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  • Mass Murder As “Public Service” In “Our Democracy”

    Super-hawk Elliot Abrams is back in the news again, worrying that Donald Trump lacks “clarity” about what he intends to do in Venezuela. Abrams recommends that the president eliminate all doubts and ambiguities in his mind and directly attack Venezuelan territory in order to bring down the “dictator” Nicolas Maduro.

    Abrams, U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, said in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the president’s advisors should promptly persuade him that the point of no return has already been passed in Venezuela, and that the only possible outcomes are that either Trump or Maduro will win the contest that is now well underway. Forthrightly titled, “How To Topple Maduro,” Abrams calls for doing more than blowing up “narco-trafficking boats” (i.e., Caribbean fishing vessels), though he does not go so far as to advocate the deployment of U.S. ground troops in the South American nation.

    According to the Mexican daily La Jornada, Abrams wants Washington to destroy Venezuela’s air defense systems, the F-16s at the air base of Palo Negro, and the Sukhoi jets at the air base in La Orchila, an island one hundred miles off the coast of Venezuela. He also desires to see U.S. attacks against bases in western Venezuela used by the Army of National Liberation (ELN), a Colombian Marxist group allied with Maduro.

    Abrams worries that after a prolonged show of massive U.S. force off the coast of Venezuela, Washington may end up leaving Maduro in power, sending a signal to the world that it has declined from superpower status to the “pitiful helpless giant” that Richard Nixon feared the U.S. was becoming by not being aggressive enough in Vietnam. Such an outcome, he feels, would only benefit the Venezuelan “regime”, as well as irrationally hostile countries (presumably) like China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran.

    Abrams nowhere takes note of the huge risks U.S. military escalation necessarily carries with it, namely, that it might provoke a Vietnam-style bloodbath or worse, after uniting all of Latin America against Washington’s unprovoked aggression. Even Colombia, which regards the Marxist ELN affiliated with Maduro as a drug-trafficking terrorist group, has made it very clear it will not tolerate a U.S. attack on Venezuela. If Washington overthrows Maduro and Venezuela turns to prolonged popular resistance via guerrilla war and sabotage, expect a large number of Americans to return home in body bags.

    Instead of facing this sobering prospect, Abrams indulges the usual imperial fantasy that regime change will lead Venezuela promptly to democracy, broad prosperity, and national reconciliation under the enlightened tutelage of its friendly occupiers, who are said by many experts on democracy to be on the path to civil war at home.

    Of course, all of this is only to be expected from Abrams, who is a former senior Middle East adviser on the National Security Council for George W. Bush, in which position he promoted the 2003 invasion of Iraq (with similarly rosy results predicted), and a disastrous coup against the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza, which eventually produced the genocidal horror show we have been watching on our live feeds for the last two-plus years.

    Before these ghastly events, Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights under Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). During those years, he staunchly defended U.S. support for a death squad client regime in El Salvador that tortured and murdered staggering numbers of peasants struggling to gain their most basic human rights, a “democracy” campaign that ended with an estimated 70,000 dead and the country devastated almost beyond repair. Abrams rated it a “fabulous achievement.”

    He did the same with respect to Guatemala, where another U.S. client state was carrying out a scorched earth campaign that was determined to be genocide by the United Nations and a Guatemalan court of law, with entire villages razed to the ground. He whitewashed the El Mozote massacre, in which hundreds of Guatemalans were beheaded, shot, raped, and burned alive, including children. Confronted on live TV in 1995 by journalist Allan Nairn about his role in covering up the torture, rape, and murder of Guatemalan human rights leader Rosario Godoy (her baby had his fingernails torn out), Abrams shamelessly stuck to the official story that “they died in a traffic accident.”

    Throughout the eighties, Abrams worked diligently to destroy the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, which had overthrown the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, whose long record of human rights crimes rivaled those in El Salvador and Guatemala. Ex-Somoza National Guardsmen, famous for torture, rape, and murder, formed themselves into a mercenary army financed by Washington, spending the decade attacking civilian infrastructure like schools, farming cooperatives, medical clinics, and electricity-generating plants, killing roughly thirty thousand Nicaraguans to punish them for having carried out a popular revolution.

    Later tried for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal, Abrams called the prosecutors “filthy bastards” and denounced members of the U.S. Intelligence Committee as “pious clowns” who asked “abysmally stupid” questions. When journalist Terry Allen told him that much of the world considered him a war criminal, he called her a “rotten bitch.” In 1991, he actually pled guilty to two counts of lying to Congress, but this was apparently only because he “wasn’t authorized to tell the truth,” as he put it.

    After hearing Abrams testify, Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton remarked, “I want to puke,” a common enough sentiment among those subjected to the neo-con’s perverse rationalizations for unspeakable crimes.

    The aforementioned Allan Nairn, a rare journalist who actually covered the truth rather than allowing it to be covered up, had the following exchanges with Abrams on the Charlie Rose show on March 31, 1995.

    Nairn: . . . in the face of this systematic policy of slaughter by the Guatemalan military, more than 110,000 civilians killed by that military since 1978, what Amnesty International has called a “government program of political murder,” the U.S.  has continued to provide covert assistance to the G-2 and they have continued, especially during the time of Mr. Abrams, to provide political aid and comfort. For example . . . .  

    Abrams: Uh, Charlie.

    Rose: One second.

    Nairn:  . . . during the Northwest Highland massacres of the [early] 80s, when the Catholic Church said: “Never in our history has it come to such grave extremes. It has reached the point of genocide.” President Reagan went down, embraced [General] Rios-Montt, the dictator who was staging these massacres, and said he was getting “a bum rap on human rights.” In ’85, when human rights leader Rosario Godoy was abducted by the army, raped, and mutilated, her baby had his fingernails torn out, the Guatemalan military said: “Oh, they died in a traffic accident.” Human rights groups contacted Mr. Abrams, asked him about it, he wrote back – this is his letter of reply – he said: yes, “there’s no evidence other than that they died in a traffic accident.” Now this is a woman raped and mutilated, a baby with his fingernails torn out. This is a long-standing policy. 

    Rose: . . . these are specific points raised by Allan having to do with your public conduct. 

    Abrams: . . . I’m not here to refight the Cold War. I’m glad we won. . .

