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Israeli settlers attack and rob Italian and Canadian volunteers in West Bank
Group beaten in early hours of morning in village where they volunteered to help protect Palestinians from settler violenceItaly and Canada have raised concerns about the treatment of their citizens who were beaten and robbed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.Three Italians and a Canadian were attacked early on Sunday morning in the village of Ein al-Duyuk, near Jericho, where they had volunteered to help protect the Palestinian population from intensifying settler violence. Continue reading...
Venezuela president 'provoked' Trump by singing John Lennon's Imagine: conservative
Conservative pundit Walter Curt argued that President Donald Trump should invade Venezuela after the country's president, Nicolás Maduro, sang John Lennon's "Imagine" as a call for peace."I believe that an attack on a drug cartel stronghold on the ground in Venezuela is imminent," Real America's Voice host Jake Novak told Curt on Monday before playing a clip of Maduro singing a line from "Imagine.""Let it be known across the world, though, that a sure way to provoke military action is to sing John Lennon's 'Imagine,' which I think is actually necessary," Curt argued. "The moment I saw this, but whenever this first came out, I said, all right, double the bounty, send the Marines.""I think there's a major play we're making down there for the entire region by going out of Venezuela," he noted. "Everyone seems to forget that Venezuela also has, you know, the world's largest oil reserves.""But, you know, any time you're singing John Lennon's 'Imagine,' I think you should immediately be invaded by the Marines, paratroopers. Send 'em all."
This outrage is too grotesque to absorb — yet it explains so much
Shocking as this moment is, none of us should pretend we weren’t warned. When Donald Trump installed Pete Hegseth — a television provocateur whose public record is soaked in belligerence, booze, and culture-war performance — as America’s Defense Secretary, the world could see exactly where it was headed.Still, nothing prepared us for the Washington Post revelation that Hegseth personally ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” on a small wooden boat off the coast of Trinidad on Sept. 2.You’d expect rogue militias or failed-state paramilitaries to speak that way. You don’t expect it from the man running the Pentagon.What the Post reports is almost too grotesque to absorb.After the first U.S. missile ripped the boat apart and set it burning, commanders watched on a live drone feed as two survivors clung desperately to the charred wreckage.They were unarmed. They were wounded. They were no threat to anyone. They were simply alive; inconveniently alive for a man who had allegedly already given the order that there be no survivors.And so, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the strike, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation ordered a second missile. It hit the water and blew those two men apart.History tells us to watch out for nations that lose their moral compass in real time.It starts when the powerful stop seeing human beings as human. It accelerates when the government itself denies any obligation to justify its killings.And when leaders begin lying to Congress and the public to cover what they’ve done, you’re no longer looking at isolated abuses. You’re staring straight into the machinery of authoritarianism.Instead of telling Congress that the second strike was designed to finish off wounded survivors, Pentagon officials claimed it was to “remove a navigation hazard.”That isn’t just spin: it’s an attempt to rewrite reality.The Post quotes Todd Huntley, a former Special Operations military lawyer now at Georgetown Law, saying exactly what any first-year law student would immediately recognize: because the U.S. is not legally “at war” with drug traffickers, killing the people on that boat “amounts to murder.”Even if a war did exist, Huntley notes, the order to kill wounded, unarmed survivors “would in essence be an order to show no quarter,” which is defined under the Geneva Conventions as a war crime.This isn’t an obscure legal debate. This is basic civilization. Armed states do not execute helpless people in the water.And yet this is now U.S. policy. The boat strike on Sept. 2 was not a one-off. It was the beginning of a campaign.The Post reports that since that first attack, Trump and Hegseth have ordered more than 20 similar missile strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people.The administration insists the victims were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But in classified briefings to Congress, Pentagon officials have not provided even one single verified name of a trafficker or gang leader they’ve killed. Lawmakers from both parties say they’ve been shown nothing beyond grainy videos of small boats being destroyed from the air.If these men had truly been high-value cartel operatives, Trump would be parading names and photos across every rally stage in America. The silence tells its own story.Experts warn that many of the dead may not have been traffickers at all. They may have been border-crossing migrants, subsistence fishermen, or small-scale smugglers whose crimes did not remotely justify summary execution.International human rights groups are already calling these killings extrajudicial and