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Israeli Settlers Kidnap US Congressman - The Monday AM Quickie 7/13/26

By Whitney Curry Wimbish —

Over at the Prospect today, I reported on ICE agents and local cops stockpiling a record amount of military weapons at the same time that they’re signing more deals to collaborate on mass deportation. I hope you'll check it out. Stay safe out there. -Whitney

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THE BIG NEWS

Israeli Settlers Kidnapped US Congressman, Threatened Him With US-Made Weapons, Held Him For Over an Hour

Armed Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank kidnapped Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) last Wednesday and threatened him with US-made weapons, the Guardian, NYT and Reuters reported over the weekend. Khanna had been visiting the West Bank ghost village of Khirbet Zanuta, which villagers abandoned after settlers repeatedly attacked them with escalating violence. Khanna and his delegation were looking at the ruins of a school when a car full of men carrying US-made M4 rifles pulled up and blocked the road. Per the NYT:

The men began taunting the congressman and his team, swearing at them in Hebrew and Arabic and kicking the tires of their minibus, according to accounts, photographs and video footage from Mr. Khanna, an aide and his security guard. A photographer for The New York Times traveling in a different vehicle also saw the interaction. Soon, a Jeep with more men arrived.
When two cars from the Israeli military pulled up, Mr. Khanna assumed the soldiers were there to help him pass. Instead, the soldiers smoked cigarettes, chatted with the men and after the settlers left, moved a car to block the road, he recounted.

When the Israeli Defense Forces soldiers showed up, it Khanna said it was clear to him that “the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.” The Israelis let Khanna and his colleagues go after 90 minutes.

“I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding – having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned,” Khanna told Reuters. He remarked to the NYT: “Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”

This should be a major international incident, played high on news websites and given prime airtime. That is not happening. Instead, Israeli officials are refusing to apologize to Khanna or punish the settlers; some have decided that Khanna deserved it, Al Jazeera and the Guardian reported yesterday. The Israeli ambassador to the US blamed Khanna for what happened, claiming without proof on Sunday that he is attempting to distract from accused rapist Graham Platner. Khanna said the the Israeli government and military are “lying.” 

Trump Targeting Witnesses Who Saw ICE Agents Murder Texas Dad 

Witnesses who saw Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents murder family man Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in broad daylight last week said he never tried to ram the agents with his car, according to the Guardian, Houston Public Radio, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Immigration thugs shot 52-year-old Salgado Araujo on his way to work on Tuesday; the agents were not wearing body cameras, nor did they provide aid to Salgado Araujo as he lay on the ground begging for help and bleeding out. His family learned of his death on social media. Salgado Araujo wasn’t even the guy agents were after. 

As they frequently do, ICE agents lied about what happened, witness testimony illustrates. An attorney for two of the three witnesses, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, said his clients “confirmed that at no point was there ever an ICE agent directly in front of the vehicle,” as ICE claimed. “They also confirmed that the shots came from the sides, not from the front, which is inconsistent with the ICE statement.”

Now Trump’s paramilitary is trying to disappear the witnesses, a tactic they’ve deployed before, by pressuring them to sign self-deportation orders. “It is extremely important that we preserve the integrity of this investigation – that will all be out the window if they are deported,” Balderas-Ibarra said.

Elon Musk, DOGE Responsible for Explosive Diarrhea Blasting Across Nation?

You can read that with or without the question mark, your choice. Make your own decision based on the fact that the Centers for Disease Control stopped monitoring the Cyclospora parasite in July 2025, the same time that the Trump regime “began haphazardly attacking and defunding federal health and science agencies under the guise of ‘government efficiency,’ with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. separately also pushing out critical federal scientists and researchers,” as HuffPost put it: 

Prior to that date, a collaborative CDC program called FoodNet helped federal and state regulators track eight foodborne pathogens.
Among them was Cyclospora, a heat-loving spherical parasite that’s sickened 1,000 people in an ongoing outbreak in Michigan (the state’s worst), with similar illnesses cropping up in 28 other states.
In addition to Cyclospora, surveillance of Campylobacter, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio and Yersinia was cut. FoodNet now only regularly monitors two diseases: Salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.