    Nairn: Won against whom? Won against those civilians the Guatemalan army was massacring?

    Abrams: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We’re not here to refight the Cold War . . . If Mr. Nairn thinks we should have been on the other side in Guatemala, that we should have been in favor of a guerrilla victory, I disagree with him.

    Nairn: So you’re admitting that you were on the side of the Guatemalan military!

    Abrams: I am admitting that it was the policy of the United States, under Democrats and Republicans, approved by Congress repeatedly, to oppose a Communist guerrilla victory anywhere in Central America, including in Guatemala.

    Nairn: “A Communist guerrilla victory!” Ninety-five percent of these victims are civilians – peasant organizers, human rights leaders, priests – assassinated by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan army.

    Rose: I’m happy to invite both of you back to review Reagan and Bush (Senior) administration policy. Right now I want to stick to this point . . . .

    Nairn: Let’s look at reality here . . .  We’re talking about more than a hundred thousand murders, an entire army, many of its top officers, employees of the U.S. government. We’re talking about crimes, and we’re also talking about criminals; not just people like Guatemalan Colonels but also the U.S. agents who’ve been working with them, and the higher-level U.S. officials. I mean, I think you have to apply uniform standards. President Bush [Senior] once talked about putting Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes against humanity – Nuremberg style tribunal. I think that’s a good idea. But if you’re serious, you have to be even-handed. If you look at a case like this, I think we have to start talking about putting Guatemalan and U.S. officials on trial. I think someone like Mr. Abrams would be a fit subject for such a Nuremberg-style inquiry. 

    Abrams: [laughs]

    Nairn: . . . but I agree with Mr. Abrams that Democrats would have to be in the dock with him.

    Rose: Well, well I  . . . again, I invite you and Elliot Abrams back to discuss what he did, but right now . . . .

    Abrams: No thanks, Charlie, but . . . .

    Rose: Elliot, go ahead Elliot, to repeat the question, do you want to be in the dock?

    Abrams: It is ludicrous, it is ludicrous to respond to that kind of stupidity. This guy thinks we were on the wrong side in the Cold War.

    Nairn: Mr. Abrams, you were on the wrong side in supporting the massacre of peasants and organizers and anyone who dared speak. Absolutely. And that’s a crime. That’s a crime, Mr. Abrams, for which people should be tried. It’s against the law.

    Abrams: (sarcastically) All right, we’ll put all the American officials who won the Cold War in the dock.

    Rose: . . . Allan Nairn is a distinguished reporter who won the George Polk Award last year. So, I mean, you know, I don’t want him characterized on this broadcast as a crackpot. I mean, you can have a personal argument about what he says about you specifically, but . . . 

    Abrams: Well, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, when a guy tells me he thinks the entire U.S. leadership during the Cold War needs to have a Nuremberg trial, he’s a crackpot.

    Rose: OK, I mean, I, I wouldn’t, point well taken.

    Nairn: Well, it’s Mr. Abrams’s right to say whatever he wants, but the facts speak for themselves. And in the case of Guatemala, you have this ongoing pattern of murder which has been public record – the Catholic Church in Guatemala has documented it, all the human rights groups have documented it. And on the public level, not even talking about the covert level, year after year the U.S. has continued to provide all different kinds of aid to the Guatemalan military. . . 

    Abrams did indeed say whatever he wanted, which in the case of Guatemala was that General Ríos Montt, later convicted of genocide, had “brought considerable progress” to the “war” against defenseless civilians.

    Sources:

    Carlos Fazio, “Elliot Abrams Pressures Trump,” La Jornada (Spanish), November 24, 2025

    Jim Cason and David Brooks, “Officials Present Trump Options For Military Action Against Venezuela,” La Jornada, (Spanish) November 14, 2025

    Jim Lobe, “Elliot Abrams returns promoting a Caracas cakewalk,” Responsible Statecraft, November 21, 2025

    Leigh Binford, The El Mozote Massacre, (University of Arizona, 1996) pp. 18-22

    Terry J. Allen, Public Serpent, www.InTheseTimes.com, August 2001

    Abrams confronted on Charlie Rose March 31, 1995

    The post Mass Murder As “Public Service” In “Our Democracy” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Report Shows How GOP Health Care Scheme Would Further Enrich Insurance Giants

    US President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have made a show of criticizing insurance company greed as they stand firm against extending Affordable Care Act tax credits and offer ill-formed alternatives. But a report published Wednesday by the office of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) explains how a scheme endorsed by Trump and some top Republicans would further enrich insurance…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Abbott Slaps Muslim Rights Group With “Defamatory and Lawless” Terrorist Label

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that Muslims are a “threat to our freedom” on Tuesday as he targeted the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the U.S. with a foreign terrorist organization label in an escalation of a movement of anti-Muslim hate in the state. Abbott announced on Tuesday that he was designating the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Chaos: The Trump Doctrine for Latin America

    The US, under Trump, is unapologetically an empire operating without pretense. International law is for losers. A newly minted War Department, deploying the most lethal killing machine in world history, need not hide behind the sham of promoting democracy.

    Recall that in 2023, Trump boasted: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten all that oil.” As CEO of the capitalist bloc, Trump’s mission is not about to be restrained by respect for sovereignty. There is only one inviolate global sovereign; all others are subalterns.

    Venezuela – with our oil under its soil – is now in the crosshairs of the empire. Not only does Venezuela possess the largest petroleum reserves, but it also has major gold, coltan, bauxite, and nickel deposits. Of course, the world’s hegemon would like to get its hands on all that mineral wealth.

    But it would be simplistic to think that it is driven only by narrow economic motives. Leverage over energy flows is central to maintaining global influence. Washington requires control of strategic resources to preserve its position as the global hegemon, guided by its official policy of “full spectrum dominance.”

    For Venezuela, revenues derived from these resources enable it to act with some degree of sovereign independence. Most gallingly, Venezuela nationalized its oil, instead of gifting it to private entrepreneurs – and then used it to fund social programs and to assist allies abroad like Cuba. All this is anathema to the hegemon.

    Further pushing the envelope is Venezuela’s “all-weather strategic partnership” with China. With Russia, its most consequential defense ally, Venezuela ratified a strategic partnership agreement. Similarly, Venezuela has a strong anti-imperialist alliance with Iran. All three partners have come to Caracas’s defense, along with regional allies such as Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico.