illegal. Some foreign governments are asking whether the United States has effectively created a free-fire zone over parts of the Caribbean, and several have limited intelligence sharing with us for fear of being complicit in prosecutable war crimes and crimes against humanity.This, too, has been part of the authoritarian playbook since ancient times.Pick a foreign or criminal “other,” paint them as subhuman monsters, and then declare that the normal laws of war, morality, and basic decency no longer apply.For years, right-wing media has been hyping Tren de Aragua as a kind of supercharged successor to MS-13, just as Trump once used MS-13 as a bludgeon to justify abuses at home.The fact that the administration has produced no evidence for its claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point. When the government fabricates an omnipresent threat, it gives itself permission to kill whoever it wants.This may also explain the ferocity with which Hegseth and Trump went after Democratic lawmakers when they reminded U.S. service members that they are duty-bound to disobey illegal orders.Those officers weren’t being dramatic: they were issuing a warning grounded in fresh blood. And Hegseth’s and Trump’s panicked rage — calling for the death penalty for six members of Congress, including a decorated war hero and a CIA officer — now makes perfect sense: he knows perfectly well what he’s already ordered.The strike on Sept. 2 is not just a policy failure; it’s a moral collapse. If the Post’s reporting is accurate — and multiple congressional offices say it is consistent with what whistleblowers have told them — then the United States has engaged in the deliberate killing of wounded, unarmed men floating in the sea.That is the kind of conduct that topples governments, triggers war-crimes investigations, and leaves scars on nations for generations.Nobody elected Trump or Hegseth to serve as judge, jury, and executioner for impoverished people in wooden boats. Nobody gave them the authority to murder suspects without trial. And nobody gave them the right to lie to Congress about it.Congress must not let this pass. These allegations demand immediate public hearings, subpoena power, and full investigative authority.If Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” he must be removed and prosecuted.If U.S. commanders falsified reports to mislead Congress and the public, they must be held accountable.And if Trump approved or encouraged these actions, then impeachment and criminal referral are not optional: they’re required to defend the rule of law.America doesn’t have many chances left to prove to the world, and to ourselves, that we still believe in the value of human life and the restraints of democratic power. This is one of them.
This terrifying build-up shows Trump's threat to Venezuela is very real indeed
By Evan Ellis, Latin America Research Professor, US Army War College. As an analyst who has worked on security issues for over 30 years, I've been monitoring the US military build-up in the Caribbean for months.The US administration now has the potential to take decisive military action in Venezuela.Washington has described Nicolás Maduro as the leader of a terrorist group and deemed his regime illegitimate.The US has named its mission in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean "Operation Southern Spear" and briefed President Donald Trump on military options.The arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford gives the US Joint Task Force established in the region the option to launch a high volume of attacks against land targets, should Trump give the order. According to media reports, there are now 15,000 troops in the region, including marines on ships and some 5,000 personnel at bases in Puerto Rico.This massive deployment has, arguably, sought to convince Maduro's loyalists that US action is now an option on the table.The message is clear: if a military solution is pursued, the US is highly likely to be successful.This quantity of US military hardware in the region has not been seen since "Operation Uphold Democracy" in Haiti in 1994, when American-led forces helped end the military regime that had overthrown the democratically elected government.The most modern aircraft carrier in the US Navy is the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier. Its ability to rapidly launch and recover the 75 modern fighter aircraft on board would allow it to generate a significant number of strikes against Venezuelan targets. This would serve as a complement to the substantial numbers of missiles and other weapons on the other ships in the region.It joins an Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group. This group includes a helicopter dock ship and two landing platform vessels capable of transporting the 2,200 marines of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and their vehicles and equipment onto land, should they be needed.If such an event occurs, they would be transported by V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, helicopters and rapid air cushioned landing craft with the capacity to carry marines and heavier equipment over the beach to their objectives.In addition, the US has six destroyers and two cruisers with hundreds of missiles for both land attack and air defence and an AC-130 gunship capable of delivering high volumes of missiles against land targets.The special operations force's support ship, the "Ocean