of tax returns, grant lists and confidential memos, and this email represented the culmination of a decades-long ideological drive that began with Muslim international students arriving in the U.S. in the 1960s, not just to study, as my father did at Rutgers University, but to lay the institutional groundwork for political Islam, or Islamism, in the United States. By the 1980s, they had established a strategic base at 500 Grove Street in Herndon, Va., later investigated by the FBI for alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both groups seeking to destroy Israel and America and build a global caliphate.

The transformation accelerated after December 2005, when Muslim governments convened at an “Extraordinary Islamic Summit” of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. There, they launched a campaign to weaponize the term “Islamophobia” to silence critics of extremist Islam. American Muslim leaders seized the moment to re-engineer the national security narrative, using American philanthropic networks, like the House of Soros, as a Trojan horse to racialize Islam, frame Muslims as the “oppressed” and embed illiberal ideologies within America’s liberal institutions, including the Democratic Party.

DEM SOCIALIST’S NYC PRIMARY UPSET SIGNALS ‘GENERATIONAL’ SHIFT IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY, STRATEGISTS SAY

By January 2008, with Soros pumping money into Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, his philanthropy staff launched a “National Security and Human Rights Campaign” with D.C.-based Atlantic Philanthropies, committing at least $20 million to “dismantle” Bush-era counterterrorism policies. One grantee, the Proteus Fund, based in Waltham, Mass., ballooned in revenue from $9.5 million in 2008 to $73 million in 2023. Soros dollars flowed to groups including Muslim Advocates, the Brennan Center, the ACLU and many others who set their sights on targets, including the New York Police Department. Today, Mamdani says he wants to “defund the police.”

A Pearl Project analysis of 38 documents detailing the operations and funding of the National Security and Human Rights Campaign revealed the coordinated efforts of progressive and Islamist activists to reframe post-9/11 narratives. The aim: clear the path for red-green candidates like Mamdani.

Muslim Advocates grew nearly 10-fold, from $76,331.03 in annual revenues in 2005 to $992,892 in 2023. The Brennan Center’s revenue exploded from $6.6 million to $57.9 million during the same period.

Soros soon funded a new “Security and Rights Collaborative” at Proteus Fund to “restore civil liberties and human rights lost in the name of the ‘war on terror.’” Headquartered in a one‑story building off Research Drive in Amherst, Mass., the new “collaborative” was run by Shireen Zaman, a Muslim activist previously at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Washington, D.C., group tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Their focus: America’s “Muslim, Arab and South Asian community,” called “MASA.” Zaman now works at the Ford Foundation.

Their strategy went beyond policy to narrative warfare.

Starting in late 2008, Soros pumped some $20 million into a “fieldwide communications hub” to arm Muslim groups and leftist media allies with messaging tools. The recipient: ReThink Media, a nonprofit in Berkeley, Calif., co-founded by “progressive” political operatives Peter Ferenbach and Lynn Fahselt, then a consultant to Democratic donors, including Open Society, Proteus Fund, Ploughshares Fund, Carnegie Corporation, Piper Fund, Atlantic Philanthropies, and others “progressive” donors that have since pumped money into ReThink Media. 

ReThink Media became the loudspeaker for the red and the green. Last year, Proteus Fund paid ReThink Media $643,000 as a “communications consultant.” Soros also backed Media Matters, run by ex-conservative-turned-Democrat David Brock, to shape media narratives about Muslims attacked by Republicans.

Over the years, ReThink Media has hired and trained alumni of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, including staffers Zainab Chaudary and Corey Saylor, to promote an “echo chamber” for liberal groups. One narrative: Muslims were under attack in the West, and the Democratic Party would defend Muslims.

This storyline took hold in the post-Obama political landscape.

In late 2010, Open Society staffers in Beeson’s U.S. Programs division distributed an internal memo, “Extreme Polarization and Breakdown in Civic Discourse,” announcing they were giving Podesta’s Center for American Progress $200,000 for a new “Examining Anti-Muslim Bigotry Project” that would “document structures underlying the Islamophobia movement.”

The memo detailed plans to do “opposition research” on groups like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Middle East Forum, which track Islamic extremism. 

The project description noted that “progressives were caught off guard” earlier that year when New York City residents opposed the building of a “Ground Zero mosque” near the site of the former World Trade Center. 

“Progressives” were in “urgent need of high-quality opposition research so that they can switch from playing defense to develop a proactive strategic plan to counter anti-Muslim xenophobia and to promote tolerance,” protecting “progressive counter-terrorism policies,” they wrote.

In another part of the memo, the authors detailed that Open Society was providing a “seed grant” to “New York Neighbors,” a group that had hosted then-Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim American Democrat from Minnesota, and others for a “dignified candlelight vigil” on 9/11, that “provided the press with images of a diverse group of mainstream ordinary Americans committed to tolerance.”

The next year, the Center for American Progress released “Fear Inc.,” a report co-authored by two Pakistani American Muslims, Faiz Shakir and Wajahat Ali, smearing national security experts as “Islamophobes” and portraying criticism of Islamist extremism as bigotry. Al Jazeera heavily promoted the report. Shakir later became presidential campaign manager to Democratic Socialists of America Sen. Bernie Sanders and co-founder of Justice Democrats, a Democratic socialist group that Sanders established, later propelling Muslim politicians Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar into Congress and now supporting Mamdani.

In 2016, as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour stepped forward as a surrogate for Sanders. As Trump won the Republican nomination, Iranian-American eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam funneled $500,000 through Democracy Fund Voice, a political arm of Democracy Fund Inc., into ReThink Media’s “Security and Rights Collaborative” to “respond to escalations of anti-Muslim bigotry.” The fund hires Arabella Advisors, which Atlantic magazine described as the “Left’s Dark-Money Manager, giving it $678,750 in consulting fees at last count.

In Brooklyn, Sarsour rose to lead Democratic “resistance” to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. She was heralded by the New York Times as a “Brooklyn homegirl in hijab,” the headscarf Muslim women sometimes wear to protect their “honor,” according to fundamentalist interpretations of Islam. 

Sarsour launched MPower Change under the umbrella of another big-money Democratic-aligned donor, NEO Philanthropy Inc., to advance “Muslim Power.” She hired Yasmine Taeb, the “first Muslim woman elected to the National Democratic Party,” according to her official bio, and got at least $260,000 in seed money, some of it from the House of Soros’s Proteus Fund.

Curiously, Open Society now backed PR campaigns by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, once named an unindicted co-conspirator in a trial, U.S. vs. Holy Land Trust, that convicted five Muslim men from the network at 500 Grove Street for terrorism financing. They gave $140,000 for its California chapter for “community safety workshops,” $73,610 to its Texas chapter for a “Report Hate” campaign and at least $376,010 for “safety workshops” and PR.

In Canada, Nakita Valerio, a writer at the Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council, wrote about “implicit Islamophobia,” tapping “research on implicit bias” compiled by the Open Society Foundations. These ideas, shaped through critical race theory, merged with the narrative-building efforts of Soros-backed groups to portray Muslims as perpetual victims.

By 2017, with Trump in office, past and present grantees of the National Security and Human Rights Campaign escalated anti-Trump protests. ReThink Media issued messaging like “#NoBanNoWall” that the Council on American-Islamic Relation, Muslim Advocates, Sarsour and others echoed. The Brennan Center tweeted: “#MuslimBan tarnishes American image as land of optimism & opportunity.”

Groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations and MPower Change circulated amicus briefs, petitions and social media campaigns like #RegisterMeFirst to stoke fears of a fictional Muslim registry.

At the street level, the new red-blue-green alliance built up steam, with Sarsour and a cast of political operatives embedding themselves in racial “justice protests,” chanting “From Ferguson to Gaza.”

This alliance isn’t just policy and politics. It is street-level activism. According to our research at the Pearl Project, groups like Emgage, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others that received Soros money teamed up with the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, CodePink and Democratic Party operatives, including Indivisible, MoveOn.org and others, to flood American politics with anti-Israel protests. 

With Trump’s 2024 win, they have pivoted in an alliance of red-blue-and-green to also protest Trump, billionaire Elon Musk and Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla. 

At a June 14 #NoKings protest, teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten railed against Trump on center stage as red-blue-green protesters in the crowd chanted to “globalize the intifada,” wearing t-shirts for the Democratic Socialists of America, emblazoned with their jingle: “SOCIALISM BEATS FASCISM.” 

On June 22, Muslim Advocates shared a social media post from The People’s Forum, a self-declared Marxist 501(c)(3) nonprofit in New York City that promotes the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party, this time celebrating Columbnia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil’s release from detention. 

This year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations directly contributed to Mamdani’s political rise through a new political action committee – the Justice and Peace Fund – quietly giving him $100,000, helping legitimize his platform within a national strategy to embed red-green candidates into the Democratic mainstream.

This isn’t incidental. It’s coordinated.

Through two decades of funding strategy, narrative manipulation and activist training, the red-green alliance – with a vital blue thread – has redefined the Democratic Party. It doesn’t merely tolerate the red-green alliance. It foments it.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The receipts, nonprofits and political candidates like Mamdani are only the beginning. This network has trained a well-funded pipeline of red-green political operatives to be blue and take over the Democratic Party.

Fast-forward to election day in New York. Shakir, co-author of Fear Inc., shared Sanders’ message – “Let’s elect Zohran the next mayor of New York.” After Mamdani’s win, Shakir posted a message: “Fight oligarchy.” On cue, his Fear Inc. co-author Ali scolded “some in the Democratic establishment” for allegedly leveling “Islamophobic smears against Mamdani.”

Sarsour, who once led the Women’s March and launched MPower Change, campaigned for Mamdani. She appeared on the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera TV station to crow: “It was us New Yorkers — New York Democrats — that demonstrated what the Democratic Party truly needs.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

This isn’t a fluke. It’s a blueprint.

Through two decades of patient investment, narrative shaping and activist grooming, the red-green alliance — with the Democratic Party as its vehicle — has transformed American politics. The party no longer resists this movement. It accelerates it.

The receipts, nonprofits, and candidates like Mamdani are only the beginning. A well-funded pipeline of red-green operatives now wears blue, ready to take over.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: Iran’s ideological foot soldiers wage proxy war in America

Even as President Donald Trump announces a “Complete and Total ceasefire” between Israel and Iran, there is a chant that is certain to echo for weeks to come: “There is only one solution! Intifada revolution!”

That was the fierce battle cry of a young Palestinian American man from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, as he pumped his fist in the air in front of the White House on Sunday, with protesters waving flags of Iran and Palestine beside him.

REPUBLICANS CONGRATULATE TRUMP AMID IRAN CEASEFIRE AS DEMS HOLD BACK APPLAUSE

A phalanx of young Iranian American girls stood nearby, watching intently, some of them chanting quietly along, others fidgeting with their head scarfs, tight around their faces in the sweltering 90-degree heat.