    The US has subjected Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution to incessant regime-change aggression for its entire quarter-century of existence. In 2015, Barack Obama codified what economist Jeffrey Sachs calls a remarkable “legal fiction.”  His executive order designated Venezuela as an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. Renewed by each succeeding president, the executive order is really an implicit recognition of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution as a counter-hegemonic alternative that challenges Washington’s world order.

    The latest US belligerence testifies to the success of the Venezuelan resistance. The effects of asphyxiating US-led sanctions, which had crashed the economy, have been partly reversed with a return to economic growth, leaving the empire with little alternative but to escalate its antagonism through military means.

    The AFP reports “tensions between Washington and Caracas have dramatically risen” as if the one-sided aggression were a tit-for-tat. Venezuela seeks peace, but has a gun held to its head.

    Reuters blames the victim, claiming that the Venezuelan government “is planning to…sow chaos in the event of a US air or ground attack.” In fact, President Nicolás Maduro has pledged “prolonged resistance” to Washington’s unprovoked assaults rather than meekly conceding defeat.

    The death toll from US strikes on alleged small drug boats off Venezuela, in the Pacific off Colombia and Ecuador, and as far north as Mexico now exceeds 75 and continues to rise. But not an ounce of narcotics has been confiscated. In contrast, Venezuela has seized 64 tons of drugs this year without killing anyone, as the Orinoco Tribune observes.

    Russian Foreign Ministry’s María Zakharova quipped: “now that the US has suddenly remembered, at this historic moment, that drugs are an evil, perhaps it is worth it for the US to go after the criminals within its own elite.”

    On November 11, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its accompanying warships arrived in the Caribbean. They join an armada of US destroyers, fighter jets, drones, and troops that have been building since August.

    In a breathtaking understatement, the Washington Post allowed: “The breadth of firepower…would seem excessive” for drug interdiction in what it glowingly describes as a “stunning military presence.”

    Venezuela is now on maximum military alert with a threatening flotilla off its coast and some 15,000 US troops standing by.  Millions of Venezuelans have joined the militia, and international brigades have been welcomed to join the defense. President Maduro issued a decree of “external commotion,” granting special powers in the event of an invasion.

    The populace has united around its Chavista leadership. The far-right opposition, which has called for a military invasion of its own country, is more isolated than ever. Only 3% support such a call.

    Their US-designated leader, María Corina Machado, has gone bonkers, saying “no doubt” that Maduro rigged the 2020 US election against Trump. According to the rabidly anti-Chavista Caracas Chronicles, the so-called Iron Lady “is not simply betting Venezuela’s future on Trump, she is betting her existence.”

    The legal eagles at The Washington Post now find that “the Trump administration’s approach is illegal.” United Nations experts warn that these unprovoked lethal strikes against vessels at sea “amount to international crimes.”

    Even high-ranking Democrats “remain unconvinced” by the administration’s legal arguments. They’re miffed about being left out of the administration’s briefings and not getting to see full videos of the extrajudicial murders.

    The Democrats unite with the Republicans in demonizing Maduro to achieve regime change in Venezuela, but wish it could be done by legal means. The so-called opposition party unanimously voted to confirm Marco Rubio as secretary of state, fully aware of the program that he now spearheads.

    The corporate press has been complicit in regime change in its endless demonization of Maduro. They report that Trump authorized covert CIA operations as if that was a scoop rather than business as usual. What is new is a US administration overtly flaunting supposedly covert machinations. This is part of Washington’s full-press psychological pressure campaign on Venezuela, in which the follow-the-flag media have been its eager handmaiden.

    The AP reports that Jack Keane, when he served as a US Army general, instructed staff to “see reporters as a conduit” for the Pentagon. This was cited as a criticism of Trump after a few dozen embedded reporters turned in their Pentagon badges. Trump has called out the Washington press corps as “very disruptive in terms of world peace,” proving the adage that even a blind dog can sometimes find a bone.

    The Wall Street Journal opines: “Nobody in the [Trump] administration seems prepared to ask the hard questions about what happens if they do destabilize the [Venezuelan] regime but fail to topple it.” Political analysts Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies suggest the answer is carnage and chaos  – based on Washington’s past performances in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to mention a few.

    Foreign Policy’s perspective – aligned with the Washington establishment – is that regional fragmentation is at its highest level in the last half-century. Regional organizations have become dysfunctional –  UNASUR has been “destroyed,” CELAC is “useless,” and the OAS canceled its summit. The factionalism, Responsible Statecraft agrees, “marks one of the lowest moments for regional relations in decades.” Bilateral “deals” with the US are replacing regional cohesion.

    This is Latin America under the beneficence of Trump’s “Monroe Doctrine.” The alternative vision, represented by Venezuela, is CELAC’s Zone of Peace and ALBA-TCP’s development for mutual benefit.

    The post Chaos: The Trump Doctrine for Latin America first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Jeffries Blocks Vote on Restoring Federal Workers’ Collective Bargaining Rights

    On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) blocked an effort broadly supported by his own caucus to force a vote on restoring crucial labor protections for federal workers that were revoked by President Donald Trump earlier this year. A Democrat-led petition on the “Protect America’s Workforce Act” is just two signatures short of the 218-member threshold it needs to…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • DOJ Joins Republican Party’s Effort to Block California’s New Congressional Maps

    On Thursday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted a filing in a California federal district court, announcing that the federal government seeks to join a lawsuit submitted by the state Republican Party challenging recently enacted congressional maps that were passed as part of a voter-endorsed ballot initiative earlier this month. California usually uses an independent commission to draw…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Funding Bill Lets GOP Senators Sue for $1M Payouts Related to Jan. 6 Probe

    For 24 million Americans, the bipartisan funding bill signed into law on Wednesday will cause health care premiums to double, triple, or even quadruple, pilfering hundreds or thousands more dollars from their pockets each month as costs for other basic necessities also rise. But for a handful of Republican senators, the funding bill could be a major windfall — as it includes a provision…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Democrats Have Shown Their Hand in Caving to GOP Bill. What Happens Next?

