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On Unseriousness: Digging More Bonkers GOP Holes
In a possibly more than averagely batshit news cycle, the apocalyptic clusterfuck of clowns "governing" this country got up to some serious weirdness last week. As the chief clown waffled on the best way to kill us all - AI, nukes, nukes in space, forever war, hissy fits, agitprop up the wazoo - his lackeys frantically gaslit us with brain-dead pols, high T warriors and drunken sheep fuckers. No wonder Americans are said to be dreading the fall - not autumn, but the fall of democracy and civilization (sic) itself.
With Trump's approval rightly cratering but his faithful flunkies inexplicably urging us to vote like he's on the ballot - umm, okay - he's so far gone he still giddily maintains the deranged fiction we "have the greatest economy in history," we're resplendent in "a Golden Age of America," and he's all good on shamelessly, unconstitutionally banning news outlets he doesn't like - "I don't want them in my (sic) office," aka, "I’ll take 'Something a dictator would say' for $1000, Alex" - because he evidently thinks "repressive" is a compliment, devoutly to be wished. Otherwise, heading into a mid-term election that promises ("Oh please, oh please") to be a GOP rout, he's doing nothing to drag them out of the deepening holes he's dug except flailing and digging more.
Historically, inanely dazzled by nuclear power - see his "irresponsible and dangerous and frankly incompetent" burbling about the "N-word" - he's now touting the option of a shiny new Space Force military "offensive." Never mind America's 1969 moon landing assurance from "Planet Earth," "WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND"; the one relatively peaceable place in the galaxy, space-weapons free for 18 billion years, now faces possible invasion from "Mister Schlock, Trash Gordeon, Darth Hater, Puke Skyfucker." Or in the pointedly indecipherable jargon of Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, "The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action." By more "aliens"?
Back on an increasingly fragile Planet Earth, the same dangers loom amidst an Iran debacle wherein the U.S. is committing war crimes, hiding deaths and shortfalls along with damage to buildings, equipment, vehicles - one active service member: "We’re standing with our eyes closed getting punched in the face" - lying about a vital Strait of Hormuz that remains "a parking lot" and spending up to $2 billion a month despite a third House vote to end the carnage and a defiant Iran insisting it will not reopen the Strait until “the criminal Trump and bloodthirsty Netanyahu” are gone. All as the mad child-king muses publicly about his "big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? Anything could happen with me."
Hence another equally incoherent whiplash on the hazards of AI: From unhinged denial spewed by the master of "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV": the only guardrail needed is "a STRONG AND SMART (high IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S. has that, in spades!" - to tentative hedging - a supposed concept of a plan to create an AI Czar - with the moronic, "Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” - and an AI Force - like his "tremendous SUCCESS" the largely illusory Space Force - back to a knee-jerk "SICK conspiracy" against AI and data centers like the "many Hoaxes generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country.” When in God's name will he learn: "It ill behooves a man to rave on at length."
Still nursing a long-held grudge against the elites of the arts world, especially the storied family who both embodied it and always outclassed him, he also remains obsessed with slapping his odious name on the Kennedy Center or, now, threatening to tear it down if he can't. George Conway: "To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature." After multiple losses in court - the most mortifying the forced removal of his name, which rankled so much he's lamely kept the facade covered with a tarp - he persists in arguing the flourishing-until-he-came-along Center is "a mess" that's lost "tens of millions" or maybe "hundreds of billions" and "I’m the one capable of fixing it." Otherwise, "The building is destined to doom (sic)."
Unsurprisingly, an emerging backstory is far seedier. The only thing straining finances is the arts world boycotting him and his own Treasury holding hostage hundreds of millions in funds. After a storm brought down some ceiling plaster, lackeys left it, posted photos - Trump will fix it! - mapped the “debris field” for a 55-page bullshit briefing, and voted to close down. Richard Grenell partly replaced the art collection, including African works honoring JFK, with MAGA "art," some from "the Tony Montana Meets Saddam Hussein Collection," and workers glitzed up Trump's theater boxes. After a judge again refused to restore his name, Trump threw a tantrum and brought in forklifts, prompting the judge to issue an emergency order forbidding any mob-like, midnight demolition.