The illness has sickened people across 30 states, the WSJ reported, and the CDC is struggling to find the source. Cyclosporiasis is an intestinal illness contracted through contaminated produce; it can take up to two weeks to cause symptoms. Per the WSJ:

“For weeks, Dr. Nino Papale has seen dozens of patients stumble in his Michigan emergency room with the same set of symptoms: intense stomach pain, dehydration, and—he can’t emphasize enough—truly explosive diarrhea. In an eight-hour shift, the ER doctor at ProMedica Monroe Regional Hospital might treat five or six patients with telltale signs of cyclospora.” 

Local health departments advise thoroughly washing fresh fruit and veggies, cooking food whenever possible, and avoiding produce prepared by anyone else. The illness doesn’t pass between people, news reports said. Again, stay safe out there.  

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Years-Long Battle Ahead as Screwworm Jumps From Cattle to Wildlife  In other outbreak-that-could-have-been-avoided news, screwworm infestations are now deep within the forests of Central America, far away from farms; scientists have observed animals of all kinds with the “unmistakable wounds caused by the parasitic fly,” including deer, jaguars, pumas, tapirs, white-lipped peccary and porcupines. via the Guardian. 
  • Regime Opens Protected Habitats to Big Oil, Factory Farms Trump attacked vulnerable species on Friday, with a new edict allowing “farming, drilling, mining, real estate development and other activities” in protected habitats, “in what environmentalists characterized as the most severe erosion of protections for wildlife in half a century,” via the NYT.  
  • FBI Director Kash Patel Summoned to White House Over Behavior The former podcaster and current wild-eyed squirrely paranoiac is frustrating the regime by constantly using government planes to visit his MAGA girlfriend and buying luxury armored BMWs for his transportation pleasure, so officials demanded he cancel his weekend plans and go to DC to explain himself. via MS Now.
  • Trump Subpoenas Journalists Who Exposed That Qatar Gave Him Big Fancy Jet With No Defense System The regime sent several NYT journalists subpoenas on Friday after they published a report on the security concerns related to what sounds like an utterly Bullwinklian plot. Trump flew the defenseless jet to the NATO summit in Turkey. But then he took an older one back home, a switch that “came as a shaky ceasefire with Iran had collapsed.” via the AP.   

SOME NUMBER

5

That’s how many rounds of air strikes the US has launched on Iran between Tuesday and Sunday, the FT and NBC News reported. The latest began yesterday at 5 p.m. and is reportedly meant “to curb Iran’s ability to target commercial shipping in the strait at a time when the U.S. has declared it open for business and Iran has said it’s closed.”

ON THE SHOW TODAY

7/13: Emma is hosting solo today. Her guest is Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser to the Freedom of the Press Foundation and a First Amendment attorney. Caitlin will discuss her piece published in partnership with The Intercept and FPF: Online Age Verification Law Could Kill Whistleblowing. Also on today’s show is a pretaped interview Sam did with Alex Aronson, co-founder and executive director of Court Accountability, who discussed SCOTUS corruption and its billionaire-backed right-wing takeover.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

Abdul El Sayed Expertly Trolls Haley Stevens

That’s haleyfacts.com.

Trump Restarts War on Iran & Cozies Up to Erdoğan at NATO Summit | Oğul Tuna | TMR

Read his piece here.

PARTING WORDS

“I feel good about the Republican Party. I feel good about where we’re going as a nation. We’re killing all the right people and we’re cutting your taxes. Trump is my favorite president. We’ve run out of bombs. We didn’t run out of bombs in World War II.”

– Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition last November. Graham died Saturday of an aortic tear, the WSJ reported, after a lifetime of cowardice, warmongering and propping up the various war criminals and rapists who run our government. He was 71. According to Politico, his death “is poised to upend the Senate,” where Republicans are losing ground. 

Graham’s fellow deathmonger, Senator Mitch McConnell, will also miss work today, Reuters reported. McConnell has been gone for a month after he fell down and had to go to the hospital; he also had pneumonia. Yesterday, he released a press statement saying he isn’t able to go back to work “quite yet.”

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