    We speak to The American Prospect’s David Dayen about what could be the end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, after seven Democratic Senators and one independent struck a deal with Republicans to pass a short-term government funding bill. “Why would you end this?” asks Dayen, echoing many in the Democratic coalition who believe the deal was a poor strategic move for the anti…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Democrats Call for New Leadership After Schumer Caves on “Terrible” GOP Deal

    Democrats are calling for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) to be replaced after he reportedly helped strike a deal with the GOP to end the government shutdown with zero meaningful concessions. “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Major Collision or Fender Bender? Is MAGA Splitting over Israel, Anti-Semitism, and Neo-Nazis?

    FILE - Nick Fuentes, far-right activist, holds a rally at the Lansing Capitol, in Lansing, Mich., Nov. 11, 2020. Former President Donald Trump had dinner Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2022, at his Mar-a-Lago club with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who is now known as Ye, as well as Nick Fuentes, who has used his online platform to spew antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. (Nicole Hester/Ann Arbor News via AP, File)
    Will Tucker Carlson’s interview with far-right activist, Nick Fuentes, tear MAGA apart?

    Did Tucker Carlson’s softball interview with white supremacist Nick Fuentes ignite a full-blown MAGA civil war? Is the latest dust-up — over Israel and anti-Semitism — between powerful and popular conservative voices, another family feud or a marker of End Times MAGAism? Is it a head-on collision of merely a fender-bender? And, are rank-and-file MAGA supporters paying any attention to these inside-the-beltway gasbags?

    While we’ve seen this show before — conservatives with fangs out for fellow conservatives — political observers want to know: Is the current dust up over anti-Semitism in the movement, a deal breaker, an all-out game-changing power struggle?

    What’s really at stake isn’t just the movement’s flirtation with antisemitism, but who gets to define its future? Will it be  the nationalist, isolationist Carlson wing, or the older, neocon-aligned Shapiro faction.

    It didn’t start with Tucker Carlson’s interview with white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his podcast, in which Fuentes excoriated Daily Wire founder, [and conservative podcaster] Ben Shapiro and made inflammatory, anti-Semitic remarks about “organized Jewry.” That interview, however, poured lighter fluid on an ongoing simmering fire.

    According to Kyle Tharp’s Chaotic Era Substack, “Fuentes and his continued criticism of U.S. support for Israel (calling fellow conservatives ‘Christian Zionists’ with a  ‘brain virus’) drew condemnation from prominent GOP figures and Israel hawks like Senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell, as well as from [popular conservative radio host Marc] Levin and Shapiro.

    Tharp, whose timely newsletter is about politics, media, and online influence, noted that “The conservative fight over supporting Israel has been simmering all year, with top influencers like Carlson, Candace Owens, and Steve Bannon bucking Republican orthodoxy on the issue. The shift reflects both declining support for Israel among younger MAGA supporters and a shift in audience demand in online MAGA media. The data shows that Carlson and Owens, in particular, are winning – having grown their following and clout significantly this year, while pro-Israel voices like Shapiro have seen their audience growth stall in 2025.”

    “Republicans Denounce Tucker Carlson for Interview With Nick Fuentes, a White Supremacist” read the New York Times headline. The Bulwark, a consistently anti-Trump voice, called the interview “One of the Most Dangerous Interviews Ever in MAGA Media.” The Associated Press titled it report, “Controversy over Tucker Carlson interview reveals conservative movement’s conflict over antisemitism,” while the Wall Street Journal warned of “The New Right’s New Antisemites.”

    Politico’s Samuel Benson reported that Shapiro, titled a response episode of his show “Tucker Carlson Sabotages America.” Shapiro blasted Carlson on Monday, calling him “’the most virulent super-spreader of vile ideas in America,’ adding fuel to an incident that sparked a staff shakeup at the Heritage Institute.”

    Benson noted that “The podcast episode was received differently by two bastions of conservative thought: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board condemned it, while Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts defended it, criticizing the ‘venomous coalition’ attempting to ‘cancel’ Carlson after the interview.”

    According to Benson, “Carlson’s interview with Fuentes came on the heels of other high-profile incidents of antisemitism on the political right. Last month, a nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel withdrew his nomination after bragging of his ‘Nazi streak’ in a text message; days earlier, POLITICO reported on a leaked group chat of Young Republicans who praised Hitler and joked about the Holocaust. The same week, a Nazi symbol was discovered hanging in a GOP congressional office.”

    Inquiring minds want to know: Will an increasingly distracted Donald Trump weigh in on this kerfuffle and can he demand, and achieve, a cease-fire? Or is the MAGA empire finally growing too unruly for its emperor?

    The post Major Collision or Fender Bender? Is MAGA Splitting over Israel, Anti-Semitism, and Neo-Nazis? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • California Republicans Sue to Overturn Voter-Backed Prop 50 Redistricting Vote

    California Republicans are suing state officials in hopes of invalidating a ballot initiative that passed on Tuesday, which is aimed at combating the effects of a nationwide Republican gerrymandering scheme. The initiative, known as Proposition 50, seeks to temporarily suspend California’s independent redistricting commission in order to craft maps that would likely give Democrats an…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Amid Government Shutdown, Republicans Are Showing Us What Autocracy Looks Like

    There’s a popular and recurring chant that echoed throughout the recent No Kings protests several weeks ago: “This is what democracy looks like.” But on Capitol Hill over the past four weeks, during a protracted government shutdown, Republicans have been displaying the opposite. The quiet, moribund center of American government looks anything but like a democracy.

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • US’s 10 Richest People Have Gained Nearly $700B in Wealth Since Trump Reelection

    New research published Monday shows that the 10 richest people in the United States have seen their collective fortune grow by nearly $700 billion since President Donald Trump secured a second term in the White House and rushed to deliver more wealth to the top in the form of tax cuts. The billionaire wealth surge that has accompanied Trump’s return to power is part of a decades-long…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Republicans are handling the shutdown like democracy is ending

    There’s a popular and recurring chant that echoed throughout the recent No Kings protests several weeks ago: “This is what democracy looks like.”

    But on Capitol Hill over the past four weeks, during a protracted government shutdown, Republicans have been displaying the opposite.

    The quiet, moribund center of American government looks anything but like a democracy. The deserted hallways and empty offices portend something radically different: a future where the messy work of legislating on behalf of the public is replaced by the whims of a ruling oligarchy.

    In other words, Republicans are showing us what autocracy looks like.

