Trump Threatens to Bomb U.S. Ally Brokering Iran Peace Deal

The DHS is moving ahead with plans to shut down sanctuary cities' airports, the Department of Labor has opened a DEI snitch line, and the Trump admin. is sending American Ebola patients to Kenya

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump threatened to bomb Oman, a country that is currently helping us end a war. The Department of Homeland Security wants to shut down your airport if your city won’t help ICE. The Department of Labor is demanding workers report any activity related to DEI. And the administration’s plan for Americans exposed to Ebola is to send them to Kenya.

Before we get into it: Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

Now, the news.

Trump Threatened to Bomb the Country Helping Him End His War

Oman has been a US defense partner since 1980. It helped broker the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. It is currently serving as a friendly mediator between Washington and Tehran in ongoing peace talks.

On Tuesday, the President of the United States threatened to blow Oman up.

At a Cabinet meeting, a reporter asked Trump whether he was comfortable with Oman jointly controlling the Strait of Hormuz alongside Iran. Trump said the strait would be open to everybody, that nobody would control it, and that the US would watch over it.

“Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up,” Trump said. “They understand that. They’ll be fine.” The White House did not respond to additional requests for comment.

Trump also told reporters that Iran is “negotiating on fumes” because “the Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, everything’s gone.” Intelligence reports, however, indicate Iran has rebuilt most of its prewar firepower, including ballistic missiles and launch pads.

Trump has now said the Iranian military is destroyed approximately one thousand times, by his own count. Defense analysts note this is now greater than the remaining U.S. missile inventory.

DHS Initiates Plan to Shut Down Airports in Sanctuary Cities

The Trump administration has decided to handle sanctuary cities the way a fed-up parent handles a defiant teenager: by taking away something everyone else was also using.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin announced Tuesday that his department is “drawing up plans” to prevent international flights from landing in cities that don’t cooperate with ICE.

The specific city on his mind is Newark, New Jersey, where protests have erupted outside a detention facility holding up to a thousand immigrants. On Monday, ICE agents fired pepper spray at protesters and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) outside the facility, who was trying to broker an agreement between protesters and agents.”

The Justice Department’s list of sanctuary areas includes Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Seattle, San Francisco, and Denver — all home to many of the nation’s busiest international gateways. Last year, more than 50 million overseas travelers passed through New York’s three main airports alone.

The FIFA World Cup kicks off in the United States next month, with millions of international visitors expected to arrive. Airlines for America and the US Travel Association have both condemned the plan, warning it would devastate the airline and tourism industries.

Mullin has not commented on where he thinks the fans are supposed to land.

The administration can take away the airports. The billionaires can take away the newspapers. The one thing they haven’t figured out how to take away is a newsroom that belongs entirely to its readers. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

Department of Labor Launches DEI Snitch Line

The Department of Labor was founded in 1913 to protect workers. It is now asking them to watch each other.

The DOL recently sent an email to its employees urging them to report violations of the Trump administration’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. “DEI-related discrimination” could include any employment action motivated by an employee’s or applicant’s race, sex, national origin, or religion.

The Office of Special Counsel is the designated destination for these reports. The email was not signed by any individual official, instead coming from an account called “DOL Guidance and Information.”

Workers can flag alleged violations going back three years, meaning they can report instances from the Biden administration. So if your former manager ran a mentorship program in 2023, someone in your office is now legally empowered and officially encouraged to tell on them.

The Labor Department is not alone. The Interior Department issued a nearly identical memo in March, instructing staff that even employee resource groups based on race, gender, or religion are now banned and should be reported.

A book club that meets by Zoom and happens to be all women is now apparently a federal incident.

The Trump Administration’s Ebola Plan: Send Sick Americans to Kenya

The Trump administration has a plan for Americans exposed to Ebola: send them to Kenya.

The WHO has declared the current outbreak, which is already the third-largest on record, a public health emergency of international concern. The administration’s response has been to establish a quarantine and treatment facility in central Kenya as a joint effort between the Departments of State, Defense, and Health and Human Services.

This is a significant departure from how past administrations have handled the same situation. During the 2014 West Africa outbreak, six Americans who contracted Ebola were brought back to the United States for treatment.

Trump’s position is that sick Americans should be treated somewhere else.

It’s worth noting that this administration has spent the past year dismantling the public health infrastructure that would normally handle something like this. It has never filled the surgeon general post, cycling through three nominees each for both surgeon general and CDC director without confirming anyone.

In other words, the people who would normally be in charge of the government’s response to a major Ebola outbreak are still being interviewed for the job.

We Don’t Have a Billionaire. We Have You.

Most publications have someone at the top of the org chart who gets to decide what kind of stories are worth telling, and what kind of stories are worth leaving alone. Often that person has a net worth, a portfolio, or a social circle that creates certain gravitational pulls. These pulls are rarely announced. They just shape what gets covered, and how, over time.

We don’t have that problem because we don’t have that person. Our subscribers are the whole business. That means our only obligation is to the people reading.

If that’s valuable to you, a paid subscription is the most direct way to make sure it keeps existing. Please consider upgrading today. If you’re already a paid subscriber, you already know this. You’re the reason we’re here, and we’re eternally grateful.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Trump Administration Ordered to Fulfill DNC’s Records Inquiry. A federal judge ordered the Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense departments to hand over records the DNC has been requesting since before the ink dried on its FOIA filings. The documents are related to whether the administration plans to deploy federal agents to polling stations during November’s midterm elections. The agencies have produced exactly zero responsive records since the DNC sued them in March, which is one way to answer the question.

James Talarico Has a Better Chance Than Beto O’Rourke to Win Texas. Texas Democrat James Talarico is currently polling ahead of Ken Paxton, a better position than Beto O’Rourke was in at the same point in 2018 when he lost by 2.6 points. Texas has not elected a Democrat to statewide office this century, but Trump’s approval rating there is currently underwater by double digits, which is the kind of detail that tends to make Republicans nervous about a state they are not supposed to have to worry about.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she will now oppose all U.S. military aid to Israel. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced she will now oppose all US military aid to Israel, including the Iron Dome defense system she had previously supported, putting her to the left of every other Democrat being mentioned for 2028. The DSA, which had been withholding its endorsement until she took exactly this position, responded by saying it was “heartened,” which in political terms means the negotiations are over.

New method turns ocean water into drinking water, without waste. Researchers at the University of Rochester figured out how to turn ocean water into drinking water using sunlight, with no chemicals and no toxic waste. Most existing desalination systems leave behind brine that gets dumped back into the ocean and kills sea life. This one doesn’t. Instead it collects the leftover salts in solid form and extracts lithium from them, the same material used to make rechargeable batteries. This means that the thing that makes your drinking water could also power your car.