Dem Senator Slams Van Jones Over Vile “Dead Gaza Baby” Joke

Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen called out political commentator Van Jones for his grotesque “dead Gaza baby” joke on Real Time with Bill Maher.

“This is not about critical race theory on college campuses, this is about Iran,” Jones said while claiming that information about Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is all just Iranian propaganda. “Iran and Qatar have come up with a disinformation campaign that they are running through TikTok and Instagram that is massive. If you are a young person, you open up your phone and all you see is ‘dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby—Diddy—dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby.... That’s not DEI, that is a geopolitical adversary that is deliberately trying to divide the West against itself.”

The crowd erupted in laughter and applause.

Jones was widely rebuked, perhaps most pointedly by Van Hollen.

“I’m glad Van Jones apologized for his sick joking about dead kids in Gaza. But the problem goes deeper: he spread Netanyahu propaganda that the mass killings of civilians in Gaza—including 20K+ kids—is Iranian fake news,” he wrote on X. “It’s not the students and young people who are fooled. It’s Van Jones.”

Calling Palestinians using social media to broadcast their own genocide a disinformation campaign is stupid and disgusting, especially given how hard it is to share that information in the first place. Jones later offered a half-hearted apology, but the damage was done.

“I’ve watched hundreds of hours of Gaza videos in the last 2 years, including content filmed by our brave teams inside the strip, and can confirm that the ‘dead Gaza baby’ images are quite real, not the product of a ‘disinformation campaign’ and that there is nothing funny about them,” NBC News’s Hala Gorani said.

“Turning ‘dead Gaza baby’ into a punchline is such an evil choice that I’m struggling to even engage with the outrageous lie that we only care about Gazan deaths because of an Iranian social media campaign,” Briahna Joy Gray chimed in. ​​

Others pointed to Jones’s history of leftist performance—making a 2003 pro-Palestinian rap album, starting a Maoist, Marxist-Leninist collective in San Francisco in the 90s—to show how spineless his current rhetoric is.

As for Van Hollen, his condemnation of Jones is unfortunately one of very few instances of U.S. leadership on either side showing any ounce of courage in speaking up against Israel’s genocide. And while words won’t make Israel’s bombs stop dropping on Gaza, Van Hollen shows that the bright line on fealty to Israel is deteriorating.

President Donald Trump lashed out at Democrats during a wildly political speech that made the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary all about him.

Speaking to a massive crowd at the Norfolk Naval base Sunday, Trump seemed to forget he wasn’t on the campaign trail anymore and veered off into attacks against his opposition.

Trump warned that, “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats.”

“They want to give all of our money to illegal aliens that pour into the country. And you know, I have a bigger heart than they do, but the problem is when you do that, they come in by the millions. Everybody wants that, so you can’t do it,” Trump said, before bragging about how much money he’d poured into the armed forces.

It almost goes without saying, but Trump’s highly political comments are out of step with the U.S. military’s tradition of nonpartisanship. And for the second time in a week, the president seemed intent on turning his armed forces against half of the country.

Last week, when speaking to a gathering of top U.S. military brass, Trump delivered a diatribe against the Democrats, which was met mostly by silence. He ranted that the United States was “under invasion from within.”

Now, calling the Democrats a “gnat” to be swatted away is just the latest in a long line of dehumanizing rhetoric from the president. He’s also called his opponents “vermin,” and “the enemy within,” and recently referred to Democrats as “The Party Of Hate, Evil, And Satan.” All while blaming the rhetoric of the left for a spate of political violence.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal from Ghislaine Maxwell, who was hoping the court would reverse her convictions for her role in helping the late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein abuse young girls.

Maxwell’s convictions and 20-year criminal sentence remain in place, after the Supreme Court declined certiorari, meaning fewer than four of the nine justices voted for the Supreme Court to review her case. The decision came with no dissent or explanation.

Maxwell and her legal team had argued that she should have been protected from federal prosecution because a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida shielded his “potential co-conspirators” from charges.

“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” said Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus. “But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”

In July, Markus requested that Maxwell receive clemency from President Donald Trump.

This story has been updated.

A South Carolina Judge who recently ruled against the Trump administration had her house go up in a massive cloud of flames on Sunday. 

Judge Diane Goodstein’s home can be seen in a video engulfed in a gargantuan cloud of smoke and fire. Three people were injured, including Goodstein’s son as well her husband, former state Senator Arnold Goodstein, who had to jump out of the window while fleeing to safety. The judge herself was not in the home at the time of the incident. Authorities have yet to determine what the cause of the fire was, and there is currently no evidence of foul play. 

However, the timing of this accident is rather peculiar. Goodstein recently blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to access South Carolina’s voter registration database in their effort to exert greater control over elections. Goodstein’s decision was later overturned, and she was called out directly on X by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon.   

Goodstein also received death threats for weeks before the fire, according to Time magazine. And just days ago, Trump adviser Stephen Miller wrote that there is “a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country” that is “shielded by far-left Democrat judges.” 

Even as police continue to investigate, it’s hard to ignore that this judge’s home burned down in the midst of an executive effort to publicly shame and isolate judges the administration disagrees with. Many judges have made it clear that they feel a ruling against Trump, no matter how principled, makes them a target.     

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is decrying the notion that the president sending troops into American cities is subject to judicial review.

Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily blocked the administration from deploying National Guard troops to Oregon.

The Trump-appointed judge—whom the president has mistakenly referred to as a man—first blocked the deployment of Oregon’s National Guard, before blocking that of all states’ National Guards for two weeks. Oregon, Immergut said, would “suffer an injury to its sovereignty” once “the federalized National Guard deploys to Portland.”

An enraged Miller took to X just after midnight on Monday to post a screed against the ruling.

The president, Miller claimed, has “undisputed authority” to “deploy troops, stationed in any state, to defend a federal facility” from what he called “domestic terrorism or violent assault.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Miller added, is facing a “violent armed resistance designed to incapacitate the essential operations of the duly-elected federal government, by force.”

“A district court judge has no conceivable authority, whatsoever, to restrict the President and Commander-in-Chief from dispatching members of the U.S. military to defend federal lives and property,” Miller wrote, calling the ruling an “egregious and thunderous” violation of “constitutional order” and an attempt to “nullify the 2024 election by fiat.”

The statement was consistent with Miller’s habit of referring to political activity he doesn’t like in hysterical terms, perhaps to establish a pretext to crack down on Republicans’ political opponents.

Notably, the federal judge that drew Miller’s ire dismantled his and the Trump administration’s alarmist descriptions of Portland as a war-torn hellscape.

While the president has said Portland is so “war-ravaged” as to require the National Guard, Immergut said this was “simply untethered to the facts.” Protests at an ICE building in Portland—which Miller said are akin to “violent armed resistance”—have actually been “small and uneventful” on the whole, the judge noted, and nothing that “the regular forces” such as Federal Protective Services can’t handle.