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Sep 9, 2024 8 tweets 5 min read Read on X
BREAKING: Joseph Edelman, a Brown University trustee, has now resigned over the future divestment vote at Brown University.

As a result, I am releasing my recording of the Wednesday meeting where the Brown Divest Coalition presented their proposal to divest from Israel.
Here is video of the full presentation below. Remember, Brown is a private university; you can't FOIA this video. Without me, this recording may not have ever gone public.

I honestly wanted a bit more time with this footage and other divestment trainings I have recorded to present this in a digestible format. The language of ESG is how many of these students are getting their foot in the door and they are being trained to exploit this. There is a lot I could say about this subject.

However, Edelman's resignation will hopefully get sizable attention, and I hope by "democratizing" this footage, you can see how ridiculous this presentation was. If you use it, please tag me so I can boost it and comment if needed.
I really enjoyed watching Professor James Kellner grill the students after their presentation. Kellner is a Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology and Environment and Society. In a past life, I imagine he must have been a lawyer. He is one of the professors who is a member of the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management (ACURM).

Here he explains ACURM's duties when it comes to "social harm." In a truly golden moment, he then asks the students if they know that Brown University is not directly invested in any of the ten companies they want to divest from.
Kellner posed a philosophical question to the students about how social harm could be easily identifiable if we presume that companies are responsible for how their products are used. He used alcohol as an example of something that is widely used yet creates social harm.

President of the Undergraduate Council of Students, Niyanta Nepal, didn't engage with this thought experiment and instead focused on how strong the students feel about divestment and how personal Palestine is for the student body.

Nepal ran on a platform of divestment and even participated in the hunger strike for eight days.
Again, Kellner gets philosophical and discusses how possibly neutrality cannot exist; if so, should we consider the net good and net harm of these companies?

It sounds like Nepal, but could be another student, responds that the students are only looking at the harm.

Kellner says, "The world is more complicated than that." He uses flying on airplanes as an example of a social harm that also provides great benefits. He asks the students to consider how the university needs to consider the totality of a company.

The students once again don't engage with these questions and go back to how the student body has spoken about not wanting to be complicit and how they have proven how great the social harm is.
Kellner now asks the students about what Brown should do considering that they have received a letter from 24 Attorney Generals threatening legal action if the university divests.

Rafi Ash, the Treasurer of the Undergraduate Council of Students and Secretary of Brown/RISD Young Democratic Socialists of America, walks us through his legal analysis of the situation. He sees this as illegal and unconstitutional. He also believes these politicians are "jockeying for political power."
Kellner is such a good professor. If he is like this in the classroom, I imagine his students grow so much if they rise to the occasion.

"I appreciate that response; I'm going to push back and ask you to try again from a slightly different point of view."

Kellner walks the students through how grants work, how they "flow through other states," and how they could be jeopardized if Brown University divests.

Ash doesn't engage with this. Instead, he blames "fundamentally extremist politicians" and wants us to consider "who does the university stand for?" He sees this as an issue of academic freedom and that these students are simply questioning the university.
Major Takeaways from the Divestment Presentation

-Kellner rules and has such a great approach. We should all be blessed to have such a professor who challenges you to be your best.
-These are the best that Brown has to offer? Really?
-Volvo being one of the companies they want to divest from makes me laugh. Raise your hand if you ever rode around in that old iconic Volvo station wagon!
-One of my followers recently said, "Nobody else has coverage on events like this and it’s so important." If you agree and appreciate my reporting, buy me a coffee! See my pinned tweet to see how to show me some love.

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More from @thestustustudio

Jul 1
Last week, I sat in on Refuse Fascism’s organizing call for their upcoming four days of protest (July 1–4). Don’t be fooled by the name—Refuse Fascism isn’t some grassroots movement. It’s a front for the Revolutionary Communist Party, funded by the Alliance for Global Justice (yes, the same group that pushed $54.2 million in 2020 to fuel radical unrest).

The playbook is simple: appear just mainstream enough to lure in the curious—then radicalize them. The real mission? Mass mobilization against anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders. President Trump is just the most convenient “fascist” to rally against.

Buckle up—this thread is a wild, an often comical tour through Sunsara Taylor’s latest attempt to normalize Communism.🧵
This exchange came near the end of the call, but it was one of the most revealing moments—exposing just how little transparency there is behind this group as it works to mobilize people under a vague anti-fascist banner.

For what it’s worth, I actually signed up through Bluesky—clearly part of their strategy to target disaffected leftists who fled Twitter.

When asked directly whether she was anti-democracy, Sunsara Taylor responded not with denial, but deflection—accusing critics of “red-baiting” and “serving fascism.”

