COINTELPRO 2.0: Project Esther, EO 14243, and Palantir

The pattern is familiar, and the escalation is predictable. I warned about this recently, and now it’s unfolding exactly as anticipated.

From my May 22 post:

Just as I anticipated, the blame is being directed at China. Marco Rubio, currently serving in the Trump administration, has previously targeted various leftist organizations for their funding connections to Neville Roy Singham, who has been accused of having ties to the Communist Party of China. These allegations originated from front groups linked to Stratfor, often referred to as the “Shadow CIA,” as well as the State Department and U.S. Intelligence. Additionally, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) receives backing from the Israel lobby. Recall my previous post about Project Esther, which linked antisemitism to Marxism. Expect a crackdown on leftists and other antiwar activists who are protesting the Gaza war.

On May 28, the Heritage Foundation—architect of Project Esther—officially embraced the narrative linking pro-Palestinian activism to Chinese influence.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther is more than a framework—it’s a blueprint for ideological suppression masquerading as national security policy. By tying anti-Zionism to antisemitism, then layering in foreign influence accusations, the initiative sets the stage for a sweeping crackdown on dissent. Under the guise of national security, any challenge to U.S. policy—whether in opposition to the Gaza war or broader leftist movements—can be framed as a foreign threat. This justification makes mass surveillance not just palatable but necessary.

Enter Palantir—the data engine that makes ideological suppression scalable. While Heritage Foundation shapes the narrative and justification for crackdowns, Palantir provides the technical apparatus to execute them. As I warned in my earlier post, EO 14243 and Trump’s Data Consolidation: The Hidden Agenda Behind Big Tech Surveillance, Palantir is embedding digital IDs across DHS, IRS, and Social Security, consolidating surveillance under the guise of fraud prevention. These tools, once presented as safeguards against fraud, now serve a far clearer purpose: streamlining the targeting and suppression of leftist dissent. Heritage Foundation supplies the blueprint—Palantir builds the machinery.

This isn’t new. The playbook remains the same—COINTELPRO weaponized bureaucratic surveillance to neutralize Black liberation and leftist movements under the guise of national security. Now, Project Esther will leverage EO 14243’s infrastructure to fuse ideological suppression with the mechanics of automated surveillance. Just as COINTELPRO framed activists as subversives to justify government crackdowns, Project Esther weaponizes accusations of extremism and foreign influence to achieve similar ends. The targets have shifted, but the machinery of repression remains intact.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Donald Trump’s Next Diversity Target: People With Disabilities

President Trump’s suggestion last month that the tragic Potomac air crash was somehow the fault of disabled federal air traffic controllers was appalling—but it should have come as no surprise. Trump’s contempt for people with disabilities has been well documented, and it’s that animus, combined with the accelerating MAGA assault on diversity throughout the United States, that has disability rights advocates preparing to defend decades worth of hard-won protections.

One month into his presidency, Trump has unleashed a government-wide attack on people with disabilities, from anti-diversity executive orders to proposed special-education rollbacks to threats to slash programs like Medicaid that are lifelines for disabled people across the country. If successful, these actions could have catastrophic consequences for millions of Americans, according to disability rights experts.

Donald Trump’s Next Diversity Target: People With Disabilities

Related:

In the video below, Rep. Jahana Hayes mentions how Trump’s DEIA order is already affecting special education.

If Trump Dismantles the Dept. of Education, Who Will Pay the Biggest Price?

DEI (A?) – The Effect of Donald Trump’s DEI Executive Order on Accessibility

On President Trump’s first day in office, he immediately issued a new Executive Order declaring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (“DEI”) efforts “illegal.” With this new order in effect, previous mandates that implemented DEI efforts both in the federal government and among federal contractors were revoked.

While the primary focus is on race- and sex-based affirmative action, the Order lumps together “DEI” and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (“DEIA”) efforts. So, disability inclusion efforts may now be under scrutiny as well.