Trader", is also in the region and there is at least one attack submarine under the water's surface.Then on nearby US territory in Puerto Rico, the US has at least 10 F-35s, the most advanced fighter jet in the world. Flight tracking shows on Nov. 21 at least four additional aircraft were flown into the region from the US.These capabilities are further complemented by rapidly deployable assets from nearby bases in the continental US, from which the US has already flown sorties with B-52 and B-1 bombers.At least one MQ-9 Reaper attack and surveillance drone has also been deployed in the region.The imbalance of military firepower cannot be overstated. The small number of man-portable Igla-S anti-aircraft weapons that Maduro can rely on could take out a handful of US helicopters. But it is likely that few are in workable condition and even those may not be in the hands of people who know how to use them.Venezuela has around 63,000 soldiers, 23,000 troops in the National Guard and 15,000 marines. There are also unknown thousands in the militia. A submarine, two frigates, two corvettes and several missile and patrol boats are patrolling the coast. But they are massively dwarfed by the number, power and reach of what the US has stationed there.How it could unfoldAny move by Venezuelans to oust Maduro themselves could be supported by limited US operations on land targets, including military leaders and facilities supporting what the US alleges are drug operations.Should a home-grown attempt be unsuccessful, a large-scale, decisive US operation to capture or eliminate the regime's leadership, is one option.One way this could be done could involve a massive barrage of missiles and strikes by stealth aircraft, supported by electronic warfare, special operations missions, and clandestine operations from inside the country. The aim would be to take down the regime’s air defence systems, command nodes, fighter aircraft and other threats.Whether the United States would follow up such an operation with "boots on the ground" is not certain.But if Washington has the will, the US certainly has the military might needed to remove the US-designated terrorist group "Cartel de los Soles," including its alleged head, Maduro, which it claims is a threat to US interests.
'It's a confession': Conservative lawyers call new Hegseth comment an 'admission of guilt'
Pete Hegseth was put on notice over the weekend by two conservative lawyers, including a former prosecutor, who said the Defense Secretary's defense to a major new scandal "makes no legal sense" and is not really "a defense."Observers' eyebrows were raised after it was reported by the Washington Post in a bombshell story that Hegseth ordered the killing of two survivors of one of controversial drug vessel bombings. Some analysts questioned whether it was murder, or even a war crime.Former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, recently said he has no love for the “craven video” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five Democrats released to the public advising military members to ignore illegal orders. At the same time, McCarthy suggested President Donald Trump’s executive power abuses in reacting to it represent a whole “new level” of threat. Now, in an essay late Saturday night, the conservative weighed in on Hegseth's new scandal."If this happened as described in the Post report, it was, at best, a war crime under federal law. I say 'at best' because, as regular readers know, I believe the attacks on these suspected drug boats — without congressional authorization, under circumstances in which the boat operators pose no military threat to the United States, and given that narcotics trafficking is defined in federal law as a crime rather than as terrorist activity, much less an act or war — are lawless and therefore that the killings are not legitimate under the law or armed conflict," the attorney wrote.McCarthy goes even further, suggesting that, "even if you buy the untenable claim that they are combatants, it is a war crime to intentionally kill combatants who have been rendered unable to fight. It is not permitted, under the laws and customs of honorable warfare, to order that no quarter be given — to apply lethal force to those who surrender or who are injured, shipwrecked, or otherwise unable to fight."He continued, writing, "The operation, led by SEAL Team 6, was directed from Fort Bragg, N.C., by Admiral Frank M. 'Mitch' Bradley, then the head of Joint Special Operations Command. Admiral Bradley is said to have ordered the attack against the two survivors of the first strike in order to comply with Hegseth’s directive to kill the boat’s operators."While Bradley reportedly claimed "the survivors were still legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo," and Hegseth issued a response saying these were always meant to be deadly attacks, McCarthy isn't sold."Neither Hegseth’s statement nor the explanation attributed to Bradley... makes legal sense," the former prosecutor wrote. "The laws of war, as they are incorporated into federal law, make lethal force unlawful if it is used under certain circumstances. Hence, it cannot be a defense to say, as Hegseth does, that one has killed because one’s objective was 'lethal, kinetic strikes.'"Conservative attorney George Conway shared McCarthy's essay and wrote, "Indeed, it's a confession and admission of guilt to heinous crimes."Read the full piece here (subscription required).