    To understand why, and the implications for the body politic, it’s critical to recount how their handling of the ongoing shutdown has been remarkably anti-democratic.

    It began when Democrats refused to vote for a continuing resolution to fund the government last month. Democrats wanted Republicans to reauthorize expiring Obamacare tax credits, subsidies enacted during the pandemic to make insurance premiums more affordable for millions of Americans. Republicans allowed them to lapse in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”

    Democrats have called the end of these credits a crisis. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 2.2 million people will lose health insurance if the subsidies aren’t renewed.

    But instead of getting to work and negotiating, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent the entire legislative body home. It was not just an impractical move; it made the possibility of brokering any kind of deal exponentially more difficult.

    Importantly, many of Johnson’s own constituents depend on the very programs his party has refused to fund. His district has one of the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients for a Republican controlled district in the country. Obamacare, along with its attendant subsidies, remains popular in his own backyard.

    Still, Johnson has stubbornly refused to reopen the House so lawmakers capable of forging a deal can actually meet. Instead, he has maligned the ACA credits as a “boondoggle for illegal immigrants” and kept Capitol Hill on lockdown.

    Compounding this paralysis, Johnson has stepped aside as Donald Trump has sought to punish anything remotely tinted blue. The administration has slashed funds appropriated by Congress for projects in Democratic states, including critical infrastructure work on a 150-year-old train tunnel connecting New Jersey to Manhattan. Trump has also declared that “Democratic agencies” would be axed as well.

    Federal workers are also on the chopping block. Office of Management and Budget head Russell Vought has terminated thousands of federal employees—a sharp break from past shutdowns, when workers were merely furloughed until the government reopened.

    In other words, Republicans are governing by parsing and punishing. They are telegraphing a future where elections become less and less integral to deciding who holds power.

    Part of this confidence comes from structural advantages. The Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Section Two of the Voting Rights Act—a ruling that could hand conservatives 19 more seats in the House. Meanwhile, the ongoing gerrymandering battles in states like North Carolina and Texas will likely produce further gains for Republicans.

    Add to that the Senate’s bias toward rural representation and the Electoral College’s historical tilt toward GOP presidential candidates, and it’s easy to see why MAGA Republicans feel little pressure to moderate divisive policies that alienate voters.

    But there are other forces at work—ones that reveal how a post-democratic society actually functions. Just ask Senate Democrats.

    Both Senator Chris Van Hollen and Senator Amy Klobuchar told us that Republicans are fully aware of the dangers of eliminating ACA subsidies but are unwilling to negotiate without Trump’s approval.

    “I don’t believe they, on their own, these House members are going to come to the table without Donald Trump,” Klobuchar said at a press conference last week.

    Van Hollen agreed: “Unfortunately, at this moment Donald Trump is the only character who matters in the Republican Party, because you have a rubber-stamp Congress. You have Republicans in both the House and Senate who just do the bidding of Donald Trump.”

    In other words, an entire legislative body has handed its constitutional authority to a single man. Republicans have embraced a system run by his coterie of billionaires, awash in dark money that can buy elections—including the primaries of a majority of people in Congress. 

    Add to this the outsized influence of “conflict billionaires” like Elon Musk, who control social media platforms that prioritize bickering over rational discourse, and you have the perfect glide path toward a post-democratic future.

    Democracy is on the ropes. What it will look like when this shutdown ends—and more importantly, after the 2026 elections—remains to be seen.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • GOP Wants to Mandate “Fetal Development Education.” It’s Anti-Abortion Nonsense.

    Earlier this month, Ohio State Rep. Melanie Miller (R-Ashland) introduced legislation that would require Ohio public schools to show a video about “Baby Olivia,” inaccurately detailing fetal development, to students as young as the third grade. Abortion rights group Reproaction notes that the “Baby Olivia” video claims that fetuses experience hiccups at seven weeks gestation…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Michigan Republicans Want to Share Full Voter Roll With Trump Admin — Unredacted

    Nearly two dozen Michigan House Republicans have signed on to a resolution calling for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to share the state’s complete voter rolls with the Trump administration, without redactions of potentially sensitive identifying information. Michigan is one of several states being sued by the U.S. Justice Department over their refusal to share unredacted voter rolls in…

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  • More Voters Blame GOP Lawmakers Than Dems for Lengthy Shutdown, Polling Shows

    As the current government shutdown enters its fourth week with no end in sight — making it the second-longest U.S. shutdown in history — two new polls suggest that most Americans are faulting Republicans for the standoff, with a plurality saying they support Democrats in Congress demanding negotiations on health care. President Donald Trump has thus far refused to discuss a possible solution…

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  • Trump Nominee Reportedly Spewed Slurs, Said He Has “Nazi Streak” in Leaked Chat

    A President Donald Trump nominee to lead an agency responsible for protecting whistleblowers reportedly spewed racist hatred and said he has a “Nazi streak” in group chat messages leaked on Monday. Paul Ingrassia, who Trump has picked to lead the Office of Special Counsel, allegedly repeatedly spewed racism against Black people and other groups while also expressing white supremacist…

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  • SCOTUS Case Could Destroy Voting Rights Act and Cement GOP Control of House

    The US Supreme Court will rehear a case on Wednesday that could strike a death blow to the Voting Rights Act and, in the process, virtually guarantee that Republicans hang on to power in the 2026 midterm elections and well into the future. At issue in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, is Section 2 of the VRA, which outlaws racially discriminatory redistricting. Max Flugrath…

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  • October 18, November 4: World Changing?

    Many millions on the streets this Saturday all over the country loudly proclaiming: No Kings! Yes to Democracy!–followed on November 4th by victories for Mamdani in NYC, Sherrill in NJ, Spanberger in Virginia, redistricting in California, and more–could this be truly “world changing?”

    On one level, no. This is not a Presidential election year or a Congressional election year. It’s an off-year electorally.

    But it’s not an off-year politically. The battle is fully joined between the forces of democracy and the forces of authoritarianism, between the resistance and blind Trumpism. And because of this, what happens over the next three weeks could be a decisive turning point, victories for the significant majority of US Americans who are saddened and outraged by the lying, divisive, destructive and dangerous Trump federal government and its billionaire co-conspirators.