Trumpworld’s Favorite Writer Says The Right Must Emulate Dictators in Battling Leftist ‘Unhumans’

Source

Joshua Lisec’s work is highly regarded by J.D. Vance, Donald Trump Jr., and Steve Bannon. He thinks democracy is overrated and that law should be used as a tool of political revenge. He spoke to Current Affairs to explain why his book praises McCarthyism and dictatorships. 

Trumpworld’s Favorite Writer Says The Right Must Emulate Dictators in Battling Leftist ‘Unhumans (archived)

Related:

The Atrocities of Augusto Pinochet and the United States

Fighting Pinochet ebook

Don’t Blame Karl Marx for ‘Cultural Marxism’

Neo-reactionaries

Recruitment and far right: “I Love the Third Brigade”

Recruitment and far right: “I Love the Third Brigade”

The United States is putting pressure on Zelensky to lower the age of conscription again, but for the moment the Ukrainian president is rejecting this possibility. This is what Ukrainian media such as Ukrainska Pravda reported this week, referring to the mobilization of men between 18 and 25 years old, a very small population group in which the country’s future cannot afford to lose. Even before the law on mobilization was approved, which is very unpopular despite not being as harsh as foreign allies demanded, prominent figures and self-proclaimed friends of Ukraine such as US Senator Lindsey Graham have publicly encouraged Ukraine to recruit those over 18 years old despite the demographic risk that this implies for the country they claim to defend. These suggestions seem to have become a demand that is confirmed even by people who belong to the state apparatus. “If this information has come to light, it may confirm that American politicians from both parties are putting pressure on President Zelensky on the question of why there is no mobilisation for those aged 18-25 in Ukraine,” said Serhiy Leshchenko, one of Andriy Yermak’s advisers and a figure who has gone from representing the third sector, civil society in Maidan Ukraine to all kinds of well-paid positions in government or in the few state-owned companies that Kiev has not yet privatised. The past ten years show a double standard between those who have been privileged and those who have been impoverished and marginalised thanks to the European and liberal reforms of the peacetime years. However, Ukraine’s refusal to recruit its most vulnerable population group strictly responds to the future needs of the state, which, if it hopes to rebuild itself, must maintain minimum levels of youth population.

Read More »

Did ‘Our Little Baby’ Make a Nazi International?

Rumble

This year on Ukraine’s Independence Day, some prominent Russian neo-Nazis found themselves in Lviv, the unofficial capital of Ukrainian nationalism, to attend the first “Nation Europa” conference, which brought together representatives of an extreme-right network in Europe and neo-Nazi movements in the Ukrainian armed forces.

Did ‘Our Little Baby’ Make a Nazi International?

Related:

More Ukrainians Want to Negotiate an End to the War. Soldiers Don’t Agree.

Interview with Moss Robeson: On the history of Washington’s ties to the Ukrainian Banderites and their role in the war against Russia

For Reporters Without Borders, censorship is freedom of speech, and the death of Russian journalists does not count.

For Reporters Without Borders, censorship is freedom of speech, and the death of Russian journalists does not count.

In the Reporters Without Borders (RWB) annual report on journalists killed in the course of their work in 2023, the deaths of two Russian journalists killed in the area of the special military operation were simply erased from the count, as if their deaths did not count. But after all, this is hardly surprising coming from an organisation that in 2022 was already calling for censorship of the Russian media on the pretext of protecting freedom of speech.

52% of RWB’s funding comes from governments, including the French Development Agency, the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the UK Foreign Office, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the European Commission, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But if we look at the non-governmental players, RWB’s Russophobic bias can be fully explained. Its partners include the Open Society foundations of George Soros, who has never hidden the fact that he wants to see Russia collapse, and who supports colour revolutions around the world in order to install pro-Western governments in key countries such as Ukraine.

The Ford Foundation is also a donor to Reporters Without Borders. This foundation is literally infiltrated by the CIA (one of its former presidents is none other than the architect of what later became the CIA, and he hired American intelligence agents to work for the foundation)!

And to top it all off, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is one of RWB’s supporters. The NED is an American organisation funded by the US Congress, which has taken on some of the tasks previously carried out by the CIA! Don’t waste any more time, we’ve got the trifecta!