'Devastating': Internet erupts over conservative outlet's 'damning' report on Trump allies
The conservative Wall Street Journal is causing an internet uproar with its new report on Donald Trump allies who are cashing in on ending the Russia-Ukraine war.The Journal's piece ahead of the weekend, Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine, claims that, "The Kremlin pitched the White House on peace through business. To Europe’s dismay, the president and his envoy are on board.""For the Kremlin, the Miami talks were the culmination of a strategy, hatched before Trump’s inauguration, to bypass the traditional U.S. national security apparatus and convince the administration to view Russia not as a military threat but as a land of bountiful opportunity, according to Western security officials," the Wall Street Journal reported. "By dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals, Moscow could reshape the economic map of Europe—while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies."The report made waves immediately.Former speechwriter to President George W. Bush, David Frum, called it a "devastating report on the real Trump-Russia deal: betray Ukraine in exchange for privileged business benefits for Trump insiders."Activist Garry Kasparov said, "As I said in my Halifax speech a few days before this damning WSJ report, this has always been personal business for Trump, not national interest.""It’s how Putin turned Russia into a mafia state and it’s been Trump’s goal from day one of his new unleashed admin," he added Saturday.Going further, he said, "And also as happened with Putin, politicians and pundits spend too much time looking for complicated motivations from ideology or psychology or blackmail. It’s money. It’s always money. They’re crooks. With immense power, but still crooks. Don’t overcomplicate things."Bloomberg Opinion columnist Ronald Brownstein chimed in, "If the betting markets did Pulitzer odds, this remarkably reported [WSJ] piece would be a comet."Read the piece here.
This overlooked exchange hints Trump is eyeing another appalling coup
I just want to put up top that this story is about what it sounds like, which is fantastical and like something out of a spy thriller, and yet there’s nothing we can put past this administration. But it’s also about how The New York Times missed — or chose to ignore — a story staring it right in the face.When I read reports last weekend about how Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president who’d been sentenced to home confinement after being convicted in a notorious coup plot, had been arrested after an attempted escape, the first person I thought about was Donald Trump.Trump, of course, is Bolsonaro’s best buddy and fellow authoritarian coup-plotter who, unfortunately for us, was indicted but never convicted because he became president again and killed the cases against himself. And since becoming president, Trump has spent months railing against Brazil and its Supreme Court — even imposing 50 percent tariffs on the country as retribution — demanding Brazil’s current president release Bolsonaro.But that wasn’t the only reason I thought about Trump. Reports about Bolsonaro’s arrest focused on how his ankle monitor was breached after midnight, and security forces immediately detained him, putting him in a pretty cushy jail, under orders from a judge on the Brazilian Supreme Court who noted that Bolsonaro lives close to the U.S. embassy. Bolsonaro had in early 2024 slept in the embassy of Hungary — where another authoritarian buddy, Victor Orbán, is president — in what authorities believe was an attempt to evade arrest.I couldn’t help but think the judge and law enforcement might be aware of a plot involving the U.S., and I discussed it on my SiriusXM show on Monday, speculating that it could have been an attempt by Bolsonaro to get to the U.S. embassy and get asylum from the U.S., which, under Trump, would give it to him.It wasn’t until Tuesday that I actually saw the video from later in the day on Saturday of Trump, heading to his chopper at the White House, being asked questions by reporters about Bolsonaro, which you can watch right here.At first, Trump clearly seems not to catch that the reporter is asking about Bolsonaro being arrested the night before and instead thinks it’s just a general question of some sort about his dictator pal.TRUMP: So I spoke last to the person you just referred to, and we’re going to be meeting, I believe, in the very near future.Reporter: Sir, are you aware about the president being arrested today?Trump responds with what is clearly shock, sticking his head out .TRUMP: What?!Reporter: I’m talking about the former Brazilian president being arrested today.TRUMP: No, I don’t know anything about that.Trump seems a bit stunned, and again says, “I don’t know anything about it,” before asking the reporter, “Is that what happened?”Then he kind of grimaces, and says, “That’s too bad,” and repeats again, “I Just think it’s too bad.”The Times published a story about the latest on Bolsonaro’s arrest, but it oddly focused up top on how Trump, supposedly learning the limits of his power, doesn’t have as much interest in Bolsonaro as he used to, and it quoted from the exchange with reporters — but only the part where he says “That’s too bad,” and not the part where he says he just spoke to Bolsonaro:“That’s too bad.”It was a telling response from President Trump on Saturday when he learned the news from reporters that his once close ally, the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, had just been arrested.Did he have any thoughts?