She says:

“Even if I was 100% against democracy… that should still not be a reason for you to not work with Refuse Fascism.”

Let that sink in.

Taylor then goes on to clarify that she’s not a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party—just an “active revcom” and a follower of Bob Avakian, whom she calls the “architect of the new communism.” She explicitly identifies as a revolutionary communist. Important to note that Refuse Fascism always partially works out of the Revolution Communist Party "Revolution Books."

She defends working across ideological lines, not because she supports democracy, but because she sees mass mobilization as a means to unseat the existing system, not reform it.

This is the woman organizing mass protests in the name of “saving democracy.”
Near the end of the call, Sunsara Taylor offered a full-throated defense—not of democracy as most Americans understand it, but the Revolutionary Communist Party and of a reimagined communist society led by her movement’s ideological founder, Bob Avakian.

“I don’t think there’s any such thing as a pure democracy in a class society… We live in a capitalist imperialist dictatorship.”

According to Taylor, what we call democracy today is just a fig leaf for capitalist control. Her solution? Revolution. Literally. She pointed listeners to Avakian’s Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—a blueprint for a post-revolutionary communist regime.

She claims this new system would offer more rights than anything that’s ever existed—even while being led by a revolutionary vanguard.

So no, she’s not “anti-democracy,” she says—just anti this democracy, the one where you don’t get to vote communists into power to dismantle the system entirely.

This is what’s behind the “nonviolent protest” organizing Refuse Fascism is doing.
Read 19 tweets
Jun 29
🔥 "Legal Counterinsurgency & Repression of the Left"

Last week, a panel of radical activists and "legal advocates" gathered to frame the global enforcement of anti-terror laws as nothing more than “fascist lawfare” used to repress “anti-colonial, anti-Zionist, and anti-imperialist resistance.” Their words speak volumes:

“They don’t want our movements taking over buildings... occupying places… creating independent, liberated spaces.”
“We’re still being found not guilty by juries for smashing up Israeli weapons factories…”
"Samidoun was not a threat to the U.S. government in any way."
“Hamas represents Palestinian dignity. If it didn’t exist, the Palestinian people would invent it.”
“The United States is an illegitimate state.”
“Cops are the ruling elites’ brown shirts.”

Moderated and co-sponsored by figures tied to the National Lawyers Guild, CUNY4Palestine, and The Right to Reject Zionism Coalition, the event wasn’t subtle—it was a manifesto of open defiance toward Western law, democratic process, and liberal norms. 🧵
Whether it’s Hamas or the New People’s Army—the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines—this panel plays footsie with well-established, designated terrorist organizations. As groups like Samidoun are increasingly recognized as terrorist fronts, let’s be clear from the outset:

We’re not just dealing with fringe activists—we’re dealing with ideological revisionists openly aligning themselves with terrorist movements under the banner of “anti-colonial resistance.” That’s the framework they’re selling. And the more you listen, the clearer it becomes: this isn't about liberation. It's about legitimizing violent revolution.

I’ll be jumping around quite a bit in this Zoom webinar — starting local, then working outward. Since this is an international call, I’m front-loading the parts Americans most need to see. Feel free to skip around — in fact, I encourage it.

If I had to give people homework, I’d say: watch Kamau Franklin and Max Geller. They’re two of the clearest voices in this discussion — not just in what they say, but in what they openly admit.

I’ve covered many of these figures and "movements" before, so if you want more context, feel free to check out my earlier reporting.Image
Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders and a leading voice in the Cop City resistance, offered one of the clearest articulations of the panel’s endgame: building a mass movement capable of creating unrest strong enough to topple the U.S. system itself.

Drawing a straight line from the 2020 George Floyd protests to current domestic terrorism indictments, Franklin framed the U.S. state—Democrat or Republican—as a single oppressive apparatus (The Capitalist Class). According to him, the post-2020 crackdown wasn’t about restoring order, but about protecting a “capitalist state” that “cannot tolerate unrest.”

“The 2020 uprisings were a pivotal moment... millions of people went into the street saying ‘defund the police,’ alternatives to the police... [and] the state... doubled down on its tactics of terrorism against the community.”

Franklin claimed law enforcement is now using domestic terrorism and RICO charges to criminalize dissent:

“We still have 50 organizers and activists today in Atlanta that are facing... charges for being opposed to police violence.”

“Organizers and activists [are] engaging from everything from... direct action to some militant direct action which should be used — to rallies and demonstrations.”

“Whether or not they are Democrats or Republicans, the idea is to keep empire together... to protect capitalism and cops, who are the ruling elites’ brown shirts.”

