During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.

MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, was created and run by a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation the "most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control."

Some of Gottlieb's experiments were covertly funded at universities and research centers, Kinzer says, while others were conducted in American prisons and in detention centers in Japan, Germany and the Philippines. Many of his unwitting subjects endured psychological torture ranging from electroshock to high doses of LSD, according to Kinzer's research.

"Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people's minds, and he realized it was a two-part process," Kinzer says. "First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We didn't get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one."

The M.I.T. Media Lab, which has been embroiled in a scandal over accepting donations from the financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, had a deeper fund-raising relationship with Epstein than it has previously acknowledged, and it attempted to conceal the extent of its contacts with him. Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors, soliciting millions of dollars in donations from individuals and organizations, including the technologist and philanthropist Bill Gates and the investor Leon Black. According to the records obtained by The New Yorker and accounts from current and former faculty and staff of the media lab, Epstein was credited with securing at least $7.5 million in donations for the lab, including two million dollars from Gates and $5.5 million from Black, gifts the e-mails describe as “directed” by Epstein or made at his behest. The effort to conceal the lab’s contact with Epstein was so widely known that some staff in the office of the lab’s director, Joi Ito, referred to Epstein as Voldemort or “he who must not be named.”

The financial entanglement revealed in the documents goes well beyond what has been described in public statements by M.I.T. and by Ito. The University has said that it received eight hundred thousand dollars from Epstein’s foundations, in the course of twenty years, and has apologized for accepting that amount. In a statement last month, M.I.T.’s president, L. Rafael Reif, wrote, “with hindsight, we recognize with shame and distress that we allowed MIT to contribute to the elevation of his reputation, which in turn served to distract from his horrifying acts. No apology can undo that.” Reif pledged to donate the funds to a charity to help victims of sexual abuse. On Wednesday, Ito disclosed that he had separately received $1.2 million from Epstein for investment funds under his control, in addition to five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that he acknowledged Epstein had donated to the lab. A spokesperson for M.I.T. said that the university “is looking at the facts surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s gifts to the institute.”

The documents and sources suggest that there was more to the story. They show that the lab was aware of Epstein’s history—in 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution—and of his disqualified status as a donor. They also show that Ito and other lab employees took numerous steps to keep Epstein’s name from being associated with the donations he made or solicited. On Ito’s calendar, which typically listed the full names of participants in meetings, Epstein was identified only by his initials. Epstein’s direct contributions to the lab were recorded as anonymous. In September, 2014, Ito wrote to Epstein soliciting a cash infusion to fund a certain researcher, asking, “Could you re-up/top-off with another $100K so we can extend his contract another year?” Epstein replied, “yes.” Forwarding the response to a member of his staff, Ito wrote, “Make sure this gets accounted for as anonymous.” Peter Cohen, the M.I.T. Media Lab’s Director of Development and Strategy at the time, reiterated, “Jeffrey money, needs to be anonymous. Thanks.”

Bernie Sanders kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign on Saturday with a speech at Brooklyn College in New York City. It was a homecoming: Bernie was born in Brooklyn to working-class immigrant parents, and he began his undergraduate study at Brooklyn College before moving to Chicago.

The crowd of about thirteen thousand was mostly young and working class. Roughly half of the attendees were people of color, and roughly half were women.

Bernie’s speech hit the usual notes about economic inequality, social justice, and the need for unity across lines of difference. But there were some unique additions, including an interlude about the working-class values of fairness, compassion, and solidarity that his Brooklyn upbringing instilled in him.

He contrasted this upbringing to Donald Trump’s: Trump was handed a $200,000 a year allowance, even as a child, while Bernie was given 25 cents a week. As a young man Trump built a fortune on housing discrimination, while Bernie protested it. Trump became famous for going on television and telling workers, “You’re fired,” while Bernie grew up in a house and community where he understood the extreme and unfair power that employers have over their employees’ lives.

AIPAC’s supporters have never concealed the fact that the group holds enormous power in Washington. In 2011, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote: “I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” AIPAC itself boasts that “the United States Congress has provided Israel with the strongest support of any institution in the world” in large part because of the “involvement in the political process” of its donors.

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The connections between US imperialism and Zionism should be obvious to anyone paying attention, but it needs to be emphasized at moments like this when progressives (especially Muslim progressives) like Omar are being attacked with outrageous claims of Jew-hatred. The fact is, this latest episode has very little to do with antisemitism. The Israeli government is a significant booster of antisemitic governments and movements in Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, and the United States (and its relationship with Jair Bolsonaro’s new government in Brazil flirts with antisemitic strands as well).

This history goes back at least a half century: Israel has often been happy to join the United States in backing antisemitic governments and movements across the world, specifically in Latin America, provided it fulfilled their settler-colonial or imperialist aims. During my AIPAC years, I watched from the inside as America’s most powerful “pro-Israel” organization hobnobbed and glad-handed numerous elements, especially segments of the Christian right, that were actively or passively complicit in antisemitic politics and networks.

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People like Omar are not being repeatedly (and most likely systematically) targeted because they are antisemitic. They’re not even being targeted because they’re critical of Israel per se. They’re being targeted because they challenge an eighty-years-long bipartisan imperialist consensus that is finally showing signs of fraying. The goal is to prevent the very kind of subversive moments Omar elicited last week during her questioning of unrepentant war criminal Elliot Abrams — moments that, if they added up, would have a real shot at finally moving us toward a vision of America beyond empire.

Gabbard, 37, was on a three-day visit to Iowa, her second time this year in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, looking to make her mark in a crowded field of contenders.

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Gabbard promoted a platform that includes Medicare for all, criminal justice reform, including ending federal prohibition of marijuana and discouraging privatized prisons. She delivered a strong anti-war, anti-intervention message for “ending regime-change wars.”

“Stop throwing people in prison for smoking a joint and instead go after those like Purdue Pharma who are proliferating their opioids on our streets and taking people’s lives,” she said.

The Hawaiian National Guard veteran, who was deployed twice to the Middle East, also has served in the Hawaii Legislature and the Honolulu City Council.

Ordinary Iranians are mounting protests that refuse to go away, despite a sharp response from the authorities.

The demonstrations began to make news late last year, focusing largely on economic hardship. As those protests continued in cities around the country, another movement re-emerged: young women standing up against the enforcement of conservative Muslim strictures on their dress and behavior.

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Ahmadi says she supports all the various protests. But for her, it's taking on — or taking off — the mandatory hijab, a headscarf and other modest garments, that's by far the most important statement women can make.

"Some may want to focus on other hardships," Ahmadi says. "The demands may seem diverse, but I think the ultimate point is to end the rules on hijab."