This scene – a disturbing portrait of youth absorbing radicalization – was one front in a national propaganda war that a network of 93 groups with an estimated $100 million in annual revenues has unleashed on America in a coordinated proxy campaign for the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to my latest reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named for Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. I identify all of the groups by name in a Pearl Project database I am updating in real time to document the professional protest industry sowing chaos in America. You can be certain the list will keep growing even amid talk of peace in the Middle East.

This pro-Iran network includes socialist revolutionaries, Islamist activists, foreign-influenced nonprofits and even political operatives from Democratic groups including Indivisible Action, 50501 and Progressive Democrats of America — groups that have fused their interests to topple power in America and created a coalition running cover for America’s enemies. They are the red-green alliance that I call the Woke Army. They aren’t buying the ceasefire because war stokes their agendas.

About five of 10 of the groups are self-described Marxist, socialist, or communist, openly praising the Chinese Communist Party, Marx and Lenin. Another two of 10 of the groups are aligned with Islamist interests. The final three of 10 are socialist- and Islamist-adjacent groups, a disturbing place for Democratic groups to be. 

They do not disclose their donors, making them classic “dark money” groups.

Early Sunday, at a press conference with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Cain warned that “it would be a very bad idea for Iran or its proxies to attempt to attack American forces.” Most Americans assumed he meant military operations.

But the truth is: some of those proxies are already here. Not with bombs, but with bullhorns.

Just after 2 p.m. on Sunday, the D.C. theater of this operation came into focus.

A formation of about 20 members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition — a self-described Marxist, Leninist, Communist group — advanced across Lafayette Park with the discipline of a street-level infantry unit. 

At the front, two men carried cameras to capture the propaganda about to unfold. Behind them, two women in shorts and sneakers hauled a pop-up wooden stage. Three more followed, gripping the wooden handles of pre-printed placards with the message, “HANDS OFF IRAN,” and laying the signs on the curb in front of the White House for easy pickup by demonstrators they’d summoned in an email blast.

One young man in khaki shorts and sunglasses pushed a shopping cart filled with drums. Another pulled a collapsible red wagon loaded with megaphones and boxes of gear. Yet another cradled rolled-up banners.

Even at this protest for Iran, demonstrators wore the black-and-white keffiyeh, the sartorial propaganda of the Palestinian intifada, because Iran’s “Death to Israel” slogan hasn’t just inspired hatred; it has financed, armed and directed terrorism against Jews in Israel for decades. A man shrouded in a black face mask and the keffiyeh, held a drum over his shoulders, wearing the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s logo on the front and its motto on the back: “SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE.”

ASRA NOMANI: THE $2.1B MACHINE BEHIND ‘SPONTANEOUS’ ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS

These foot soldiers moved with purpose and precision — establishing their base directly in front of the White House gates. Like a field marshal, one of the men in sunglasses and khaki shorts directed two Black street vendors to give them space for their ideal staging ground and move their carts filled with SpongeBob Square Pants Popsicles, Blue Bunny cones and red-white-and-blue rocket pops. The vendors had been there since 10 a.m..

But the organizers had a higher purpose that transcends any ceasefire: to deploy an asymmetric warfare campaign: delegitimizing the American government and destabilizing the nation from within in an operation that intelligence and law enforcement understand as “malign foreign influence” – three words that every American should know.

The mission statements, protest chants and statements of protest organizers at the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition reveal their real function is to advance ideological agendas that mirror the messaging of regimes like Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. At last count, the pro-Iran groups are active in at least 50 cities nationwide — from Ukiah, Ca., to Salisbury, Ct.. beyond any ceasefire.

One of their field marshals opened the protest with a chant familiar to veterans of the anti-Israel movement: “Free, free Palestine!” They were the words that Elias Gonzalez, radicalized as a Party for Socialism and Liberation member, chanted after recently murdering two Israeli Embassy officials. Over the next hour, organizers followed a playbook: railing into the microphone against Trump, Israel and the United States.

The leaders of the “red” wing of the Woke Army aren’t “anti-war” grassroots operations, and Americans should know their names and financial structures: 

• ANSWER Coalition, a fiscally-sponsored program of the 501(c)(3) Progress Unity Fund. Party for Socialism and Liberation, a political party that fields presidential candidates.
• CodePink, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with about $1.2 million in annual revenues: Its leaders, including cofounder Medea Benjamin, have traveled to Iran, courtesy of the regime. They have also traveled to Gaza, hosted by Hamas.
• Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a 501(c)(4) with over $6.1 million in revenue. Members include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and recently-detained Columbia University graduate and anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil.
• Freedom Road Socialist Organization, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
• The People’s Forum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $1.3 million in revenue, whose YouTube videos include titles like “Lenin and the Path to Revolution.”
• Students for a Democratic Society, a reboot of the 1960s-era socialist student group.
• Workers World Party, a group launching protests around the globe with 29 other self-described socialist groups in “International Days of Resistance!”

Members of the pro-Iran “green” wing, representing the color associated with Islam, include: 

• Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $7.9 million in annual revenues; its cofounder Nihad Awad said he was “happy” with the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel.
• National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with $1.1 million in annual revenues and a reputation as apologists for the Iranian regime.
• Students for Justice in Palestine, a fiscally-sponsored program of WESPAC Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that also funds other anti-Israel groups.
• Palestinian Youth Movement, also a fiscally-sponsored program of WESPAC Foundation.
• U.S. Palestinian Community Network, a Chicago-based organization at the hub of fierce anti-Israel protests in the Windy City.

In the crowd on Sunday, Sara Hawrami, director of staff and operations at the National Iranian American Council, weaved through the crowd in front of the White House, distributing “NO WAR WITH IRAN!” signs from a bundle cradled in her arms. A man stood with a CodePink t-shirt that read: “PEACE WITH IRAN.”

The many organizations in the Woke Army don’t register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, despite many of them parroting propaganda lines from foreign regimes. In March, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee urging senators to require these organizations to register as foreign agents. In April, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel requesting investigations into CodePink and The People’s Forum. “Secretive foreign lobbying and public relations campaigns by China and other adversaries undermines the political will and interests of the American people,” Grasley wrote.

Earlier this month, Senate Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer and other senators sent a letter to Singam to produce documents into his funding of the People’s Forum, the ANSWER Coalition and the Party for Socialism and Liberation and any ties between these organizations and the Chinese Communist Party.

The senators have it right. What looks like decentralized activism is, in fact, a centralized political warfare strategy aimed directly at American institutions — not just political parties.

At the White House, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation handed out flyers for the next big “direct action” –  a “National March on Washington” planned for June 28 at 1 p.m. 

The flyer included a QR code and a URL created by the ANSWER Coalition: answercoalition.com/j28. It offered a sign-up for New York residents to travel to D.C. by chartered bus from The People’s Forum HQ on West 37th Street in Manhattan—$60 per seat, or $120 for a “Solidarity Rate Ticket.”

In fine print at the bottom were the slick logos for their allies in the Woke Army, featuring the red wing – the ANSWER Coalition, Code Pink, Democratic Socialists of America, The People’s Forum – and the green wing, represented by the Palestinian Youth Movement and the National Iranian American Council.

Ironically, after seizing power in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini quickly turned on one of the very groups that had helped galvanize the revolution: leftists and socialists, including influential thinkers like writer Ali Shariati.

One of the most dangerous elements of these protest groups is their camouflage. NBC News, USA Today, India Today and other media outlets reported that “anti-war” protests “flood” the cities and “erupt” on the streets, with no mention of their radical agendas and propaganda for foreign powers.

WE CAN’T IGNORE THE DANGER FROM THOSE WHO WANT TO ‘GLOBALIZE THE INTIFADA’. WE MUST TAKE ACTION

Some media outlets even relied on footage from “Breakthrough News,” a propaganda wing of the ANSWER Coalition, according to the 2023 tax records for the Progress Unity Fund, which said it doled out $232,244 to ANSWER Coalition and other “progressive” organizations for “mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people in a mass action in Washington, D.C., that promoted a permanent ceasefire to end the war that took thousands of civilian lives in Gaza.” It said it pumped another $45,000 to BreakThrough Media, based in New York City, for “Gen support educational programs.”

Sure enough, BreakThrough Media’s camera crew posted a video on Instagram from the White House of the cute Iranian American children waving their placards behind the headline: “Iranian Children Join Anti-War Protest outside White House.”

Max Reed, 21, a member of the American Communist Party, stood at the edge of the protest, propping the only American flag in the crowd over his shoulder. “A lot of American so-called ‘left-wing’ groups don’t like the American flag and don’t like the working class,” he admitted.

A comrade handed out a press release with the headline: “Against the Criminal Imperialist War on Iran,” denouncing “the U.S. regime,” “the Zionist entity” of Israel and “its agents.”

Photographers scrambled to take photos of the children, the perfect props for the ideological warriors leading the protests. One of their mothers stage-managed them behind the cameras. Their parents, who declined to share their names, said they had traveled from Michigan to visit relatives in the area and brought their children to the protest. That morning, they said their older children had made protest signs while sitting at the café of the Diyanet Center of America in nearby Lanham, Md, a sprawling Turkish mosque, Islamic school, and restaurant complex built as a soft power project by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, an Islamist. 

The parents said they bought fly swatters at a local Giant to use as makeshift handles for the protest signs. One of the mothers said she didn’t support the Islamic Republic of Iran but didn’t want war in her homeland. She said she didn’t agree with the socialists in the crowd.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

But messages on the signs were clearly politically aligned: “Impeach Trump,” they read. Nearby, an Iranian-American woman with a keffiyeh tightly wrapped around her face, waved a black flag, beckoning the “mahdi,” the messiah in the eschatology, or end times revelations, of Muslims in the Shia sect of Islam practiced in Iran. 

Finally at about hour’s end, the protest ended quickly. Demonstrators returned their signs to the curb by the White House gates, where a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation bundled them up with a rubber band. 

As the ideological operatives for the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the ANSWER Coalition walked back into Lafayette Park with their pop-up stage, signs, red wagon and megaphones, another set of protestors, these ones from Democratic Socialists of America’s ResistFascism.org campaign, rolled onto Pennsylvania Avenue for their moment in front of the White House. 

“War on Iran, we say no!” they chanted.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Regular Americans smiled and laughed, mostly oblivious to the chants, taking selfies in front of the White House. 

The Iranian American parents hustled their children to the corner Peet’s Coffee for snacks. The vendors shouted, “Ice cold Gatorade!” and returned to selling their SpongeBob SquarePants Popsicles, uninterrupted, while the day’s ideologues headed home to upload their video footage to social media, later posting Instagram videos from across the nation to create the myth of the marching millions with headlines blasting: “HAPPENING NOW.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: I watched hate consume Democrats’ ‘non-violent’ #NoKings rallies

PHILADELPHIA – Last Saturday, behind a phalanx of local cops, teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten stood on a stage in the heart of the city and pumped her fists in the air as she declared to a crowd protesting President Donald Trump: “We have to practice, not as a strategy, but as a way of life, peaceful nonviolence.” 