His vision is rooted in revolution, not reform: mass resistance, militant tactics, and the belief that unrest is not a byproduct but a strategic goal.
Read 22 tweets
Jun 22
BREAKING: National Students for Justice in Palestine have released a statement on the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites — and it’s extreme.

They call for the end of America, defend Iran’s “right” to nuclear weapons, and accuse the U.S. of being a malicious propagandist.

Full Statement below 🧵Image
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Paradoxical logic at work: They call it an unprovoked attack — yet in the same breath, they defend Iran’s “resistance” through proxy warfare and accuse the U.S. of being unable to tolerate “popular resistance.”

You can’t have it both ways. Image
Read 6 tweets
Jun 17
Reposting this. The original—posted March 12, 2025—got locked thanks to coordinated fake reports. Funny how easy it is to silence something

Some of Mahmoud Khalil's lawyers are from CUNY CLEAR. If only someone had been recording them for the past few years. Oh wait, that person was me.

Here is one of Mahmoud Khalil's lawyers, Shazza Abboushi Dallal, from a CUNY CLEAR training that I snuck into and recorded.

"Another question: what if somebody just pretends complete ignorance to Hamas, don't know what you're talking about.

So I think this question is really like Yeah, I, I would answer the same way. I mean, first of all, saying I don't know when you do know, or feigning ignorance when that's not the reality, could be construed as a misrepresentation or a lie, and you find yourself in the sort of situation that you wanna avoid that we were speaking about earlier of criminal and potential immigration consequences flowing.

And that's why, you know, silence is just, is better. Better and more protective for you."

I can't tell you how many of these sorts of trainings I have attended where legal clinics like CUNY CLEAR urged foreign student activists to be smarter about what they said publicly. They knew this day could come one day. It is here now.
The Legal Rights teach-in where these videos came from can be found here, and I think many would be served in watching it. You will realize quite quickly that Khalil has most certainly violated immigration law and the terms of his residency here in the United States.

"We want to make sure you know [about things that] will create risks for you if you're not a citizen, so that's inciting, advocating, or declaring public approval or support for terrorist activity..."

Teach-in ➡️x.com/thestustustudi…
Here is another one of Khalil's CUNY CLEAR lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, from the Emergency Session: A Survival Guide to Arrests and Jail Support (Within Our Lifetime, CLEAR, MAS NY). This was a legal rights teach-in before the massive New York protest on the 1st anniversary of October 7th.

Much like Dallal, Kassem urges you to be completely silent when dealing with any kind of law enforcement.
Read 6 tweets
Jun 15
Angie Marie, one of the more militant voices in the March to Gaza convoy — who has celebrated political violence and dismissed the Capital Jewish Museum assassination as a "false flag" — posted a tearful video announcing she’s quitting the mission and heading home.

“I’m just not in a mentally good place,” she said, breaking down after days of tension in Egypt. “This has been scary… an emotional roller coaster.”

After years of glorifying violence — including cheering the attempted assassination of Donald Trump — she now says she "did not come here to fight with Egypt" and is stepping aside to let others carry on.

For someone who always claimed she wanted all the smoke, it turns out she couldn’t handle the fire.
Here is her commentary about the Capital Jewish Museum shooting in D.C.

"Even if this was true, I would say like good. Anybody associated with the Israeli government should be worried and in fear of their lives.”
Here she is just hours after the assassination of UnitedHealthcare C.E.O. Brian Thompson.
Read 6 tweets
Jun 11
Last night, I attended the ACLU’s Know Your Rights training ahead of Saturday’s so-called “No Kings Day” protest.

While the event claimed to be rooted in nonviolence, much of the rhetoric told a different story. There was heavy emphasis on “risk,” evading warrants, pepper spray grenades, and counter-surveillance tactics—all under the thin veneer of civil liberties education. At times, it felt less like a training for peaceful protest and more like a how-to for militant activists looking to sidestep law enforcement.

The political bias was hard to miss. Organizers referred to the Army’s 250th anniversary parade as a “Trump military parade”, framing it as a dystopian show of force. They didn’t shy away from legally gray areas either—encouraging tactics for spreading information about ICE raids that risk veering into obstruction of justice.

Here’s a short supercut from the training. Watch for yourself!
Noticed Attiya Latif had "she/they" in her Zoom display name, though she didn’t mention it when introducing herself. Interesting background—she’s worked with Amnesty International and CAIR.
Image
Attiya Latif has certainly rebranded since her UVA days—trading the hijab for lash extensions and body mod. Back then, she was student director of the Multicultural Student Center, led the “Eliminate the Hate” campaign, chaired the Minority Rights Coalition, and gave a TEDx talk on wearing the hijab as a feminist.

She even took home UVA’s top DEI honor: the John T. Casteen III Leadership Award.Image
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Read 6 tweets

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