“No,” Mr. Trump replied. “I just think it’s too bad.”What a difference a few months make.In July, Mr. Trump sent an angry letter to the current Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, demanding that the authorities drop charges that Mr. Bolsonaro had attempted a coup. Mr. Trump slapped 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports and imposed sanctions on a Brazilian Supreme Court justice to try to keep Mr. Bolsonaro — a right-wing politician sometimes called the Trump of the Tropics — out of prison.Five months later, Mr. Trump has all but admitted defeat.This ia a very strange framing. It completely omits what Trump said before he said “That’s too bad.”Trump said he’d just spoken with Bolsonaro the night before. And said he they were going to be meeting “very soon.”How would Trump be able to meet Bolsonaro in home confinement in Brazil?And how did the Times not catch what would otherwise throw cold water on the framing of its story? After all, far from forgetting about Bolsonaro, Trump was very much thinking about Bolsonaro, having just spoken to him and planning to see him “soon.”Thankfully, the always sharp Rachel Maddow proved I was not crazy and being conspiratorial. Because when I did a search this morning, after seeing the video, I found that she indeed covered this on her MS Now program, raising all the right questions even as she pointed to what fantastical plot this would be if true.But where is the rest of the media, and why did the Times not home in on Trump’s highly interesting comments, instead making it appear as if Trump had been giving up on Bolsonaro?Michelangelo Signorile writes The Signorile Report, a free and reader-supported Substack. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism.
This Trump betrayal can be stopped
Ukrainians know Donald Trump’s Ukraine deal is a betrayal, even if Volodymyr Zelensky and others have to keep flattering Trump in the hope he changes his mind. Negotiated between American billionaire Steve Witkoff and Russian oligarch Kirill Dmitriev without Ukrainian or European participation, the proposed deal gives Russia even more territory, forces Ukraine to shrink its army, and prevents the country joining NATO. Its guarantees of future Ukraine security could easily melt away as did those Russia, the US and European nations made when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994. The treaty is culmination of Trump’s undermining of Ukraine, from his first cancellations of Biden-era military support to validating Valdimir Putin’s claims to Ukrainian territory.It’s tempting to simply mourn, but those of us who’ve opposed Russia’s invasion from the start can do more than just play the role of passive spectators, particularly with the Europeans stepping up to make clear they’ll have Ukraine’s back and to push back with a plan of their own. For all of Trump’s claimed deadlines. Ukraine is not going to simply accept, and may not at all. And while they’re negotiating, supporters of Ukraine and especially Ukrainian Americans, could and should organize nationally coordinated rallies calling on Trump to support Ukraine and not Putin. And making clear the kinds of support that would strengthen Ukraine’s hand. And while they’re coming up with counter-proposals, supporters of Ukraine, and especially Ukrainian Americans, could and should organize nationally coordinated rallies calling on Trump to support Ukraine and not Putin. And making clear the kinds of support that would strengthen Ukraine’s hand. These demonstrations should be led by Ukrainian Americans, whose families and futures are most directly affected. But they could also prominently engage other Eastern European communities — Polish, Latvian, Finnish, and others — whose homelands are also threatened by Russian aggression, and who become far more vulnerable if Ukraine accepts this deal. These communities bring powerful stories, deep networks, and shared stakes in the outcome. They recognize that Ukrainians are fighting both for them and for everyone who believes in democracy. Demonstration organizers can invite them to speak, co-create messaging, and amplify the call across media and social platforms. Broader outreach — such as to the networks that mobilized an estimated 7 million people for the October No Kings Day — could expand the size and impact. But the core message should remain rooted in the voices of those on the front lines of this geopolitical struggle.The slogans can be simple and direct: Don't Abandon Ukraine. Stand Against Putin. Stand with Ukraine and Democracy. The goal would be to pressure once-supportive Republicans to break their silent compliance and themselves demand restoration of at least baseline levels of aid. It would be about making the political cost of inaction too high to ignore — an easier task in the wake of GOP electoral defeats, as Trump’s poll numbers hit new lows, and as Republicans begin to break on the Epstein files.These rallies would also send a message to Trump himself. He’s refused to authorize new U.S. support, alternately halted and resumed the delivery of previously committed air defense systems and artillery ammunition, and lamented Russia’s expulsion from the G8 for its 2014 Crimea seizure, something he wants to reverse in the new treaty. Despite occasional tough sounding words, he’s given