It was a scene scripted to feel uplifting. Stage managers had set up the riser for the speakers right beneath the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where actor Sylvester Stallone famously filmed his iconic movie scene as boxer Rocky Balboa, running the stairs and then pumping his fists victoriously into the air.

SOROS-BACKED ‘NO KINGS’ RALLIES THREATEN AMERICA’S CITIES WITH PLANNED CHAOS

But the feel-good energy was suddenly pierced by shouting. A chant — scattered and distant — rose like a tide. As I drew closer to the intersection of Kelly Drive and Spring Garden Street, I recognized the familiar sing-song cadence that has marked chaos on America’s streets since the Oct. 7, 2023, brutal murders of Israelis by Hamas terrorists. 

“Free, free Palestine!” the chant began.

The response came right after: “Free, free, free Palestine!”

These were the same words shouted by Elias Rodriguez, an activist radicalized in the Party for Socialism and Liberation, moments after he murdered two Israel Embassy staffers on the streets of Washington, D.C., last month.

Then, another familiar refrain: “From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever!”

“Donald Trump, you will see, Palestine will be free!”

As a U.S. Army veteran took the main stage, the chants shifted: “U.S. imperialists! No. 1 terrorists!”

“No. 1 racists! No. 1 fascists!” 

Then, unmistakably: “Globalize the intifada!”

Missing from after-action reports that Indivisible, the main organizer of the #NoKings protests, sent journalists was any mention of the radical flanks: the “Palestine Contingent,” “ICE Contingent,” and “Labor Contingent” that joined protests in Philadelphia, New York City, Sacramento, Calif., and other cities, according to reporting that I did on the ground and from afar. These “contingents” include self-declared socialist, Marxist and communist groups advocating for the dismantling of the American “empire.” Thursday night, they were on the streets again, protesting “NO WAR ON IRAN!.”

Through my investigation at the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named for my friend and colleague, Daniel Pearl, murdered in 2002 by militants in Pakistan, I initially found about 195 organizations and then 70 Democratic National Committee affiliates in the political machine behind the #NoKings protests, with about $2.1 billion in annual revenues.

Based on my new reporting, another 118 organizations led the most radical parts of the protests, with combined annual revenues of about $204 million. I’ve added their names to a public database that I’m seeking to build to provide transparency for the public, press, police and policymakers about the professional protest industry: its tactics, network and ultimate aim – to sow chaos and discord.

Across the country, contingents with anti-American agendas joined protests:

• Philadelphia: Some 19 groups assembled as part of the “Palestine Coalition,” including the anti-Israel group, CodePink, the local Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Philly Palestine Coalition, which has clashed with police in prior demonstrations. The executive director of CAIR expressed joy that the Oct. 7 attacks had occurred. CAIR was founded in Philadelphia years ago when leaders used the word “Samah” to refer to Hamas, thinking that saying its name backwards would help avert FBI surveillance. It didn’t. In an Instagram post, they told followers, “Wear your keffiyehs,” meet 15 minutes before the protest’s start time at the corner of 15th and Arch Street, “Bring pots and pans,” and “Make noise for those starving in Gaza.”
• Chicago: Some 89 organizations in the “Coalition Against the Trump Agenda,” a new network spearheaded by fiery Palestinian American organizer Hatem Abudayyeh, a fixture in anti-Israel protests in Chicago, joined the #NoKings march. They have combined annual revenues of about $169 million. According to the Pearl Project database, 36 coalition members organized anti-Israel protests against the Democratic National Committee last August.
• North Carolina: The “Palestine Contingent” included the Party for Socialism and Liberation, whose local member burned the American flag at an anti-Israel protest at Union Station in Washington, D.C., last summer. At the same protest, another activist painted “HAMAS IS COMIN” graffiti on a statue.
• Sacramento, Calif.: The Palestine American League, a local nonprofit, promoted its “Palestine Contingent” as a way to show California’s leaders and voters “that genocide in Palestine must be on the agenda.” The Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Answer Coalition, both self-described socialist organizations, promoted an “ICE OUT!” message with its “Contingent at No Kings Rally” poster. Both groups, along with CodePink and a related group, The Peoples Forum,, are allegedly funded by a tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, closely associated with the Chinese Community Party, funding its propaganda worldwide.
• New York City: “NYC Labor” invited protesters to its “Palestine Contingent,” with the message: “FROM PALESTINE TO MEXICO, ALL THE WALLS HAVE GOT TO GO!” It added the timely message: “NO WAR WITH IRAN!” The Party for Socialism and Liberation bragged about its presence.
• Bakersfield, Calif.: Protest organizers gave a masked member of the “United Liberation Front for Palestine” the microphone when she ran on stage, according to a video its members later posted on Instagram, condemning not only the protest organizers but also the nation: “We condemn the terrorist state of America!”

Back in Philadelphia, the chants from the local “Palestine Contingent” continued. 

“When people are occupied, resistance is justified!”

“Resistance is glorious! We will be victorious!”

Their banners and signs made no mistake about their beliefs. A few masked men held a banner that declared, “Amerika is the head of the snake.”

Another banner read: “The Global Economy is Complicit in Genocide.”

A young man in a keffiyeh and dark shades stood behind a banner for the International Jewish Labor Bund, a self-declared socialist organization. Behind him, a man held a sign with the Party for Socialism and Liberation across the bottom in its distinctive black-and-white design.

An older woman with a keffiyeh wrapped around her face pumped her fist into the air behind a banner that read, “Workers World Party,” a communist organization birthed during the Soviet era. 

The illusion cracked. 

What I was witnessing wasn’t a call for “peaceful nonviolence.” It was the presence of a dangerous force: a coalition of far-left activists and Islamist sympathizers, which I call the Woke Army, emboldened by donor dollars, protected by political silence and increasingly comfortable with violence.

Identifying myself as a journalist, I drew the ire of “Palestine Continent” activists for filming them, and I saw firsthand how this protest culture is not just performative — it’s punitive, sectarian and violent.

“Are you a Zionist?” a young masked man asked me, while others tried to block my path, taunting me. 

Another young masked man demanded: “Do you like genocide?”

Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin took the stage, grinning at the success of the nationwide protest. He turned to his wife, Indivisible co-founder, Leah Greenberg, and said: “Would you lead us in a pledge of allegiance?”

She began awkwardly, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America…” 

In the “Palestine Contingent,” where I stood, the activists screamed: “Boo! Boo! Boo!” They drowned out Greenberg’s words: “…with liberty and justice for all.”

As I panned the crowd with my camera, one young man, about 20 feet away, stopped booing to curse at me: “Get your f—ing camera out of my face, you f—ing Zionist!”

Then: “Get the f— out of my face, you Mossad piece of sh–!” Mossad is the Israeli intelligence agency. 

He got closer, ramming his middle finger at me, eyes glaring.

Only one person – a young man – stepped forward to try to stop him. 

But the masked agitator escalated his claims: “She’s a f—ing foreign agent! She’s a f—ing foreign agent of Israel!” 

A masked woman with cropped hair jumped in front of me to then scream, ironically, into the camera: “Get your f—ing camera out of my face!” She circled back to flip me off. I didn’t budge.

My mother, watching the footage later, said: “These masked people tried to terrorize you like they are terrorizing the nation.”

She was right.

I know these propaganda tactics.

First, my friend Daniel Pearl’s kidnappers smeared him as an American spy for the CIA and then a Zionist Jewish spy for Mossad, before beheading him and cutting his body into pieces. It’s the rhetoric of dehumanization that the “progressives” claim to challenge but actually too often perpetuate against anyone with a different point of view.

The “Palestine Contingent” weren’t expressing “peaceful nonviolence” in their chants or aggression. They were moments of coercion.

I wrote this column in the shadow of another horror — the brutal murder of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband by an alleged killer who hunted them down. America is becoming a nation where vigilantism is no longer lurking in the margins. It’s marching through the streets, often with a protest permit.

We rightly condemn right-wing violence when it erupts. But left-wing violence — often cloaked in social justice language — is excused, minimized, or worse, cheered. Networks of leftist activists now openly call for the “global intifada,” and the “resistance” by “any means” including confrontation, intimidation, destruction and violence.

That is not protest. That is factionalism with fists.

From the main stage, a leader shouted: “Whose flag?”

“Our flag!”

One of the anti-Israel activists noted the American flag was the “flag of imperialism.”

In other protests, the “Palestine Contingent” got the microphone – or took it. In Oakland, Calif., Zahra Billoo, executive director of the CAIR chapter in the San Francisco Bay Area, had a featured speaker slot. The Women’s March kicked her off its board for anti-semitic remarks..

In Philadelphia, I watched the speakers on the big screen, as masked agitators chanted over them, some accusing the organizers of being too soft on America. At one point, the din became so loud that the speaker’s voice could barely be heard over the cries of “Globalize the intifada.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow covered the protests like a cheerleader, praising the “nonviolence” without acknowledging the virulent antisemitism, factionalism and outright hatred also on display.

The sectarianism that has torn apart the Middle East and so many countries – from Ireland to the Balkans – is now animating street politics in America. 

As I stood on the steps beneath Rocky’s bronze gaze, the chants still echoing, I thought about what made that statue so beloved. It wasn’t just about winning. It was about standing up — even in the face of intimidation — for what’s right.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

That’s what we need now. Vigilantism is not justice. Dogma is not “resistance.” And hate, no matter how well masked, has no place on America’s streets. And we each have to stand up to it and not be intimidated by it. Each of us must stand up to it, unflinching and unafraid.

As the “Palestine Contingent” rolled up their socialist banners, I retraced Rocky’s steps, running the stairs, pumping my fists in the air.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: The familiar hidden hand behind today’s #NoKings protests

Yesterday, as protesters readied to descend on city squares across America for a mass demonstration branded #NoKings, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis took to MSNBC, praising the movement as a righteous stand for democracy. 

“People are very determined to get out there and be seen. This is the United States. We do not want a king,” she said.

ASRA NOMANI: THE $2.1 BILLION MACHINE BEHIND THE ‘SPONTANEOUS’ ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTS

What she didn’t say: The California Democratic Party is itself organizing today’s protests — from Orange County to Oakland — with the full institutional weight of the Democratic machine, and the Democratic National Committee is playing a critical role behind the scenes in protests across the country from California to Florida.

Already, I established in analysis for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative, that the protests are organized by 197 organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. This network harnesses a machine of about $2.1 billion in total annual revenues toward this cause. That effort alone represents a partisan political enterprise that I call the protest industrial complex.

Now, in a new analysis of 148 protest listings uploaded on Mobilize.us, a Democratic Party organizing platform, I have established that at least 70 Democratic National Committee affiliates are also organizing protests in at least 19 states and the District of Columbia. This is a clear indicator of the partisanship of these protests as an orchestrated, calculated expression of the opposition party, not a spontaneous grassroots outpouring. 