    Think about it: potentially the biggest mass demonstration ever in the USA, in every single state and literally thousands of localities, organized by a broadly-based progressive/liberal/independent coalition of hundreds of organizations that is not going away. That alone is a huge thing at this challenging time for the US and the world.

    A Zohran Mamdani victory in itself will be a huge deal, a non-sectarian, democratic socialist becoming the Mayor of the country’s largest city, the financial capitol, a melting pot of diverse peoples and nationalities and which often leads the country as far as political shifts.

    Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger winning the Governor races in their states will not be the same thing. Neither are consistently progressive, definitely not socialists, but there’s no question that many people to their left support them over the Trump-supporting Republican opponents. Combined with October 18 and a Mamdani victory and continued progressive organizing at the grassroots, that will make a difference in how they govern.

    If California comes through and neutralizes Texas’ brazen, Trump-pushed, Congressional redistricting plan to try to gain 5 more Republican House seats from Texas next November, that will be important both practically and politically.

    There’s something else, less visible and obvious but critical, that must be said about why we are at this point, why the popular resistance movement for democracy, justice and our threatened ecosystems is at this historic moment: we have learned how to unite.

    It’s not unity based on following one great individual, usually a man. It’s not unity concerned very little with the internal culture, the health, of the organizations that make it up–just the opposite, in general. A critical mass of us of all ages, nationalities, genders and classes have internalized positive values and ways of working together which are making a huge difference in how we have responded, and will keep responding, to the efforts to impose a form of 21st century fascism in the USA.

    The Trumpists are in trouble, and they know it. That’s why, one week before No Kings! Day, House leader Mike Johnson and others began publicly attacking it, lying about who we are and what we are about, trying to scare people away from coming out that day.

    It’s not going to happen! There ain’t no power like the power of the people, united and organized, and when we are, nothing and no one can defeat us. Si, se puede!

    The post October 18, November 4: World Changing? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • More Than Half of Senate Democrats Help GOP Pass $925 Billion Pentagon Bill

    Senate Democrats are blasting President Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian behavior and congressional Republicans for shutting down the US government to preserve devastating healthcare cuts, but over half of them voted with the GOP late Thursday to give nearly $1 trillion to the Pentagon, which has never passed an audit. The final vote on the Senate’s $925 billion version of the…

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  • Republicans Pushed Hundreds of Bills This Year to Curtail Local Governments

    This week, President Donald Trump escalated his plans to send National Guard troops into blue cities — fighting in court to deploy them to Portland and sending others to Chicago ostensibly to fight crime and support federal immigration agents. He has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if courts rule against him. While images of soldiers on city streets offer a visible show of…

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  • American Defiance Will Ultimately Save Our Democracy

    As president Trump tears up the U.S. Constitution he twice swore to uphold, fierce backlash from an aroused John and Jane Public is not far off. Contempt for that document and Americans’ baked-in characteristic of feistiness when pushed too far is one of the four key factors preventing him and his regime from turning democracy into a dictatorial dynasty.

    Three of the four historic factors buttressing America’s form of democracy against Trump’s autocracy were recently listed by Politico contributor Jonathan Schlefer. They should lift the spirits of the fearful and depressed a notch or two:

    A careful comparison with countries that fought off autocratic attempts, as well as those which succumbed, suggests that American democracy might be more resilient than you think. At a minimum, it has crucial advantages over democracies that failed. Three main things stand out: None was nearly so rich [as the U.S.]. None was nearly so long-lived. And none had a legal establishment tracing its genealogy back to Magna Carta in 1215.

    But the most powerful, unmentioned factor of all, however, is raising the dander of average Americans when their personal “ox is finally gored.” As consumer-advocate Ralph Nader warned Trump recently in Common Dreams:

    Americans don’t like to be told to shut up; they don’t like to have things rightfully theirs taken from their families; they don’t like to be fired en masse without cause; they don’t like government contracts for vital services being arbitrarily broken. They also don’t like their government being overthrown by fascistic gangsters….

    Once Trump’s voters and his business base start turning against him, with wide media coverage and dropping polls, the stage will be set for surging demands for his resignation and impeachment that starts with “impossible,” then “possible,” then “probable,” then conviction. If the GOP sees either its political skin at risk in 2026 versus Trump’s destructive, daily delusions and dangerous daily damage, politicians will put their political fortunes first. That is what Congressional Republicans did when they told Nixon to resign in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.”

    Our history is punctuated by Americans initially made hot-tempered from being treated like medieval serfs with no rights by British kings and their swaggering local officials and troops. Most complaints were over British taxes and tariffs, but also tenants’ rights, starvation, cutting ship masts from trees, newcomer rivalries, Christian morality, and Parliament’s Navigation Acts mandating trade only with Britain.

    The Boston Revolt of 1689, for example, had the longest list of grievances against the British governor: enforcing those Acts, restricting town meetings, promoting the Anglican church in a Quaker city, denying land claims, negating Boston’s city charter, assigning hated British officers to lead the local militia. The last straw may have been his creating a “Dominion of New England” for easier control of defiant subjects using litigation, civil disobedience, nettlesome newsletters like the Pennsylvania Journal, fists, and guns. Nearly 20 Colonial uprisings were recorded between 1676 and 1776.

    At the lower social levels in those days were tavern brawls over politics, insults to women, cockfight boasts , and losing at cards and skittles. Not to mention collecting horseracing bets, or my indentured ancestor decking an officious British constable for missing a tax appointment on the Boston docks.

    At upper-class levels, testiness in the early 1800s was exemplified by the famous duel between former Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton when he called his long-time political rival Vice President Aaron Burr “a dangerous man” at a dinner party. Burr called him out and fatally wounded him in a duel.

    Fifty-six years later when abolition divided the nation, Massachusetts’ Sen. Charles Sumner had just made a major anti-slavery floor speech attacking a colleague (“a noisesome, squat, and nameless animal”). South Carolina’s fiery House member Preston Brooks marched into the Senate to avenge his friend. He aimed his metal-topped cane at Sumner’s head and nearly beat him to death.

    Meantime out in the lawless West, cattle rustling, horse and hog thievery, and land disputes were involved in “the great range wars” usually settled by rifles, savage beatings, and impromptu hangings. One dustup was New Mexico’s “Lincoln County War” of the 1870s where Billy the Kid got his start as a posse member turned killer until he was gunned down. Jesse James was another. Hair-triggered and an unregenerate Confederate, he and his brother Frank formed a gang robbing banks, stagecoaches, and trains all over the Midwest. Jesse even issued press releases about their prowess—until he, too, took a bullet to the head.