Putin far more leverage both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Ukraine may still prevail with courage, persistence, creativity, increased European support. But Trump’s general abandonment makes the Ukrainian situation far harder, even as the war-burdened Russian economy faces 20 percent interest rates, 10 percent inflation, and key labor shortages.Could rallies and marches still make a difference? Ukrainian and other Eastern European communities have historically leaned Republican, giving them unique leverage. When economic interests have pressured Trump, he’s reversed course on tariffs and on immigration raids targeting farmworkers and hotel workers. Nixon-era anti-Vietnam demonstrations helped halt bombing raids and accelerated troop withdrawals — even as Nixon claimed they had no affect. There are no guarantees. But coordinated, visible action could restore at least some of the support for Ukraine that Trump pulled, and shift him back in his weather vane-spin towards supporting Kyiv and not Moscow. At the very least, action would give Ukrainian Americans and their allies a way to speak out while the fate of Ukraine hangs in the balance, because publicly they’ve been much too silent. Hope alone is not a strategy. But when people organize with a common voice, they never know what they might achieve.Paul Loeb is author of Soul of a Citizen, The Impossible Will take a Little While, and three other books on social change, totaling 350,000 copies in print. An earlier version appeared in The Fulcrum
Trump-pardoned CEO's firm accused of 'knowingly' enabling Hamas attacks
A new lawsuit against a cryptocurrency company whose billionaire founder was recently pardoned of federal crimes by President Donald Trump argued that the firm "knowingly" helped finance the Oct. 7, 2021, attack on Israel by Hamas, Reuters reported on Monday.The firm, Binance, serves as an exchange for cryptocurrency trading, and was the primary competitor to FTX before the latter firm was implicated in a fraud scheme by its CEO and declared bankruptcy in 2022."According to a complaint made public on Monday, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange laundered money for Hamas even after pleading guilty in November 2023 and paying a $4.32 billion criminal penalty for violating federal anti-money-laundering and sanctions laws," reported Reuters.The plaintiffs, who include 306 American victims and relatives of victims, "accused Binance of knowingly enabling Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iran's Revolutionary Guard to move more than $1 billion through its platform, including more than $50 million after the October 7 attack," according to the report."Binance intentionally structured itself as a refuge for illicit activity," the complaint said. "To this day, there is no indication that Binance has meaningfully altered its core business model."Binance's former CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in 2023. Earlier this year, Trump gave him a full pardon, claiming that he was politically targeted by the Biden administration.However, that pardon came after Binance spent months promoting a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture owned by Trump family members that has netted them over $1 billion in profit.
'We will not let them die ignored': Bishop eulogizes thousands slated to die from GOP cuts
Surrounded by cardboard “tombstones” that displayed likely causes of death of thousands of people in the United States under Republican policies, Bishop William J. Barber II on Monday gave a eulogy in Raleigh, North Carolina, honoring those who are being directly targeted by the Trump administration’s cuts to healthcare, public health funding, and other essential government programs.The word “eulogy,” he said, comes from the Greek word “eulogia,” and means “good words.”“But the question is, what is the ‘good word’ when people shouldn’t be dead?” asked the president of the grassroots group Repairers of the Breach and the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, adding that the people he was speaking about are projected to die in the coming year solely due to “policy violence.”“We will not let them die ignored,” said Barber. “We will not let their deaths go unregistered on the conscience of this nation and this state, and among the people.”375,000 people are at risk of loosing food assistance in North Carolina, millions more nationally. #MoralMonday gatherings are taking place in AL, AZ, AR, CT, DE, IN, KY, MS, MO, NE, NJ, NC, OH, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WV, calling for elected officials to stop #PolicyViolence. pic.twitter.com/CHfnL5r6L6— Repairers of the Breach (@BRepairers) November 24, 2025 Barber spoke at the flagship event of Repairers of the Breach’s regular Moral Mondays prayer protest, while supporters in more than 15 states including Alabama, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas also delivered eulogies for those who are expected to die as a result of the $186 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, and funding slashed by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that was passed in July.Roughly 51,000 people are expected to die annually as they lose access to SNAP and Medicaid, as well as those whose healthcare costs will skyrocket if Affordable Care Act subsidies are allowed to expire at the end of the year. People with disabilities and low-income senior citizens are also expected to be impacted by OBBBA provisions that will make it harder for them to access Medicare Savings Programs."Because we are fighting for the life of those who yet remain,“ said Barber. ”When they passed the Big Ugly Deadly Destructive Bill—don’t ever call it the Beautiful Bill—when they passed it, it represented a death sentence.