Despite the rhetoric of populist uprising, it’s clear: #NoKings is the Democratic Party staging political theater in the streets of America.

As editor-in-chief of the Pearl Project, I have spent the last week building this database of the protest organizers and the findings expose the true architecture of today’s “day of defiance.” From Mobilize links and protest pages to organizing toolkits, we traced the digital and physical infrastructure behind the June 14 demonstrations. 

I’ve added a tab with the Democratic Party events in a public spreadsheet that I invite readers to study.

Here’s what I found about the hand of the Democratic Party:

• At least 70 unique Democratic Party committees and clubs are organizing at least 140 protest events across the country in at least 19 states and the District of Columbia.
• Democratic Party clubs are also organizing protests in at least four countries overseas: Australia, Italy, Mexico and Norway, with groups like “Democrats Abroad Norway.”

It’s important to recognize: the Democrat Party isn’t just supporting these protests — they’re leading them, often under the radar. 

Here’s just a glimpse of the geographic footprint of Democratic National Committee club and committee activity. It’s dense, but I share it so you can know we have the receipts:

1. Arizona: Apache Junction: Pinal County Democratic Party; Flagstaff: Coconino County Democratic Party and Indivisible Northern AZ; Show Low: Navajo County Democratic Party; Window Rock: Apache County Democratic Party.
2. California: Auburn: Auburn Area Democrats; Bakersfield: California Democratic Party; Big Bear Lake: Democratic Club of Big Bear Valley; Chico: Butte County Democratic Party Central Committee; Chino Hills: California Democratic Party; Dana Point: Democratic Party of Orange County, Democratic Women of South Orange County; East Bay: Alameda County Dems, Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club; Huntington Beach; Joshua Tree: Democrats of the Morongo Basin; Laguna Beach: Laguna Beach Democratic Club; Los Angeles County: Swing Left; Marysville: Yuba Dems; Newport Beach: Newport Beach Women’s Democratic Club; Oakland: ; Rancho Cordova: America River Democrats Club; Redlands: Redlands Area Democratic Club; Riverside: Democrats of Greater Riverside; San Francisco: San Francisco Democratic Party; San Jose: California Democratic Party; San Rafael: California Democratic Party; Santa Clara: Santa Clara County Democratic Party; Seal Beach: Democratic Club of Seal Beach, Seal Beach Leisure World Democratic Club; Sebastopol; Sunnyvale: Sunnyvale Democratic Club; Tehachapi: California Democratic Party; Victorville:High Desert Progressive Democrats.
3. District of Columbia: DC Ward 8 Democrats
4. Florida: Casselberry: Seminole County Democratic Party; Englewood: Sarasota County Democratic Party; Fort Walton Beach: Okaloosa Democrats; Ft Lauderdale: Broward Democratic Party; Gainesville: Alachua County Democratic Party; Naples: Collier County DEC; Palm Beach Gardens: Palm Beach County Democratic Party; Pensacola: Escambia Democratic Party; Sarasota: Sarasota County Democratic Party; Tallahassee; Venice: Sarasota County Democratic Party.
5. Georgia: Atlanta: DeKalb County Democrats; Brunswick: Democratic Party of Georgia; Dalton: Douglasville: Volunteer organized for Democratic Party of Georgia; Griffin; Hiawassee: Towns County Democrats; Hiram: Paulding Democrats; Rome: Democratic Party of Georgia
6. Illinois: DeKalb: DeKalb County Democratic Party IL; Princeton: Bureau County Democratic Party.
7. Indiana: Auburn: Indiana DeKalb County Democratic Party; Connersville: Indiana Fayette County Democratic Party; Nashville: Indiana 9th District Democratic Party; New Albany: Indiana Floyd County Democratic Party.
8. Maryland: Easton: Talbot Democrats.
9. Michigan: Lansing: Ingham County Democratic Party.
10. Nebraska: Alliance, Columbus, Kearney, Scottsbluff: Nebraska Democratic Party:
11. New Hampshire: Enfield: New Hampshire Democratic Party.
12. New York: New York City: Manhattan Young Democrats.
13. North Carolina: Asheboro: Randolph County Democratic Party; Edenton: North Carolina Democratic Party.
14. Oklahoma: OKDems, Oklahoma Democratic Party, Federation of Oklahoma Latin Democrats.
15. Ohio: Dayton: Green County Ohio Democratic Party; Warren: Trumbull County Democratic Party.
16. South Carolina: Bluffton, Hilton Head Island: Beaufort County Democratic Party.
17. South Dakota: Aberdeen, Sioux Falls, Spearfish, Yankton: South Dakota Democratic Party.
18. Tennessee: Knoxville: KnoxDems, Knox County Democratic Party.
19. Texas: McKinney: Collin County Democratic Party; San Antonio: Comal County Democratic Party.
20. Wisconsin: Platteville: WisDems.

What does this list tell us? This is a party infrastructure, not a protest movement. Let’s be honest: this isn’t about stopping a “king.” It’s about protecting a political party.

Across the country, Democratic Party chapters have flooded local organizing channels with official flyers, water bottles branded with county logos, talking points and coordinated slogans. In Santa Monica, Calif., the local Democratic Club is marching along the boardwalk. 

In Flagstaff, Ariz., the Coconino County Democratic Party is rallying on the steps of city hall. In Naples, Florida, the Collier County Democratic Executive Committee is mobilizing volunteers with signage pre-approved by national political action committees.

DEMOCRATS FORGE STRANGE BEDFELLOWS AS PARTY FLOUNDERS IN TRUMP’S 2ND TERM

In Seminole County, Fla., the advertising is about political canvassing with these details for volunteers: “Signs will be provided to place next to the cooler that say ‘Free Water from SemDems.’ Consider bringing trash bags to tie to the handle of the cooler to collect used bottles. Email deb4elections@gmail.com if you can bring a cooler with water. Passing out SemDems cards. Stand at protest area entry points and make sure people receive a SemDem card so they can connect with us. Passing Out Protest Signs. Hand out signs for people to wave if they didn’t bring one. Help people make a sign using SemDems supplies. In this role, you will be too busy to participate in the protest at the street.”

In total, we tracked scores of unique combinations of state and club, proving that multiple organizations — including groups like Swing Left and Indivisible — are operating across several states with the Democratic Party, deploying scripts, signs, and staff.

Here is what you won’t hear on most of the media’s coverage:

• In  Apache Junction, Ariz., the Pinal County Democratic Party is collaborating with local Indivisible chapters for a branded “No Kings” march, complete with printed materials calling Trump a “tyrant.”
• In Oakland, Calif., the East Bay Democratic Party and Indivisible East Bay are co-hosting a rally where participants are encouraged to “paint the town” with pre-approved chalk messages distributed at a booth.
• In Pensacola, Fla., the Escambia Democratic Party has arranged for voter registration drives under the #NoKings banner, blurring the line between civil protest and electoral campaigning.

These are not the spontaneous actions of private citizens. They are events sanctioned by the Democratic Party dressed up in the language of moral resistance.

These are not the spontaneous actions of private citizens. They are events sanctioned by the Democratic Party dressed up in the language of moral resistance.

These protests amount to a new chapter of political puppetry. One longtime Democratic volunteer, granted anonymity, described to us the internal pressure they felt to participate: “It feels less like a movement and more like a performance. We are told which graphics to share, what signs to print and even how to answer reporters. It is like the whole protest is a campaign rollout — but in protest clothes.”

This comment is telling. The Democratic Party is not showing up to these protests as supporters. They are stage managers. The very people warning us against authoritarianism are deploying authoritarian tactics to choreograph outrage. It’s political cynicism at its finest—activism from above, not below.

Why does this matter? In 2002, my friend and colleague Daniel Pearl was murdered by extremists in Pakistan. The ideology that led to his death — sectarianism, division, moral absolutism — has haunted me ever since. That same dogma is now playing out in American streets, cloaked in slogans like “No Kings” and “Save Democracy.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

In my 2023 book, Woke Army, I warned of an unholy alliance between far-left radicals and ideological opportunists that undermines institutions from within. Today’s protests manifest this alliance and they are the logical next step: not organic resistance, but manufactured dissent designed to influence the next election cycles.

This isn’t about Donald Trump’s flaws or strengths. It’s about the weaponization of protest by those already in power.

Today’s protest is not a revolution. It’s a message that refuses the 2024 election results. The message is this: the Democratic Party is willing to use every tool available — PACs, nonprofits, public unions and even street protests — to control the narrative heading into the next elections.

Voters should be wary of any party that cries “democracy” while scripting the applause, supplying the signs and managing the stage.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Today, as you watch video clips of marchers chanting and waving signs, ask yourself: who paid for the microphone? Who printed the signs? And who benefits when the crowd disperses? The answer is clear with Trump’s birthday party for the Army: it’s an expression of the ruling Republican administration.

That’s the kind of transparency we need to have about the street protests. The protests aren’t grassroots. They are the political puppeteering of the Democratic Party.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: The $2.1 billion machine behind ‘spontaneous’ anti-Trump protests

Early Tuesday evening, as National Guard troops faced off against protesters and rioters on the streets of Los Angeles, powerful teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten hosted a virtual town hall with Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.and two leading political operatives in Democratic Party politics, Leah Greenberg, founder of a political nonprofit, Indivisible, and Rev. Al Sharpton, founder of another political nonprofit, National Action Network. 

Greenberg hailed an upcoming wave of protests this Saturday — set to sweep through even “really red areas of the country,” marked with mostly Republican voters — as a stand against President Donald Trump. Throughout the call, Weingarten beamed, excited. Sharpton phoned in his enthusiasm about people with “different political beliefs” uniting. They touted Saturday’s campaign as the “#NoKings” protest.

PROTESTERS EXPECTED TO CONVERGE ON DC, NEIGHBORING CITIES AHEAD OF TRUMP’S MILITARY PARADE

But what they didn’t detail is the massive network of Democratic organizations funding and orchestrating this supposedly spontaneous uprising.

As editor-in-chief of the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative I founded in honor of my friend and colleague, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, I’ve spent the past two decades investigating how ideology, identity politics, and sectarian hatred can turn violent. Radicalized Pakistani militants brutally murdered Danny after kidnapping him in 2002 on the streets of Karachi, Pakistan, and demonizing him as an American, a Jew and a grandson of Israel. I have warned about an unholy alliance between far-left radicalism and Islamist extremism, and it has now come home to the streets of the United States.

In my 2023 book, “Woke Army,” I documented how this alliance has morphed into a new threat inside our institutions, from higher education to politics — weaponizing identity and cause-based activism, like immigration, to undermine civil society. 

The #NoKings protest is the latest front in this propaganda war.

According to new research by the Pearl Project, the #NoKings protest is being organized by an estimated 198 groups, all of which are aligned with the Democratic Party and many of which claim tax-exempt, “nonpartisan” nonprofit status. Collectively, these groups take in $2.1 billion in annual revenues. 