    It’s undeniable that the number of books about their deeds, the movies and television series reveals a rancorous public drawn to their murderous adventures as “speaking truth to power.” It strongly indicates millions still yearn for a Robin Hood—even though none of their booty ever went to the poor.

    Economic victims in the late 1890s suffered under robber barons and their president William McKinley, a high-tariff, global conquistador. But at the 1901 New York exposition, he grandly extended a plutocratic handshake to a bitter, 28-year-old laid-off Ohio factory worker who had stalked him for weeks. The assassin threw off a handkerchief concealing a pistol, and fatally shot him.

    What American today has not done a slow burn finally igniting a raging internal inferno over both molehills and mountains?

    Watch a schoolyard of five-year-olds when an unintentional bump turns into fistfight. Or listen to a chorus of objections to line-jumpers at athletic events or the movies. The act of driving can transform peaceful Jekylls into near homicidal Hydes. Add resentments over barking dogs, unruly kids, driveway blockage, tree cutting or planting, spraying bushes, and grass clippings blown across a neighbor’s property line once too often.

    As for loving a neighbor as “thyself,” Google lists pages of neighbor vs. neighbor lawsuits winding up in civil or criminal courts. Too often, they also turn into bloodletting.

    One celebrated case involved Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul. He had just stepped off his mower when a surly neighbor raced over, struck him from behind, breaking six ribs and injuring his lungs. The cause? A bundle of yard debris crossing the property line (“He must have lost it,” said Paul).

    However, testiness has grown far more serious these days with the availability of guns. Last year, an irate neighbor in Alabama “discharged multiple rounds” into his target’s house. Another pair of neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida last May evidently argued over moving a basketball hoop shared by both households to a new spot. One pulled a handgun and fatally shot the other—and his wife.

    All of the evidence above brings us to the main point being made here: If Americans are so easily irked by the “small stuff,” consider what they’ll do about large and immediate issues affecting survival. Like Trump’s killing Medicaid. Or slowly strangling Social Security and Medicare. Or laying off hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants.

    In Trump’s months-long blitzkrieg of more than 200 executive orders (EOs) to overthrow democracy for a dictatorship, he seems to count on his military’s use of flash-bang bombs, tear gas, beatings, jailings, and killings to silence Americans into groveling obedience.

    He and his advisors somehow have forgotten the thousands of mutinous troops in Vietnam: fragging officers, disobeying direct orders for patrols and battles and the like. If they balked at killing an Asian enemy, wouldn’t they do the same when it involved fraternizatings from their fellow Americans (Sunday dinners, bowling, beer and TV sports invitations), a tactic suggested by one activist group in Portland?

    Now, the July No Kings demonstration drew five million Americans to the streets (and millions more at home) 1.5 percent of the population . The second No Kings rally October 18 may well draw double that number, given Trump’s latest spate of illegal and cruel EOs. Crowd-counting statisticians such as Erica Chenoweth at Harvard’s Kennedy School have said that even a one percent protest has tumbled almost half of the world’s dictators.

    Add to all these millions of angry “little people,” the anxious or furious 2.3 million Federal civil servants who’ve kept the wheels of government service running. They see the handwriting on the wall in viewing the treatment of 100,000 colleagues being summarily forced out of careers without the legality of reduction-in-force hearings. The economic impact alone on their families, landlords, producers and sellers of retail goods and services will be devastating.

    True, the federal courts have temporarily halted some of the most unconstitutional of Trump’s orders so far, and he’s chosen to ignore their rulings. But not the temperament of most ticked-off Americans. And that could erupt at any time, despite Senators like Oregon’s Jeff Merkley writing to us Portland creative activists to “cool it.” He said:

    “Trump’s play is right out of the authoritarian handbook: he wants to stoke violence, then use violence to justify tightening his authorian grip on our communities. We can’t play into his hand. I urge folks to remain peaceful, and to not take his bait.” Oregon’s governor Tina Kotek also told us that Trump’s federalizing 200 of our National Guard would cost state taxpayers $10 million. So we’re willing to stay calm, cool, and collected—for rhe moment.

    But whether trying to bully, muzzle, and suppress feisty Americans into accepting Trumpian chains will never, ever work for long. For 400 years we have been fighting bullies and smiting would-be dictators. Here in Portland and other targeted cities, we’re unlikely to stop anytime soon.

    The post American Defiance Will Ultimately Save Our Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Sanders: Health Insurance Premiums Will Double for Millions Due to GOP Cuts

    Health insurance premiums will soon double for tens of millions of Americans on average as a result of Republicans’ marquee budget bill, a new report by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) office reports, making health care even more unaffordable as the cost of living rises in the U.S. The roughly 24 million Americans who buy health insurance from the marketplace will soon see the impacts on…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Government Shutdown: It Will Take A People’s Movement To Defeat Trump

    A government shutdown appears highly likely in the coming hours. Despite last-minute negotiations, this dramatic development is coming to pass for one fundamental reason: The Trump administration and the right wing in Congress is determined to destroy working people’s access to healthcare.

    In a “government shutdown”, not every part of the federal government stops operating. ICE agents will continue to terrorize immigrant families. The Pentagon war machine will continue to threaten the world. The first programs to be imperiled will be vital lifelines like WIC or food stamps.

    Typically, shutdowns have been caused by Republican members of Congress who refuse to pass budget bills unless they include massive cuts to social programs.

    The post Government Shutdown: It Will Take A People’s Movement To Defeat Trump appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • State GOP Officials Seize Trump’s “War on Crime” to Disempower Blue Cities 

    A calculated pattern is emerging in Donald Trump’s planned National Guard deployments: After wobbling on sending the military into Chicago earlier this month, his administration has pivoted toward targeting blue cities in deep red states. Memphis and New Orleans — the two cities Trump has announced he plans to target next — are both Democratic cities in Republican-controlled states…

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  • Please Don’t Step In It!