“Standing Against Deadly Policy Violence | National Moral Monday Flagship Broadcast 11-24-2025 https://t.co/uFk1mNdse3— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) November 24, 2025 Barber noted that Republicans were able to pass the law after lying about “waste and fraud and abuse” in the federal programs that rely on them for healthcare and food assistance.“They had to tell a lie to keep their promise to the wealthiest people in America,” said the bishop, referring to thousands of dollars in annual tax cuts for the richest households that are included in the OBBBA.Sloan Meek, who has cerebral palsy and relies on Medicaid, also gave a statement.“I feel a lot of fear and worry right now that every cut and rate reduction to Medicaid will change my whole life,” said Meek. “Having disabilities does not mean I am sick, but it does mean I need consistent treatment and care to stay healthy. I do not want to become sick. I do not want to lose my community. I do not want to lose my voice. I do not want to be forced out of my home to live and receive care from a bunch of strangers. I do not want to die because of a political issue. These are the fears I share with every disabled person using Medicaid in North Carolina right now. I would like to ask every legislator to please see us as having valuable and important lives that are worth supporting.”The event also aimed at the Trump administration’s actions weakening the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—with the federal government denying and delaying states’ disaster assistance requests—and President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which most recently unleashed federal agents on North Carolina communities from Charlotte to Raleigh.The tombstones that flanked Barber read, “I lost Medicare,” “I was disappeared,” “I lost medical research,” “FEMA did not respond.”“The big, bad, deadly budget bill proved that Washington lawmakers are more than willing to kill tens of thousands of people to line the pockets of the wealthy—but now even that level of destruction and death wasn’t enough,” said Barber in a statement ahead of the event. “Lawmakers are now allowing healthcare subsidies to expire, forcing millions of people to come up with more money for health plans—or die trying. And the Trump administration just unleashed its masked army of ICE agents to terrify and abduct immigrants in Charlotte and Raleigh.”“One of the grandest, cruelest ironies is that many of the leaders greenlighting these deadly policies profess to be Christian. I’m not sure what Bible they’re reading, but my Bible tells me to protect all people—including poor people and foreigners—without condition or judgment,” Barber continued. “We cannot stay silent in this moment.”Barber said the event was being held two days before Repairers of the Breach was preparing to send an open letter to every member of the North Carolina General Assembly, calling for the body to hold an “emergency session and vote to tell Congress and the president to take hands off the people of North Carolina, to reverse policies that will hurt 307,000 North Carolinians that will lose Medicaid, that will cause 375,000 to lose food stamps.”On Monday evening, the organization was planning another event to call on Congress and the White House “to immediately cease and desist” their attacks on Latino and immigrant communities across the country, deploying “Liberty Vans”: mobile rapid-response command centers staffed by volunteer lawyers and campaigners to provide support to communities targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
We elected an imbecile — and his latest move could kill us all
Since Donald Trump has been back in office, energy prices have increased at more than double the rate of inflation. The Consumer Price Index from the end of October reported an “all items price index” increase for food, shelter, and transportation of 3.0 percent over a 12-month period, while energy services for the same period rose by 6.4 percent. After promising to slash energy prices, Trump has done the opposite. His energy policies reflect the same ethos driving everything else in his retribution playbook: reward donors and inflict pain on Democrats, even when the economic consequences are nationwide.Lust for retributionIn early October, Trump announced the claw-back of billions of dollars in federal funding for utilities, money that had been appropriated to reinforce power grids and reduce electricity prices. Targeting blue states exclusively, Budget Director Russ Vought announced the cancellation of “nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda.” In all, 321 Congressionally set awards supporting 223 wind, solar, and transmission projects were trashed. Trump’s aversion to clean energy isn’t the only factor driving costs. His refusal to upgrade the grid, his half-baked export and tariff initiatives, and his blind support for energy-sucking AI data centers are all contributing to surging energy prices with no relief in sight. As Canary Media framed it, “Trump slapped tariffs on certain wind turbine materials and opened a sham “national security” probe to pave the way