Here is the breakdown of 198 “partners” listed in the official publicity material for the financial and political machine behind #NoKings:

• Three official entities of the Democratic National Committee: College Democrats of America, Manhattan Young Democrats and Westside Democratic Headquarters in Norwalk, Calif.
• 16 Democratic political action committees, or PACs, including Friends of Bernie Sanders, Progressive Democrats of America and Vote Blue — with about $19.4 million in spending power for Democratic political candidates.
• 18 Democratic-aligned 501(c)(5) labor unions, including lead organizer, the American Federation of Teachers, along with the United Auto Workers, the Communications Workers of America and the National Treasury Employees Union, with a total of $1.1 billion in revenues, most of their political contributions going to Democratic candidates.
• 76 Democratic-aligned 501(c)(4) political nonprofits, including the ACLU, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Working Families Organization Inc., Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and lead organizer Indivisible Project, all with another $734.3 million in revenues.
• 47 501(c)(3) nonprofits, legally restricted from partisan advocacy, including innocuous-sounding groups like the Unitarian Universalist Association, Accountable US and the American Humanist Association, with $286.7 million to the cause.
• 38 additional Democratic-aligned groups, including Michigan Resistance Coalition, Families Over Billionaires, 50501, Tax the Greedy Billionaire and Mennonite Action, with undisclosed financials.

I’ve made the research public in an online database that I am working on making into a user-friendly digital encyclopedia for the protest industry, so everyone from parents to police officers can understand the organizations fomenting chaos from our streets to our campuses. 

I’ve been tracking the anti-Trump protesters since 2017 when #Resistance became the buzzword for activists like Palestinian American Linda Sarsour, leading the Women’s March against Trump. Since Trump’s inauguration this past January, I’ve investigated the companies behind the #TeslaTakedown, #HandsOff and #MayDay protests that have marked “resistance 2.0” over the past several months against the Trump administration.

The groups include several organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace and Sarsour’s MPower Change Action Fund, that represent the unholy alliance of Islamist sympathizers and leftists who have fueled fiery protests against the existence of the state of Israel, following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israelis. I’ve identified 1,500 groups in the anti-semitism protest industry.

Most certainly, this week’s protests and the protests coming up are not an organic, citizen-led “resistance.”

This is top-down political warfare, branded as grassroots activism but actually an AstroTurf political operation. 

The anti-Trump protest industry is very broad, and these are some additional findings:

• Along with the 198 groups behind #NoKings with revenues of $2.1 billion, there are another 267 groups that have been organizing protests against Trump with revenues of $1.3 billion.
• That makes a total of about 465 groups aligned with the Democratic Party with combined revenues of $3.4 billion organizing protests against Trump since January.
• The #TeslaTakedown protests included an estimated 32 local and state affiliates of the Democratic National Committee, from Florida to California, who put Tesla CEO Elon Musk in their crosshairs.

These organizations are not your local knitting club. They are professional protest organizers.

For the #NoKings protest, the “Indivisible Digital Asset Management” team has assembled an online digital “brand folder” with 29 brand “assets” in a folder marked “Flyers, Rally Signs, & Printed Materials,” 25 “assets” in a “Graphics” folder, 8 “Templates,” two logos, a brand palette of four vibrant branding colors, easy-to-read fonts and engaging “design elements.”

MEET THE FAR-LEFT GROUPS FUNDING ANTI-DOGE PROTESTS AT GOP OFFICES ACROSS THE COUNTRY

Indivisible also created a 12-page digital “NO KINGS Toolkit for Hosts,” shared on Google Docs, with “messaging,” “NO KINGS Mobilization Tactics,” “sample event agenda” and tips on “getting media attention.” Its tips noted: “Identify at least 1 group member to be responsible for firing up the crowd…” I’m including various parts of this orchestrated protest in an online protest industry folder.

Some of the sample messages for signs: “NO KINGS IN AMERICA!,” “Stop the Shakedown!” and “We are Not For Sale!” They will be repeated across the country.

The templates have been leveraged to now create a cookie-cutter production of graphics on social media orchestrated around the hashtag #NoKings.

Importantly, just as the mainstream media examines the dynamics of “white supremacy,” “fascism” and “MAGA,” we must not be naïve about the ideological undercurrents driving “progressive” protests to violence. 

A while back, The New York Times exposed a wealthy tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, for funding and promoting Chinese Communist Party propaganda, and he has been tied to funding many of the groups – Party for Socialism and Liberation, the People’s Forum, the Answer Coalition and CodePink — engaged in the most confrontational protests in recent days and months against Israel and the United States. These groups are proudly self-described socialist organizations stoking discontent to push an anti-capitalist, anti-American agenda.

While Singham doesn’t yet appear to have his fingerprints directly on the #NoKings protest, the ideological DNA is the same.

The #NoKings protest is likely to be the next playing field for the anti-ICE, anti-Trump agitators. Indeed, #ResistTrump, one of the “partners” for Saturday’s protests, promotes an “orientation” slide deck that itemizes the elements of “expressing political dissent” from “voting to violence.” While the group claims to promote “non-violence,” it includes – without comment – “political violence” as a part of the continuum of protest, including “armed revolts,” “riots,” “terrorism” and “insurrections.”

#ResistTrump outlines a “theory of change” to “remove or replace Trump” and realize a “future without Trump.”

As an investigative journalist, I am reporting on the protest industry and its propaganda, because these protests are not just political statements. They are well-financed, orchestrated performances—designed to generate viral imagery, manipulate public perception and blur the line between civic engagement and ideological agitation.

Fairfax County resident Lissa Kenkel, a researcher who helped me cull data for the #NoKings protest, has been studying protests since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas in Israel, and she said: “The irony is staggering about the groups driving the NoKings uprisings.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

“The very people bankrolling and leading these so-called grassroots movements are the crowned royalty of the non-profit world, sitting in their air-conditioned offices, collecting six-figure salaries, while encouraging the common folk to torch their own cities in the name of ‘saving democracy,” she said. “It’s manufactured chaos, sold as revolution, by people who wouldn’t last five minutes in the rubble they’re creating.”

Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network, based in New York, earned $648,786 in annual income from the group, according to his group’s latest tax filing. At the American Federation of Teachers, Weingarten raked in $474,951, according to its last IRS filing. At the ACLU, its executive director, Anthony Romero, collected $1.3 million, according to the group’s latest tax filing.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

This is what is behind these protests: elite partisan leaders in ideologically motivated networks using the mask of social justice to wage political and cultural warfare in America. For too long, we’ve underestimated the power of identity politics fused with institutional influence. The streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. are now the stages for these manipulations.

We must not be fooled. True protest rises from the people. This? These are the kings and queens of the Democratic political machine summoning their minions to take to the streets to feign a fake people’s revolution.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: Pro-Russia, pro-China radicals march against Trump: ‘Proud to identify as a socialist’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Soon after President Trump took his oath of office across town at the U.S. Capitol, Johng Delacruz, 31, a local Filipino-American nurse, set out from another corner of the nation’s capital, on Meridian Hill off 16th Street NW, joining a cacophony of drums, chants, signs and conversations that left little ambiguity about the ideology bent of the gathering. 

A man hoisted a pre-made sign, “SOCIALISM BEATS FACISM!” Beneath the message, the name of the organization that paid for the sign’s production: Democratic Socialists of America.

WOKE ARMY RETREATS IN DC PROTEST, PIVOTS TO ‘FIGHT BACK’ FOR GAZA

A pre-made neon green placard read: “WORKERS RIGHTS & PEOPLES NEEDS. NOT WAR & GENOCIDE,” stamped with “Peoples Power Assembly,” 

Another slogan, “FIGHT TRUMP’S AGENDA,” bore the smaller-print attribution to Freedom Road Socialist Organization. 

A pre-printed banner carried by a group of demonstrators read: “WORKERS SHOULD HAVE POWER, NOT BILLIONAIRES!” Below it, the Party for Socialism and Liberation took credit.

“I’m proud to identify as a socialist supporting socialist movements,” Delacruz told me without hesitation. “I believe that is the future of humanity and the right side of history. Well, ‘left’ if you will,” he added with a laugh.

But you wouldn’t know that from the media coverage of this so-called professional “resistance” to Trump, with the Guardian reporting only that “anti-Trump protests sweep the globe on inauguration day.” Voice of America merely describing the demonstrators as “anti-Trump protesters” and NBC News writing that “progressive groups” held marches around the country –  not a word about the self-described socialist dreams for many of the groups. 

Nearby, three activists bundled in winter clothes carried a banner in the blue and red colors of Puerto Rico’s flag, also waving overhead. It bore the name, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, advocating for Puerto Rico’s independence—and a socialist government to lead it.

A man and a woman dressed in black masks dramatically pushed a faux guillotine, emblazoned with the ominous message: “COME GET SUM.”

These weren’t fringe gatherings of hobbyists. Among them was Medea Benjamin, the rich co-founder of Code Pink, marching with a cardboard heart-shaped sign painted hot pink.

“The media doesn’t give a full and honest reportage of movements like this,” Delacruz told me. “It holds a purpose to uphold the status quo of the capitalist system, if you will. If we believe socialism to be the antithesis to capitalism, then of course, it’s not going to cover it. I think at best it’ll say anti-Trump protesters from various grassroots movements, if that. But I highly doubt they will go with the particular calls and demands that we have.”

Understanding these demands is crucial. The groups here weren’t just protesting Trump—they were advancing socialism, Marxism and communism. Many of these organizations also have a pro-Russia stance, rooted in a propaganda tradition the Soviet Union pioneered: agitprop. Short for “agitation and propaganda,” agitprop combines political messaging with provocative action to influence and mobilize. I call protests like this “agitprop actions.”

The journalists I spoke to at the rally admitted they rarely identify the groups behind the protests. “Audiences don’t really understand socialism,” one reporter told me. “They tune out when they hear the word.” It’s easier to reduce the activists to concepts their readers can grasp.

On the eve of the protest, I stayed up until 3 a.m., researching the ideologies of the 205 groups involved nationwide in the January 20 protests, as part of reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit investigative reporting project that I cofounded. My analysis: 27 were Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, or Islamist; 63 self-identified as socialist; and 115 fell into what I term “adjacent” categories.

The protest industry is a complex and often opaque network of organizations, funding streams and ideological agendas that work together to orchestrate demonstrations, shape public narratives and influence political outcomes, like an effective “agitprop” operation. Understanding this ecosystem is critical because it reveals the motivations, alliances, and strategies behind what often appears to be spontaneous grassroots activism.

Walking through Meridian Hill Park revealed these agendas more clearly. The groups’ slogans championed socialism and anti-imperialism in countries like the Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, Cuba—and here in the U.S. 

Far from being isolated events, protests are frequently coordinated efforts involving global actors, local chapters, and significant financial backing. Through the Pearl Project, I aim to investigate and expose the mechanisms of this industry—identifying the players, tracing their funding and analyzing their impact. By shedding light on how protests are organized and sustained, positioning themselves now as the “resistance” to the Trump administration, I hope to provide transparency and equip the public with a deeper understanding of the forces shaping political discourse and activism.