    I gotta get back to doing stand-up comedy. I mean the **** is so smelly and deep no matter where you look. Don’t you just love those countless television and radio commercials showing Americans how those lovely corporations are there to help you? I mean, everything being sold, even healthcare and medicines, is there to make our lives better. Thank God they haven’t yet taken away the listing of side effects on most of the drugs Big Pharma insists we need to take in order to live. (Of course, there are cases when a [slight] percentage of us are in quite dire straits, in actual life and death struggles). How about those commercials where everyone taking the newest miracle drug dances around with each other like they did on VE Day 1945?

    The car commercials are great. Especially when the average price of a new car or SUV or pickup truck is well over $50k, or with a BMW or Mercedes well over $70k. Factor in the overwhelming number of working stiffs out there, duh, like 90% of us, who have trouble affording a $20k used car. The bandits in corporate Amerika have the whole deck rigged when $20k a year covers about six month’s rent for so many families. We haven’t even gotten to health care costs yet:

    A few years ago my wife, who was not yet eligible for Medicare, was  costing us $7k a year in hospitalization insurance premiums.  For the first time in her life she gets a kidney stone. Knowing how much an ambulance costs ($ 600-700 for the ride over to the ER) she was in so much pain she could not literally get out of bed. Between the ambulance and the ER charge ( and let me say that everyone involved in caring for her, from the paramedics to the nurses and doctor, were top shelf human beings). The next month we get a bill for over $2500 as Blue Cross only paid like $400 or $500 of the $3000 visit to the ER. You see, technically she was not admitted to the hospital, only to the ER. Blue Cross was shrewd enough to call their plan Hospitalization, so we got squat!

    It seems like the politicians, from both parties, have copied the accident attorneys with their mantra: “I’m out there fighting for you!” No boxing gloves needed for these jokers. We should know by now that the Republicans are only out there fighting for YOU when they send undocumented laborers away from their **** jobs. They are fighting to keep the top bracket of Americans (duh, like less than one percent of us) from paying their fair share, as the rest of us pay through the nose for housing, food, clothing, doctor bills etc. Let’s call a spade a spade (No pun intended). The Republican Party has a history of making sure that people with black (and now brown) skin don’t live near us white people or go to school with our kids… except the high school football and basketball stars who they find a way in. Now, the Democrats, who say they “Feel your pain,” with 10% few exceptions suck up to their corporate or billionaire donors and turn a blind eye to the needs of us working stiffs. Instead of fighting to stop funding phony wars and other foreign interventions, they go right ahead with this empire. Lip service is what they decide to give us.

    So, that is why this writer says you must be careful where you step when you walk outside of your little cocoon.

    The post Please Don’t Step In It! first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • GOP Censure of Ilhan Omar Fails by One Vote After Democrats Maneuver Against It

    An extremist House Republican’s attempt to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) failed by just one vote on Wednesday, after Democrats maneuvered against it. A vote to table the censure resolution succeeded 214 to 213, with all Democrats and four Republicans voting to kill the measure. The resolution, introduced by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina), would have removed Omar from her…

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  • Fox Host Apologizes for Saying Unhoused People Should Receive “Lethal Injection”

    After four days of backlash, Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade has apologized for saying that authorities should “just kill” people experiencing homelessness and mental health crises with “involuntary lethal injection” — but it appears that he will remain in his role at “Fox & Friends.” Kilmeade made his original comment during a “Fox & Friends” discussion on a woman who was stabbed and killed…

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  • Trump & Conservative Supporters Weaponizing Kirk’s Murder: Dems “Have Blood on Their Hands”

    President Donald Trump shakes hands with moderator Charlie Kirk, during a Generation Next White House forum at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, Thursday, March 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

    As of this writing, the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, the founder of the highly influential conservative organization Turning Point USA, on Wednesday during his “America Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University, is still at large; their motivation a mystery. While numerous studies over the past 10-15 years have shown that the extreme right is responsible for most political murders and attempted murders in this country, it didn’t take long for the right to weaponize Kirk’s murder.

    While the weapon, a high-powered bolt-action rifle, has been recovered, the hunt for the shooter goes on. Law enforcement officials also announced this morning that they believe they have video of the suspect, and that they have tracked his movements before and after the shooting.

    As veteran investigative reporter David Weir noted on his Substack this morning: “It’s likely only a matter of time before they apprehend him. Then, and only then will a motive possibly be discovered, assuming the suspect survives his arrest.”

    Weaponizing Kirk’s Murder

    It didn’t take long for the president and some on the far right to weaponize Kirk’s shocking murder. President Trump and a cohort of right-wing politicians and influencers are claiming Democrats have “blood on their hands.” Some are calling for mass arrests of Democrats and leftists.

    Trump railed only against “radical left-wing political violence”; Elon Musk claimed, “The Left is the party of murder”; Silicon Valley’s Shaun Maguire said “the Left lectured us for the last decade about the dangers of violence from the Right” but “the danger was actually on the Left.”

    (Whatever happened to “thoughts and prayers” being the right’s first response? And their usual response after a horrific shooting: “it’s too soon to inject politics into shootings”?)

    Political Violence: The Facts Point to America’s Right

    At these moments, which hopefully will not be an inflection point for more political violence, it is important to look at some facts.

    While there have been incidents of leftist violence, studies have consistently shown that the vast majority of extremist-related murders were committed by the far-right.

    At the Zeteo Substack Medhi Hasan pointed out a series of recent right-wing violent actions:

    * The man who targeted and killed Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in their home in Minnesota in June was a Trump supporter.

    * The man charged with the attempted assassination of Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro in April was a Trump supporter.

    * The man convicted of orchestrating a series of shootings at the homes of four Democratic elected officials in New Mexico in 2022 was a Trump supporter.

    * The man who tried to kidnap then Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosiand assaulted her husband Paul in 2022 was a Trump supporter.

    * The men who wanted to hang Mike Pence on Jan 6, 2021, were Trump supporters.

    * The man who killed the son of Obama-appointed District Judge Esther Salas in 2020 was a Trump supporter.

    * The men who were convicted of trying to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 were Trump supporters.  

    * The man who sent pipe bombs to the homes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and other top Democrats in 2018 was a Trump supporter.

    * The man who killed left-wing activist Heather Heyer after driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville in 2017 was a Trump supporter.

    The post Trump & Conservative Supporters Weaponizing Kirk’s Murder: Dems “Have Blood on Their Hands” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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