for even more. He halted construction on a nearly completed offshore wind farm and moved to revoke permits for two more. He canceled hundreds of millions in port funding critical to offshore wind development and imposed new directives to stifle renewable projects on federal lands.” Trump’s dedication is showing: after only ten months of Trump 2.0, US household electric bills have increased by 10 percent, and are expected to continue climbing.UN Climate SummitTrump is doing more than reversing US climate successes, he’s also undermining progress in other parts of the world. Last month, when the International Maritime Organization agreed on the world’s first carbon tax on global shipping to encourage the transition to cleaner fuels, Trump released a childish Truth Social rant threatening to retaliate. This month, he ignored the UN Climate Summit in Brazil. Thankfully, California Governor Gavin Newsom attended, representing the world’s fourth-largest economy. Newsom highlighted California's efforts to step up on climate where Trump has stepped out. Facing down the embarrassment of an antiquated, know-nothing, pro-fossil fuel regime, Newsom didn’t hold back. When asked about the US retreat from global climate action, he called Trump “an invasive species … He’s a wrecking ball president trying to roll back progress of the last century … he’s doubling down on stupid.” Newsom did more than talk. While he was at the summit, he signed new Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Brazil, Colombia, and Chile to advance clean energy, wildfire prevention, and other climate-related initiatives. He also expanded California’s existing partnerships with China and Mexico on clean energy development and zero-emission freight corridors. Newsom managed to bolster California's profile as a stable international business and climate partner despite the optics of a US president ruled by ego and impulse.Our loss, China’s gainIn September, addressing the UN, Trump called climate change a “con job” and urged other world leaders to abandon their climate efforts despite the Earth’s rising temperatures. Trump claimed falsely that China sells wind turbines to the world without using them at home, and told assembled leaders, “If you don’t get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail.” The next day, China pledged the reverse. Xi Jinping announced China’s plan to increase electric vehicle sales and dramatically increase wind and solar power, targeting a 600 percent increase over 2020 levels. Despite Trump’s claim, China has vastly expanded wind power developments at home, adding 46 gigawatts of new wind energy this year alone, enough to power than 30 million homes. Meanwhile, our Cro-Magnon regime froze permits for wind farms and issued stop work orders, ending tens of thousands of wind energy jobs in the process.Critics agree that Trump’s withdrawal from climate efforts ceded valuable ground to China, which is now rapidly expanding its renewable and EV industries. China’s Ming Yang Smart Energy just unveiled OceanX, a two-headed offshore wind turbine. OceanX is expected to cut offshore energy costs to one-fifth of Europe’s costs while allowing wind farms to operate with fewer, more powerful turbines. “China gets it,” Newsom said at the UN Climate Summit, “America is toast competitively, if we don’t wake up to what the hell they’re doing in this space, on supply chains, how they’re dominating manufacturing, how they’re flooding the zone.”Newsom is right. Americans are suffering the tragedy of an uninformed and unstable president who rejects science, a president who wants to take us back to the 19th century. We have also inflicted our tragedy on the rest of the world.Pope Leo frames climate action as a moral and spiritual imperative, tying the “cry of the Earth” to the “cry of the poor,” because small island nations and the global south, including poor states in the US, will continue to suffer the most from extreme weather and climate destruction. Trump will be dead before climate change becomes an obvious existential threat. As Newsom said, he is only temporary. But the global destruction he leaves behind could be permanent. We owe it to our children, ourselves, and all the earth’s inhabitants to never again elect an imbecile, and to shut this one down before he kills us all. Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
Steve Bannon guest says quiet part aloud with Trump admission: 'That's the only outcome'
Former CIA adviser Jim Rickards, a MAGA supporter, admitted that President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Ukraine was to give Russian President Vladimir Putin "everything he wants.""The criticism of the plan is that it gives Putin almost everything he wants," Rickards told MAGA influencer Steve Bannon on Monday. "Well, I have news for you. That's how we're going to end the war. That's the only way you're going to end the war. The Russians won, you know, with a lot of casualties and a lot of people.""So why should the Russians concede anything? They shouldn't."Bannon agreed: "The Russians won the war.""If you're the United States, you've got two choices. Keep fighting or keep supporting the war, or agree to Putin's plan," Rickards asserted. "Now the criticism that, oh, you know, you're agreeing to Putin's plan. Well, that's the only outcome here, short of World War III.""Ukraine has lost," he added. "The brilliance of this 28-point plan was that it recognizes what I just described."