Walking through Meridian Hill Park revealed these agendas more clearly. The groups’ slogans championed socialism and anti-imperialism in countries like the Philippines, South Korea, Venezuela, Cuba—and here in the U.S. Their endorsers didn’t hide their intentions.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The groups’ 205 “endorsers” nationwide don’t hide their agendas. Based in Salt Lake City, “Mormons with Hope for a Better World” says it is “committed to anti-racism, intersectional feminism, Trans and Queer liberation, disability justice, individual bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, socialism, anti-imperialism, and decolonization.” Leaders of Qiao Collective, a media outlet say they seek to “be a bridge between the U.S. left and China’s rich Marxist, anti-imperialist political work and thought.” The “Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International” has its agenda in its name.

As the march turned from 16th Street NW onto Massachusetts Avenue NW, Lacy MacAuley, 46, became a focal point for cameras. Wearing a disco outfit for a nearby “dance-off protest,” she donned a mask over her sunglasses that read: “TRUMP IS SO NOT THE VIBE.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I am an anarchist,” she said with a smile. “I self-identify as one. That means I question and oppose hierarchies and the rule of people over others.” While MacAuley criticized socialism as often becoming “too centralized,” she added, “It’s thinking in the right direction.”

By the end of the day, the protest wound down at Dupont Circle. The scent of marijuana lingered in the air as demonstrators dispersed. One marcher shoved his sign into a trash can, its message peeking out: “WE FIGHT BACK NETWORK.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: Woke army retreats in DC protest, pivots to ‘FIGHT BACK’ for Gaza

On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, a multi-million dollar network of socialist and Islamist organizations scaled back its plans for a massive citywide “resistance,” retreating to a quiet park in a corner of Washington, D.C., called Meridian Hill. They now predict a crowd of 2,000, a far cry from the 50,000 originally planned for the National Mall, Washington Monument and Constitution Avenue NW.

But the network of well-funded organizations, which I call the Woke Army, is pressing ahead with protests in 84 cities, rebranded in emails sent Sunday afternoon to supporters with the message, “STAND WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. WE FIGHT BACK,” following Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas. In the nation’s capital, the ANSWER Coalition, a self-declared Marxist organization based in D.C., secured a permit, which I obtained, for the smaller Meridian Hill protest after withdrawing its application for the larger citywide demonstration.

THE PROFESSIONAL PROTEST MACHINE BEHIND THE ANTI-TRUMP ‘PEOPLE’S MARCH’

Despite media portrayals of these protests as grassroots movements, they are anything but. The ANSWER Coalition’s operations are highly coordinated and funded by professional activism networks, much like Saturday’s “People’s March,” which my reporting revealed was organized by a for-profit professional protest logistics company, Movement Catalyst LLC, which executes events with military precision.

These professional organizers create a polished veneer of “grassroots” spontaneity for protests that are, in reality, meticulously engineered political theater and not grassroots but rather AstroTurf. They churned out near identical emails around 4 p.m. on Sunday, summoning followers to their Monday protests.

For years now, I’ve been tracking these organizations as part of my reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named for Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 in the name of identity politics and sectarianism. Democracy thrives on transparency, and the public deserves to know when protests are driven by ideological agendas masquerading as grassroots movements.

Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation created the ANSWER Coalition, short for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism,” after 9/11. It has consistently championed authoritarian regimes, including socialist governments in Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba. Brian Becker, the ANSWER Coalition leader who got the permit for the Meridian Hill protest, is a vocal proponent of Marxism and socialism.

The organization’s history includes inflammatory anti-American incidents, such as a protest this past summer against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, president of the Richmond chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, spray-painted “HAMAS IS COMIN” on a statue at Union Station. The National Park Service pulled ANSWER Coalition’s permit after the protest turned violent, with demonstrators burning U.S. flags and clashing with police.

Michael Litterst, a spokesman for the U.S. National Park Service, told me today that the ANSWER Coalition “canceled” its application for the citywide protest. He directed questions to the ANSWER Coalition about why it canceled its application. The ANSWER Coalition didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The permit reveals the intricate planning behind this supposed “grassroots” protest that the media will likely cast as spontaneous:

• 7 a.m.: “Load in equipment to the upper level of Meridian Hill Park.”
• 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: “Speeches and possible acoustic music.”
• 12:30 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.: “Organize for march.”
• 12:45 p.m.: “March steps off (south on 16th Street to H Street at Black Lives Matter Plaza),” near the White House.
• 12:45 p.m. to 4 p.m.: “Remove equipment from Meridian Hill Park.”

The equipment list reveals the professionalism behind these protests: one stage, 20 tables, 40 chairs, 200 handheld signs, banners, a sound system, podium, and propaganda materials, including literature and bumper stickers. The ANSWER Coalition permit said it plans to bring an “opaque secure bucket for collecting donations.”

Behind the banners and bullhorns lies a well-funded operation intent on reshaping the narrative of grassroots resistance into one that serves its own ideological goals.

The Park Service permit reminded organizers in bold text: “It is prohibited to climb, remove, or in any way injure any statue, seat, wall, fountain, light poles, elevator towers, or other architectural feature” within the park.

The ANSWER Coalition’s history raises questions about its ability to maintain order. But Litterst, the U.S. National Park Service spokesman, told me: “DC courts have previously indicated that denial of or limitations on permits for First Amendment demonstrations based on contemplated acts of violence are appropriate only when and where the threat is real, substantial and beyond the reasonable control of law enforcement.”

Last week, on a website created just days after Trump’s election, protest organizers said they had about 50 “endorsing” groups. Now, that number has increased to 205 groups, and it’s clear from the names on the growing list that their origins are far from grassroots. I’ve added the new names to a public Pearl Project public database, and, according to my new analysis, 58 of the groups are self-described socialist organizations, 25 are Islamist, Muslim, Arab or Palestinian, and the remaining 122 are socialist and Islamist adjacent. They consistently seek to destroy Israel as a state.

The “red” in tomorrow’s alliance includes well-funded protesters: the ANSWER Coalition; Code Pink, an anti-Israel group funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American billionaire tied to China’s Communist Party, according to the New York Times; the Party for Socialism and Liberation, advocating for dismantling capitalism and aligning the U.S. with socialist regimes; the People’s Forum, a socialist group that serves as a proxy for Singham’s pro-China agenda, as also documented by The New York Times; and Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the U.S.

It also now includes the “Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The “green” of this axis includes: Students for Justice in Palestine, founded by University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian, and now fomenting many of the anti-Jew campus protests, banned now on many campuses; Palestinian Feminist Collective, committed to “Palestinian liberation & beyond“; Palestinian Youth Movement, dedicated to a “strategy of mobilization, agitation and confrontation“; the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, which organized days of protests in Chicago to disrupt the Democratic Party’s convention; and the Muslim American Society, which created a “Survive Pack” with a resource from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose co-founder, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy” about the Oct. 7 incursions by Hamas into Israel.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The ANSWER Coalition’s stated purpose for the protest in Washington is to “present a popular resistance to the Trump Administration,” but its true agenda is more insidious: dismantling American democracy and promoting authoritarian socialist ideologies. From Beijing to Caracas, the ANSWER Coalition and its Woke Army allies draw inspiration from regimes, like Hamas, that suppress dissent and curtail freedoms.

As the Woke Army marches from Meridian Hill Park to Black Lives Matter Plaza, it’s crucial for Americans to remain vigilant. Behind the banners and bullhorns lies a well-funded operation intent on reshaping the narrative of grassroots resistance into one that serves its own ideological goals. Understanding these forces is the first step toward safeguarding democracy.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: The professional protest machine behind today’s ‘People’s March’

As anti-Trump protesters swarmed the steps below the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, media outlets painted a feel-good portrait. NBC4 Washington declared on social media: “Grassroots groups are descending on the capital for the People’s March before President-elect Trump’s inauguration.” The Associated Press reported that anti-Trump “demonstrators” “converge” on Washington, D.C., for protests led by the Women’s March, a “grassroots movement.”

The Washington Post described the protests as a “joint effort among civil rights, racial and social justice and reproductive health organizations,” highlighting the event’s “diverse mix of people.”

While this positive media coverage may have captured the energy of ordinary protesters, they omitted one critical detail: the name of for-profit professional machine behind the protest.

THOUSANDS OF LEFT-WING DEMONSTRATORS DESCEND ON WASHINGTON TO PROTEST TRUMP INAUGURATION

Far from a spontaneous outpouring of civic action, the event was coordinated by Movement Catalyst LLC, a for-profit company based in Silver Spring, Md., and the official permit holder for the protests, according to a copy of the permit, which I obtained from the U.S. National Park Service. In the 1990s, covering international trade for the Wall Street Journal, I was among the first reporters to put the term “AstroTurf” into the paper’s pages, describing a coalition against tariffs on minivans that the auto industry called “grassroots” but was actually manufactured by an industry lobbying group. Protest organizing isn’t much different nowadays, and today’s “People’s March” is more AstroTurf than “grassroots.” So too is the march planned for Monday, when we can expect more aggressive rabble-rousers to show up, as I reported earlier this week.

A plan, marked “Confidential Document – Not for Distribution” and submitted as part of the permit application, reveals that Movement Catalyst and its team of professional protest organizers coordinated everything from security to dumpster pickups, “port-a-potties” and a meticulously detailed “run of show,” 

The confidential document reveals the extraordinary precision with which this event was constructed, down to the golf carts, water stations and even snack distribution for staff.

Why does this matter? Because the public deserves transparency. When media outlets frame such events as grassroots, led by ordinary Americans gathering to voice their concerns, it misrepresents the reality. These are highly coordinated, well-funded initiatives driven by professional organizers. The lack of scrutiny obscures the financial, strategic and political interests behind these movements. It’s critical to follow the money and understand the players using the imagery of grassroots activism to advance their agendas. Often, media outlets will look at conservative events, like the March for Life, with skepticism and scrutiny, while deeming progressive causes as “grassroots.” We should have equal-opportunity transparency.

So, what is Movement Catalyst LLC? According to Washington, D.C., government records, it is a limited liability corporation established in February 2021. On its website, Movement Catalysts promotes its for-profit services, writing it’s an “experienced and interdisciplinary team of strategists, organizers, campaigners, and researchers” who launch “strategic projects to meet the moment,” partnering with organizations to “expand their ability to have an impact, and anchor movement infrastructure.” Its officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

 The People’s March is one of those “strategic projects,” and the company’s services include “strategy & campaign development” and “creative protests & events.” A look at its funding reveals the scale of its operations. In 2021, Movement Catalyst LLC received $592,050 from the New York-based Sustainable Markets Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit for “web campaign development,” according to its IRS Form 990 filing. Then, in 2023, Philadelphia-based Workers United, working on “organizing the unorganized collective bargaining,” paid Movement Catalyst LLC a total of $319,600, according to its tax filing. The services provided? “CONSULTANT.” This is far from a “grassroots,” mom-and-pop operation run over a kitchen table.

