BREAKING: A judge has blocked Kroger’s $24.6 billion merger with Albertsons. The judge sided with the FTC, finding that the deal would reduce competition for US grocery shoppers.

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Jacobin magazine, the principal mouthpiece of the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America, today released a hit piece on Amazon labor leader Chris Smalls, @Shut_downAmazon. It could be legit if Jacobin had had an honest critique of Smalls to clarify what class struggle unionist leaders should be doing. But the article is not that at all. It’s a hatchet job against a leading labor activist who has refused to toe the line of the DSA and the business unionist labor leaders who give cover to the so-called progressive Democrats and to the Democratic Party as a whole, despite shocking betrayals by them against working people. The crux of the real reason why Jacobin went after Smalls is contained in this sentence: “[Smalls] blames the two-party system for the state of the American labor movement…” Smalls is spot on about this and the need to break from the Democratic and Republican parties. We need a new party of the working class. The DSA leadership, on the other hand, sees giving cover to the Democratic Party as job number one. The Democratic Party is the party under whom the genocide in Gaza began and which engineered the breaking of the railroad workers’ strike — both under President Joe Biden. ALL Democrats in the House, including DSA star AOC voted to break the strike. The Democratic Party is one of the two most powerful capitalist parties in the world, and in no way represents working people or the oppressed. Business unionist labor leaders are those who have made peace with the capitalist system and are driven by protecting their careers, which means placating the bosses, not organizing the rank and file against the bosses to win substantive working-class victories. Refusing to fight the bosses also means aligning with the parties of the bosses, like the Democratic Party. The overwhelming majority of the labor leadership today is business unionist, with some crucial exceptions like Smalls. We need a reckoning in the labor movement. Brother Smalls has put his life on the line for the antiwar movement in solidarity with the Palestinia people against the Israeli state’s genocide bankrolled by both the Democratic and Republican parties. Smalls went on a Gaza aid flotilla carrying food, baby formula, diapers and medicine in the context of catastrophic levels of mass starvation in Gaza. The flotilla was attacked by the Israeli military, who physically assaulted Smalls, and kicked and choked him. In contrast, AOC has voted for the Iron Dome which is part of the Israeli state’s genocidal apparatus. For having the temerity to expose AOC and other self-described “progressive” politicians, Smalls is called “narcissistic” by Jacobin, a term the magazine’s editors were apparently forced to retract after they got huge amounts of flak on all social media. Personal attacks and character assassination like in this case are often used by the political establishment’s spokespeople as proxy for their real objections — in this case, the threat they feel from Smalls openly calling out the Democratic Party’s actual role. The only way of rebuilding a militant labor movement is to pose a concrete threat to both the Democratic and Republican parties, which in turn requires a challenge to the business unionist labor leadership. That is the basis on which I won the nation’s highest minimum wage and the Amazon Tax during the decade I was the sole socialist on the Seattle City Council. I am now running as an independent revolutionary socialist against genocidal Democrat Adam Smith. I am calling for an end to all military aid to Israel and an end to all weapons and tech for genocide and imperialist war. kshamasawant.org

A 17-year-old valedictorian, Leen Hijaz, used her graduation speech to speak for the voiceless: "Millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan. Families torn apart by ICE." The school administrator cut her mic. Told her: "If you don't stop, you're not graduating." They withheld her diploma for four days.

🧵 What a rough night for Nithya Raman. Hasan Piker put the LA mayoral candidate and DSA member through a full-on struggle session over her record, repeatedly pressing her to explain where she had fallen short of the movement line. And honestly, even as a conservative, I felt bad for her. This was brutal. One flashpoint was a DSA criticism over Raman’s role in a city resolution tied to the UTLA BDS fight. But the exchange was bigger than that. This was not a good-faith interview. It was an ideological audit. Raman mostly tried to answer politically. She came to DSA through housing and homelessness, said this was not her area of expertise, said she had learned more, and promised she was “committed to learning more.” Stick around for more, because by the end of this even Hasan’s chat wanted his head.

🚨Abdul El-Sayed leads an "ABOLISH ICE" chant at his rally with Bernie Sanders

I was not aware of Jacobin Teen. (Seen at Berkeley Bowl. Obviously.)