Tag Archives: Edward Helmore

Guardian: Man arrested by Ice dies in jail cell in Long Island, New York

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Officials in Nassau county confirmed death of 42-year-old man to Newsday but declined to share details

A man arrested by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (Ice) died in a Long Island, New York, jail on Thursday, according to a report.

Officials in Nassau county confirmed the death of a 42-year-old man to Newsday but declined to share details, saying that an investigation was under way.

“There is an ongoing investigation, which will be thorough and transparent to determine the cause of death,” the Nassau county sheriff, Anthony LaRocco, told the outlet. “Nassau county takes seriously its obligation to treat every prisoner humanely.”

The outlet reported that this is the first death of an Ice detainee in custody in Nassau county, where more than 1,400 people detained by the federal agency have been held between February and June this year.

A spokesperson for the office of the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, confirmed that it is conducting a preliminary assessment of the death.

Police arrived at the Nassau county correctional center in East Meadow on Thursday morning at around 6.30am to find the man “not breathing” after he was “observed in his cell unresponsive”.

At least 14 people have died in Ice custody in fiscal year 2025, which began in October 2024, according Ice figures. About 58,766 people have been detained this year, as of 7 September, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Nassau county, home to a large Salvadorian and Guatemalan population, entered into a partnership with Ice in February, allocating 50 local jail cells for Ice detainees. The man who died was being held as part of that partnership.

The Nassau county executive, Bruce Blakeman, said in July that “there is no evidence” to suggest anyone was being held longer than 72 hours, per the agreement with Ice. The official said the federal government was reimbursing the county $195 per Ice detainee, per night.

The publication New York Focus calculates that New York state’s county jails have held six times more people for immigration authorities than they did in 2024.

The state’s jail system booked a total of nearly 2,800 people arrested for immigration reasons in the first seven months of 2025, up from only 500 last year, according to Ice data.

Man arrested by Ice dies in jail cell in Long Island, New York
Officials in Nassau county confirmed death of 42-year-old man to Newsday but declined to share details

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/19/ice-death-long-island-ny

Guardian: Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia – report

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Wall Street Journal says move is part of Trump administration’s effort to get Putin into peace talks

US defense officials have blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia since late spring as part of a Trump administration effort to get Vladimir Putin to engage in peace talks , according to a report on Saturday.

Worked really well, didn’t it, King Donald, you f*ck*ng Surrender Monkey. Your chum Putin continued doing what he was doing and just blitzed the sh*t out of Ukraine, including destroying an American factory.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from using US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms.

Two US officials told the outlet that on at least one occasion, Ukraine had sought to use Atacms against a target but was denied under a “review mechanism” developed by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, that governs how US long-range weapons or those provided by European allies that rely on American intelligence and components can be used.

The review process also applies to Britain’s Storm Shadow cruise missile because it depends on US targeting data, according to two US officials and a British official, the Journal said.

The review system reportedly gives US defense secretary Pete Hegseth approval over the use of the Atacms, which have a range of nearly 190 miles (305km). Ukraine was previously given authority by the Biden administration to use the missile system against targets inside Russia in November after North Korean troops entered the war.

Before the inauguration in January, Trump told Time magazine that the decision to allow Ukraine to use US weapons systems to attack targets inside Russia had been a mistake.

“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done,” he said.

It is unclear whether the US defense department’s review process amounts to a formal policy change. But it comes alongside increasing control of munitions to Ukraine as US stocks are themselves depleted.

In a statement to the Journal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “has been very clear that the war in Ukraine needs to end. There has been no change in military posture in Russia-Ukraine at this time.”

But last week, amid efforts to broker talks between the Russian president and Voldomyr Zelenskyy, Trump said that Ukraine couldn’t defeat Russia unless it could “play offense” in the war.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country,” Trump wrote on Thursday. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning.”

Last month, the US agreed to supply Ukraine with new weapons systems but only if European nations paid for them. While Trump has said that the US is “not looking” to provide longer-range weapons that could reach Moscow, US officials told the Journal that the administration has approved the sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition air-launched missiles, or Erams, which have a range of 280 miles (400km).

Not surprising that Ukraine is developing its own long range drone (code name “Flamingo”) with a range of 3,000 km. to reduce their reliance on the buffoon Trump.

Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia – report
Wall Street Journal says move is part of Trump administration’s effort to get Putin into peace talks

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/23/pentagon-ukraine-russia-missiles

Guardian: IRS commissioner’s removal reportedly over clash on undocumented immigrant data

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Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers

The removal of the Internal Revenue Service commissioner Billy Long after just two months in the post came after the federal tax collection agency said it could not release some information on taxpayers suspected of being in the US illegally, it was reported on Saturday.

The IRS and the White House had clashed over using tax data to help locate suspected undocumented immigrants soon before Long was dismissed by the administration, according to the Washington Post.

Long’s dismissal came less than two months after he was confirmed, making his service as Senate-confirmed IRS commissioner the briefest in the agency’s 163-year history. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting commissioner, making him the agency’s seventh leader this year.

The outlet reported the Department of Homeland Security had sent the IRS a list of 40,000 names on Thursday that it suspects of being in the country illegally. DHS asked the tax service to crosscheck confidential taxpayer data to verify their addresses.

The IRS reportedly responded that it was able to verify fewer than 3% of the names on the DHS list, and mostly names that came with an individual taxpayer identification, or ITIN number, provided by DHS.

Administration officials then requested information on the taxpayers the IRS identified, which the service declined to do, citing taxpayer privacy rights.

The White House has identified the IRS as a component of its crackdown on illegal immigration and hopes that the tax agency help locate as many as 7 million people in the US without authorization. In April, homeland security struck a data sharing agreement with the treasury department – which oversees the IRS.

But Long appears to have resisted acting on that agreement, saying the IRS would not hand over confidential taxpayer information outside its statutory obligation to the treasury.

Related: Trump removes IRS commissioner Billy Long two months after he was sworn in

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson rejected the notion that the IRS was not in harmony with administration priorities.

“Any absurd assertion other than everyone being aligned on the mission is simply false and totally fake news,” Johnson told the Post. “The Trump administration is working in lockstep to eliminate information silos and to prevent illegal aliens from taking advantage of benefits meant for hardworking American taxpayers,” she addedIn fact, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7bn in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, including $59.4bn to the federal government, helping to fund social security and Medicare, despite being excluded from most benefits, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy thinktank.

DHS told the Post that its agreement with IRS “outlines a process to ensure that sensitive taxpayer information is protected, while allowing law enforcement to effectively pursue criminal violations”.

Pressure on federal agencies to conform to administration priorities has also led to pressures on the Census Bureau to conduct a mid-decade population review as well as the firing of Bureau of Labor head last week after it published a unfavorable job report.

After being dismissed on Friday, Long, a former six-term Missouri congressman, said that he would be the new US ambassador to Iceland.

“It is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland,” Long said in post on X. “I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!”

He followed that up with a more humorous entry that referred to former TV Superman actor Dean Cain’s decision, at 59, to join to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agency.

“I saw where Former Superman actor Dean Cain says he’s joining ICE so I got all fired up and thought I’d do the same. So I called @realDonaldTrump last night and told him I wanted to join ICE and I guess he thought I said Iceland? Oh well.”

IRS commissioner’s removal reportedly over clash on undocumented immigrant data
Trump removed Billy Long from post months after agency said it couldn’t release information on some taxpayers

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/09/billy-long-irs-removal-immigrant-data-trump

Alternet: BUSTED: James Comey’s cryptic ‘8647’ doesn’t mean what Trump voters say it means

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem [Bimbo #2], FBI Director Kash Patel and other far-right MAGA Republicans are calling for an investigation of former FBI Director James Comey in response to an Instagram post that depicted seashells in the sand forming the numbers “8647.”

The slang expression “eight-six” means to “remove” or “eject,” and Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States. Noem [Bimbo #2], in a May 15 post on X, formerly Twitter, claimed that Comey was promoting violence against President Trump.

Noem [Bimbo #2] tweeted, “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service is investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”

But Noem’s [Bimbo #2’s] critics are reminding her that the term “eight-six” doesn’t automatically have a violent connotation. When restaurant workers, for example, say that they need to “eight-six” an order, it means cancel the order. Or a bar might “eighty-six” a customer who has had too much to drink.

Liberal firebrand and former MSNBC host Keith Olberman, in response to Noem’s [Bimbo #2’s] tweet, posted, “Listen, you lying witch, he didn’t call for assassinating anyone. Since you murdered your daughter’s dog maybe you ought to S— about this.”

BUSTED: James Comey’s cryptic ‘8647’ doesn’t mean what Trump voters say it means

https://www.alternet.org/comey-86-noem-trump