The confidential document lists four top officials at Movement Catalyst, as “protest leads”:

• Abby Henderson, a partner at Movement Catalyst and the organization’s registered agent, is the protest’s “Production and Vendor Lead.”
• Bill Ragen, a partner at Movement Catalyst, is the “Production and Vendor Lead.”
• Liz Butler, another partner at Movement Catalyst,” is also “Production and Vendor Lead.”
• Samantha “Sam” Miller, a “collaborator” at Movement Catalyst, is in charge of “Overall Coordination.” On the National Park Service application, she is the “person in charge.” Miller was the director at a previous professional protest company, DC Action Lab, that the Women’s March and others hired to mount protests during the first Trump administration.

The document also includes a polished map for staff and volunteers, marked “FOR INTERNAL USE – STAFF & VOLUNTEERS,” detailing traffic flow and staging areas at Franklin Park, McPherson Square and Farragut Square. The “Production Schedule for People’s March” reveals the granular level of planning: “Portable restrooms,” “Golf carts,” “Tents,” “Stage,” Tables,” “Chairs,” “Leaflets, pamphlets,” “Signs, banners,” “Bullhorns” and Movement Catalyst for “Paid Team Clean Up.”

“Miscellaneous” items include walkie-talkies, “500 cardboard trash receptacles,” “5000 masks,” hand sanitizer, earbuds, “snacks for volunteers and staff,” “coffee and catering for staff,” sweatshirts, scarves, t-shirts, “office supplies” and “badges for staff.”

Mortell Industries provided restroom trailers, “Metro Golf Car” delivered golf carts, and Bell Visuals managed live-streaming. The permit lists “Site Security” as “Omni Ranger Solutions.” Bell Visuals, a D.C. company quietly behind many of protest messages projects around the nation’s capital, is listed among the vendors for live-streaming.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The “PRODUCTION SCHEDULE” and “RUN OF SHOW/RALLY PROGRAM” was scripted with leaders and performers from many big-money organizations, including the Women’s March, Popular Democracy in Action, Standing Up for Racial Justice, Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and Dream Defenders. Movement Catalyst promised to provide at least 750 “identifiable marshals,” each wearing “hi-visibility vests and volunteer credentials.”

This level of professionalism is not new in modern protests, but rarely are the details disclosed so explicitly. The public has a right to know when well-financed organizations use the guise of grassroots activism to promote their interests. Transparency ensures accountability and enables a more informed discussion about the role of professional activism in shaping public discourse.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Behind the music, speeches and banners lies a highly coordinated operation, far removed from the grassroots imagery projected by the media. This matters because democracy thrives on truth, and understanding who pulls the strings is essential for an informed citizenry. Professional organizing is most certainly legal, but in this day of misinformation, it’s critical to examine who is driving movements cast as “grassroots,” so the public isn’t misled.

Sunday morning’s plans, from 4 a.m. until 5 a.m., includes a final essential: “Load out dumpsters and portable restrooms.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: This is the woke army plotting to crash Trump’s inauguration

This past July, as anti-Israel crowds took to the streets of Washington, D.C,, to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu address to Congress, Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, 26, climbed atop a monument at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station and allegedly spray-painted an ominous message: ‘HAMAS IS COMIN”. He punctuated the warning with the red, inverted triangle that the terrorist organization uses as a symbol to mark its targets. 

Nearby, demonstrators pulled down and burned a U.S. flag to ashes, tackled U.S. Park Police officers trying to arrest agitators and spray-painted other menacing graffiti, including ‘DEATH 2 AMRIKKKA,’ on memorials.

At 3:26 p.m., the U.S. Park Police pulled the protest permit, which had been issued to the ANSWER Coalition, a Washington-based, self-declared socialist organization. Later, the FBI charged Mahdawi and other protesters with destruction of government property.

“The permit holder failed to answer his phone and the call went directly to voicemail,” an FBI agent wrote in a fascinating affidavit that revealed that someone at a gym Mahdawi used sent the FBI a tip on his identity.

Nearly six months later, the ANSWER Coalition is poised to get a new permit to host another protest on Monday, according to a copy of the application I obtained from the National Park Service. The event name: “For Peace & Justice – Free Palestine.” The target is obviously the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

Past behavior indicates the protests will bring mayhem to the capital’s streets. Yet, National Park Service spokesman Michael Litterst told me that current legal precedent makes it difficult to deny permits based on prior incidents.

Critics, like leaders of the Clarity Coalition, a network of Muslims, ex-Muslims and allies who oppose extremism, say it’s long past time to deny the permits. At a minimum, the public must have its eyes wide open about who is behind these protests. 

As the protests unfold, media coverage will likely frame them as ‘organic,’ ‘grassroots’ activities. But make no mistake: These events will be part of a larger, well-funded operation. The demonstrators are aligned with adversaries to the U.S., including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Hamas, and are united in an unholy alliance that blends socialism with Islamism, or political Islam.

This coalition, which I call the “Woke Army,” operates as a red-green alliance, the red symbolizing socialism and communism and the green representing Islam. These are the same groups that stoked the encampments of the so-called campus intifada around the country last year. Their ultimate goal is to dismantle American democracy and replace it with a socialist, anti-capitalist order. The first way to counter this threat is through transparency, vigilance and a commitment to truth.

The application lists the same “Person in Charge of Event,” as it did in July: Brian Becker, the self-proclaimed Marxist founder of the ANSWER Coalition.

Protest organizers say they have at least 50 “endorsing” groups, and their motives are far from grassroots. I’ve created a public database as part of my work at the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative, and, according to my analysis, 25 of the groups are self-described socialist organizations, five are Muslim, Arab or Palestinian, and the final 20 are “socialist adjacent.”

The “red” in this alliance includes:

• ANSWER Coalition: A Marxist-Leninist group infamous for organizing protests that amplify anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric.
• Code Pink: An anti-Israel group funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American billionaire tied to China’s Communist Party, according to New York Times reporting.
• Party for Socialism and Liberation: Advocates for dismantling capitalism and aligning the U.S. with socialist regimes.
• The People’s Forum: A socialist group that serves as a proxy for Singham’s pro-China agenda, as also documented by the New York Times.
• Democratic Socialists of America: The largest socialist organization in the U.S. and a big supporter of anti-Israel campaigns.

The “green” of this axis includes:

• Students for Justice in Palestine: Founded by University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian, this controversial group has fomented many of the anti-Jew campus protests, banned now on many campuses.
• Palestinian Feminist Collective: Committed to “Palestinian liberation & beyond.”
• Palestinian Youth Movement: Dedicated to a “strategy of mobilization, agitation and confrontation.”
• U.S. Palestinian Community Network: Organized days of protests in Chicago to disrupt the Democratic Party’s convention.
• Muslim American Society: Created a “Survive Pack,” with tips on building campus “Liberation Zones” and a resource from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose co-founder, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy” about the Oct. 7 incursions by Hamas into Israel.

In July, I went to the corner of C Street NW to report who had rented buses to ferry protesters to the first “HAMAS IS COMIN’” protest. It was the Party for Socialism and Liberation. This time, if you go to the “We Fight Back” website’s donation page, you’ll see who is getting the donations for the Jan. 20 protests. It’s The People’s Forum, whose logo and tax ID number appear on the donate page.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

On Nov. 5, four days after Trump’s electoral victory, an anonymous person bought the website domain wefightback2025.org. Now the protest’s digital hub, it features an embedded Google Map geo-locating 80 planned “actions” across the country.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

It even includes a “J20 media kit” with pre-designed Instagram graphics, a Canva template and printable protest posters emblazoned with slogans like “Stop the Genocide in Palestine” and “Defeat Extreme-Right Trump’s Billionaire Agenda!” 

The kit even provides social media captions, complete with a megaphone emoji. They have their right to protest, but the world must have eyes wide open about who is behind the megaphones.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

ASRA NOMANI: Islamists’ familiar ‘Triple D’ strategy follows Bourbon Street terror attack

When Shamsud Din Jabbar, 42, rammed his white Ford F-150 pickup truck into New Year’s Eve revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter, the leaders at his neighborhood mosque, Masjid Bilal off Adel Road in Houston, sent congregants a message to direct FBI inquiries to a special-interest group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and avoid speaking to the media.

But they didn’t have to say anything to me. I’ve seen this pattern before, as a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has investigated Islamic extremism for 23 years — since the brutal murder  of my colleague and friend, journalist Daniel Pearl, by Muslim militants in Karachi, for the crime of being an American, a Jew and a grandson of Israel.

NEW ORLEANS TRUCK ATTACK SUSPECT INSPIRED BY ISLAMIC STATE TERRORIST GROUP

First, a radicalized Muslim kills in the name of Islam. Then, groups like CAIR deploy a strategy I call “triple-D”: Denying the crime had anything to do with Islam, deflecting with excuses and then demonizing anyone who calls out the terrorism as an “Islamophobe.” 

Indeed, within 36 hours, CAIR issued a statement, denying the problem of Islamic extremism by claiming it’s been “rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world.” It then deflected from the killer’s religious radicalization by describing him as a “man with a history of drunk driving and spousal abuse.”

East of Houston, in Beaumont, Tex., Fahmee Al-Uqdah, an imam in Jabbar’s hometown, told a local TV station, KFDM/Fox 4, that Jabbar’s family asked him to deliver a message that “the tragic incident was driven by hatred and ignorance and Jabbar’s actions do not reflect the religion of Islam.” Al-Uqdah practices an offshoot of Islam established by a Black American leader, Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Mohammed, founder of the Nation of Islam, led today by the virulently antisemitic Louis Farrakhan. It isn’t yet clear if Jabbar was a member of the W. Deen Mohammed school of Islam.

Finally, most likely in the coming days, CAIR officials will demonize anyone who focuses on Jabbar’s religious radicalization.

As a Muslim feminist and classic liberal born in India and raised in West Virginia, I co-founded the Muslim Reform Movement in 2015 with brave Muslims, like authors Zuhdi Jasser and Raheel Raza, to counter this triple-D strategy with honesty. Later, in 2022, we co-founded the Clarity Coalition with ex-Muslims, like author Yasmine Mohammed, and allies to challenge extremists and advocate for an Islam of women’s rights, human rights and grace. 

‘Ummah..is one body’

While officials at Masjid Bilal mosque have refused to confirm that Jabbar worshiped there, it is just a seven-minute walk from the trailer home on the 12000 block of Crescent Peak Drive in which he lived prior to the attack. Jabbar’s half-brother Abdur Jabbar told The New York Times “This is more some type of radicalization, not religion.”

Groups like CAIR deploy a strategy I call “triple-D”: Denying the crime had anything to do with Islam, deflecting with excuses and then demonizing anyone who calls out the terrorism as an “Islamophobe.”

