Seven months into the conflict with Iran, the vice president went on CNN and said: “I wouldn’t call it a war.”

He told anchor Kaitlan Collins that there is “no active shooting” and that “major combat operations lasted for about six weeks.” Collins asked whether the conflict would end before the midterm elections in November. He did not say yes.

This is the same conflict that has cost $37.5 billion. The same one in which a missile hit a wedding last week and killed two women and two children. The same one that drained the missile supply past critical, sent sailors to sea for 260 days, and shut down the Strait of Hormuz for six months. The vice president says it is not a war.

Before the conflict began, he told the Washington Post there was “no chance” of a drawn-out war. The president later said the vice president was “philosophically a little bit different” from him on the decision to strike. Fortune and ABC News reported that the vice president made his reservations known inside the White House but fell in line once the order was given.

A wedding was hit. Children died. Sailors jumped. The missiles ran low. And the vice president looked at a camera and said he would not call it a war. The machine does not end conflicts. It renames them.

BREAKING

Thirty-Three Democrats Joined Republicans to Pass a Bill That Strips Federal Funding from Schools That Boycott Israel

Democracy Now reported Friday that 33 Democratic members of Congress joined Republicans to pass a bill that strips federal funding from schools and universities that participate in boycotts of Israel. The bill passed with bipartisan support.

The same government that designated Palestine Action as “global terrorists,” ran sham antisemitism probes against universities, and tried to deport students for attending protests has now passed a law to defund any school that takes a political stand against a foreign government’s actions.

The bill did not pass on party lines. Thirty-three Democrats voted yes. That means this is not one party’s project. Both parties built it. Both parties voted for it. The machine is bipartisan when it wants to be.

The machine runs on two engines. When one side cannot pass a bill, the other side helps. When both agree, the bill moves fast. This one moved fast.

EXPOSED

Stanford’s Student Newspaper Won Its Lawsuit Against the Government over the Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Speech

The Stanford Daily, the student newspaper at Stanford University, won its lawsuit against the federal government over its crackdown on pro-Palestine speech on campus. Democracy Now featured the story as a lead segment on Friday.

The government had targeted the paper as part of its broader effort to suppress campus activism. A court ruled that the crackdown violated the First Amendment. The student journalists fought back, and a judge agreed with them.

This is the same government that fired Stars and Stripes journalists for reporting on a ship, sided with OpenAI against the press, and used broadcast licenses to pressure a network. Students at a college newspaper beat the machine in court. The professionals at the Pentagon could not.

The machine lost in court to a student newspaper. That is the only story this week where the machine did not get what it wanted.

DEVELOPING

Tyson Foods Closed a Meatpacking Plant in Illinois and Laid Off 2,500 Workers with No Advance Notice

Tyson Foods shut down a meatpacking plant in Illinois and laid off 2,500 workers. Democracy Now reported Friday that the workers received no advance notice. The plant closed, and the jobs ended the same day.

Tyson is one of the largest food companies in the world. It earned more than $53 billion in revenue last year. It processes roughly one in every five pounds of meat sold in the United States. And it closed a plant in a single day without telling the people who worked there.

Federal law requires companies with more than 100 workers to give 60 days of notice before a mass layoff. Democracy Now reported that Tyson gave zero. The workers showed up for a shift and learned there was no shift left.

The vice president says the conflict is not a war. Congress strips funding from schools. A student paper beats the government in court. And 2,500 workers lose their jobs in a day because a $53 billion company did not make a phone call. The machine protects itself. The workers get the door.

They rely on the shadows.
It’s time to turn on the lights.