But with religion very much about interpretation, radicalization can be religion. In his mobile home, Jabbar left a Quran open to verse 111 of Chapter 9, “Surah at-Tawbah,” which I call “the war verse,” for its edicts on war and promises of heaven for Muslims who wage violent jihad. The open page read, “They fight in His cause, and slay and are slain; a promise binding,” according to reporting from The Times of London.

The sermons offered at Masjid Bilal are emblematic of a wider, problematic, insular and rigid interpretation of Islam preached at far too many mosques. Reviewing scores of sermons posted on Masjid Bilal’s Facebook page, I found a portrait of the strictest interpretation of Islam, grace hardly to be found. While it’s unclear whether these sermons influenced Jabbar, they reflect a broader pattern that too many avoid scrutinizing, leaving critical gaps in understanding.

The sermons at the neighborhood mosque reflect a broader pattern that too many avoid scrutinizing, leaving critical gaps in understanding. Imams, or prayer leaders, railed against the LGBTQ community, deemed adopted children not worthy of the same status as biological children, relegated women to a segregated balcony space and scolded “doctors wearing scrubs” for failing to dress respectfully. The imams preach interpretations of Islam from the strictest schools of jurisprudence, or .

Most strikingly, imams delivered sermons absent of sympathy for the Jews massacred by Hamas terrorists in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Instead, there was a relentless focus on the “oppressors” of Palestinians.

On Oct. 9, 2023, in the first video posted after the massacre, the imam sat, with hands folded on his lap, and said solemnly, “We are praying for our brothers and sisters in Palestine…Give them aid and victory, inshallah,” God willing. There wasn’t a word of sympathy for Jews murdered by Hamas.

Four days later, on Oct. 13, the imam repeated a manipulative belief among ideologues that “the Muslim ummah,” or community of so-called believers, “is one body,” and he urged a new prayer for “our brothers and sisters in Palestine” and called to “end their suffering.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

On Oct. 15, another imam at the mosque urged congregants to raise their voices for “our brothers and sisters in Palestine” against the “plight of Palestinians.” Not a word was offered for the Jews who had been slaughtered. This is where he also railed against the “LGBTQ” community.

Oct. 7 denial

On May 31, yet another imam spent much of his sermon railing against Israel, saying, “Wherever I go, I cannot give a talk without mentioning Falasteen, Gaza and West Bank,” using the Arabic word for Palestine.

“Every media mainstream channel in this country put the entire blame, the entire story, that this started just Oct. 7,” he said. “Hamas attacked the [sic] Israel. This is 100 percent not true. This genocide, this aggression is going on for the past 75 years.” The root cause of Oct. 7 was Israel’s “occupation,” “colonization” and “settlement.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“If you see evil, start with your hand…” he guided the congregation, in a repeat of a hadith, or saying of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. 

Indeed, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director from the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said Jabbar joined the Islamic State this summer and careened onto Bourbon Street, hand on the steering wheel, with a belief he was in a “war between believers and nonbelievers.”

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM ASRA NOMANI

Democrats are closing doors on parents, and that’s a win for the GOP

On Sunday night, as I was doing laundry, I got a text message from a fellow Virginia mother with an interesting invitation: Ben Litchfield, a Democratic Party Virginia Senate candidate from Fredericksburg, was convening a statewide Zoom call of “parents, educations and pro-public school activists” to discuss education issues.

A “mama bear” activist from northern Virginia since June 2020, I thought it was a unique opportunity to brainstorm. A Democrat all my life, I moved to Virginia in December 2008 with my young son, then in kindergarten, only because the state elected Barack Obama to be U.S. president. 

Born in India, I am an American Muslim immigrant and single mother, and I thought the state was finally progressive enough for me. With English as my second language when I arrived in the U.S. at the age of 4, I believe in the power of America’s public school system to empower a girl like me to become a reporter for the Wall Street Journal at the age of 23. 

That’s why I fight every day to support a public system where teachers are able to spend their time educating my younger self, not indoctrinating kids with divisive, distracting activist agendas.

YOUR CHILDREN BELONG TO YOU, NOT A SCHOOL. IF YOU DON’T FIGHT, YOU’LL LOSE THEM

This time, these activists were hosting a strategy session to develop “a coordinated opposition” to the Youngkin administration’s alleged “attack on public schools, educators, and students.”

The designated “Topic” for the call: “VA Dept of Education and Youngkin Town Hall.” Thursday night, CNN host Jake Tapper is hosting a town hall meeting with Gov. Glenn Youngkin. I know because I’ve encouraged many parents and students to join the town hall.

When I joined the call, I recognized some names. Cheryl Binkley, a former northern Virginia teachers’ union leader, was guiding introductions. Mariane Burke, the local leader of the national activist group, Indivisible, was online. 

I knew them well. They had led a successful hit, organized by the Virginia chapter of a national teachers’ union campaign – #RedForEd – to assassinate the character of a friend, Suparna Dutta, an American Hindu immigrant, with the “White supremacist” smear when Youngkin nominated her to be on the Virginia Board of Education. They won a 22-18 vote, with Democrats casting their ballots unanimously against Dutta.

On the call, another woman introduced herself, and then Binkley, a former Virginia Education Association union official, turned to me. I introduced myself fully: I’m Asra Nomani, and I’m a mother in northern Virginia, and I looked forward to learning from others.

“I think you’re in the wrong meeting,” Binkley responded, laughing.

IS PROGRESSIVE FEVER FINALLY BREAKING? 5 SIGNS AMERICANS GETTING FED UP WITH WOKE POLITICIANS AND POLICIES

“No, I’m in the correct meeting,” I answered.

While we may have a difference of opinion on a few – OK, many – issues, I thought we could benefit from a much-needed conversation, hearing each other out, at least virtually face-to-face. Binkley had another point of view.

She kicked me out of the meeting, and my only participation was left to my introduction and this note that popped up on my phone: “The host has removed you from this meeting.”

The Virginia Democrats’ removal of me – a Muslim immigrant single mother from India and “woman of color,” as U.S. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez once described Rep. Ilhan Omar – symbolizes much more than the ejection of one person. It captures the utter failure of the Democratic National Committee to actually be inclusive to the millions of parents – many of them immigrant minority parents – who refuse its lockstep agenda with the country’s two teachers’ unions – the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

Even though President Joe Biden won the White House in 2020, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governor’s race in 2021, over Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, who famously sealed his loss with the assertion in a debate that “…I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

The arrogance, political corruption and myopia of Democratic Party officials to parents portends bad news for the Democratic Party in 2024 and good news for Republican candidates. On cue, every Republican presidential candidate, former Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump – and those still unannounced, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Youngkin – have made education a key issue on their platform.

Take a bow. That’s the mama bear movement driving issues, not the other way around.

On Twitter the next day, the Democrat loyalists didn’t apologize and acknowledge the error of their ways. One user responded: “Good. You have no business in Virginia education.”

But I actually do have business in Virginia education. So does every parent.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Democrats will turn off more parents with their closed-door mentality, and that will drive a wedge issue between traditionally Democratic parents, like Black, Hispanic and Asian parents, and the Democratic Party. 

Republicans have embraced a winning agenda item, and they will win the White House if they continue to translate their platforms with policy and legislative answers restoring parents’ rights in America.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ASRA Q. NOMANI

Schools’ war on merit is a real threat to our kids’ futures

In southern California, outside Los Angeles, Culver City School District officials are making headlines for an outrageous scheme in which they have eliminated honors classes from the curriculum at Culver City High School. That’s to the chagrin of many students and parents, understandably angry about advanced learners left behind in the name of “equity.” 

The Wall Street Journal reported, “To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes.” The subhead added, “Supporters say uniform classes create rigor for all students but critics say cuts hurt faster learners.” 

Documents I’ve obtained in the course of reporting my new book, “Woke Army,” reveal what we parents know: Culver City school board officials have been playing a long war on merit. Look no further than the “Equity, Social Justice & Inclusion Plan” discussed at a board meeting on Aug. 4, 2020, in the midst of America’s “racial reckoning,” and approved for its work from 2020-2023. 

55 CHICAGO SCHOOLS REPORT NO STUDENTS PROFICIENT IN MATH OR READING

Some of the highlights reveal the war on merit by the Woke Army’s self-described “equity warriors.” School district officials have been seeking “equitable education” not equal. Their plan included “Learning workshops on the concept of Critical Race Theory” for parents and “Professional Development on the concept of Critical Race Theory in the Classroom.” 

Page 13 of the report has the zinger now making headlines: “Grade Span/Level colleague examining equity: re Grading, AP, Honors Courses.” 

School district officials didn’t hide the ideology behind their work, citing the book, “Critical Race Theory in Teacher Education,” as a reference. Excellence is mentioned only once, citing a book, “Excellence through Equity.” School district officials also used the work of an equity warrior in the Woke Army, California-based consultant Glenn Singleton and his dubious training, titled, “Courageous Conversations.” 

The elimination of honors classes at Culver City High School in the Culver City Unified School District is emblematic of a wider trend in which “equity” is being used as an excuse to take away opportunities from advanced learners and high achievers to cover up the miserable failures of public-school officials who have not been able to close the achievement gaps between Black and Hispanic students with Asian and white students. It’s leading to new racism. 

The word “merit” is never mentioned in the document. 

From California to Virginia, we are seeing a war on merit. A Woke Army of self-described “equity warriors” is waging a war on merit on America’s kids and in America’s classrooms, because one of their goals is to dumb down America. A young generation generated unable to read, write and do arithmetic at grade levels makes for a malleable audience for indoctrination. 

I saw this reporting my book, in my journey becoming an accidental activist when “equity warriors” went after my son’s high school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, Va., eliminating the merit-based admissions test and replacing it with new system that a federal judge ruled is unconstitutional. Then this fall, we discovered they withheld National Merit awards. 

It’s not just a war on merit. It’s a war on kids and the future of America. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

In the 1950s and 1960s, communists in China targeted intellectuals for murder and labor camps during the violent Cultural Revolution of China’s past, and, in the same way, social justice warriors in America’s Woke Army have kids in honors classes in their crosshairs. 

The Wall Street Journal reported, “To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes.” The subhead added, “Supporters say uniform classes create rigor for all students but critics say cuts hurt faster learners.” 

They have a simple mantra: “equal outcomes for every student without exception,” as an equity consultant declared in Fairfax County, Va., as did the new superintendent, Michelle Reid in a video. The consultant, founder of Performance Facts Inc., even told Princeton, N.J., school district officials in a recorded video, that they must be “purposefully unequal” in their work. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In a Feb. 8, 2023, announcement, the Fairfax County, Va., school district just rebranded its equity battle plan with a word salad, claiming on a new webpage that it wants “Excellence, Equity and Opportunity.” That’s just word salad. 

We know their objective is the dumbing down of America, and we must stop their incursions into the minds of America’s kids.