Meanwhile, he whines - The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates “to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do” (sic) - threatens - GOP-led North Carolina, whose streets are "blood-soaked killing fields" (LOL) may get no more FEMA funding after Helene, "the biggest water hurricane" - propagandizes - the Smithsonian's "Ideological Capture” - and a desperate GOP goose-steps along. Vance lies about immigrants, RFK Jr. blithers about "chemtrails," Melania sneers let them eat flowers, fabulist MAGA Mike, seeking to be raptured, boasts of an uber-productive House "almost unmatched in history." And Mitch 'Weekend at Bernie's - McConnell is outlandishly wheeled out, dead-eyed and smile-plastered, from a months-long stupor to cast a vital "vote." Mother Mary of God, make it stop.
Preening peacock Pete Hegseth, evidently thinking he’s still on TV, ordered commanders to choose only soldiers who meet “impeccable grooming and uniform standards (no exception)” to attend his upcoming “State of the Force” speech; if they’re really cute they may get to join one of his dorky workouts. He also revived testosterone screening for symptoms like low energy and “loss of spontaneous morning erections.” Rex Huppke: “OUR ENEMIES WILL QUAKE AT THE SIGHT OF AMERICA’S BONER WARRIORS!” No wonder Unholy Mike ran away - aka sent the House home early "to explain all the great things we’ve done" - so they couldn't vote on Rep. Thomas Massie's articles of impeachment against Hegseth for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Finally, there was Kash Patel, lackiest lackey of all, with his "unbelievable" testimony before a Senate hearing on newly lowered standards to work at the FBI. First, Tom Wellborn's background on Patel, a grown, childless man who wrote a kids' trilogy about a wizard named Kash serving a king named Donald; sold Ka$h-branded merch and anti-COVID-vaccine supplements; compiled an enemies list of high-level anti-Trump conspirators; took a government plane to hear his SWAT-team-protected girlfriend sing at a wrestling match; long yelled for release of the Epstein files until he was in power and found nothing to see; likewise ignored ICE abuses, rampant corruption, right-wing extremism while purging the FBI of 1,100-plus "disloyal" agents; and abruptly lowered standards to stop losing candidates to "the rigors of the requirements from yesteryear.”
Last week, Patel defended a new policy that no longer automatically disqualifies people for several offenses: paying for sex, defrauding employers, and bestiality - having sex with animals. In the FBI's universe of moral relativism, now you're all good if you hired a prostitute fewer than three times or over ten years ago; stole from your employer at least three years ago, or did unspeakable things with a sheep, horse, goat, dog etc when you were young and presumably horny. Throughout his testimony - here starting at 5:25 - Patel, who's suing The Atlantic for $250 million for credibly charging he's often drunk on the job, frantically shuffled papers that turned out to be cheat sheets to trash Sen. Dick Durbin, who calls him "the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in U.S. history."
Patel's surreal, wide-eyed, often bellicose testimony on, say, goat-fucking rattled even Louisiana's fake-folksy GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who was trying hard to give him the bizarre benefit of the doubt. After Patel explained the earlier policy "automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it," a confused Kennedy asked, "Which side of what, the bestiality?" Patel: "Yes." Kennedy: "So, you disqualified the animal?" Patel: "We have some great canines - we're not gonna disqualify them. Hang on, I'm trying to explain." Kennedy: "So if Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified?" Patel: "If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it..." Kennedy: But how do you involuntarily do it?" Etc.
Bravely, Kennedy tried to understand Patel's response to what he assumed was an underling's report. "Why would you get into bestiality?" he asked. "When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect...Why didn’t you just say, 'What planet did you parachute in from?'" Smirking, Patel said that was his response until he learned people were often "trafficked (into) these awful heinous acts." Then, he summoned his best impersonation of self-righteousness. "We did not want to punish victims of bestiality," he intoned, with the once-clear word "victim" doing a ludicrous amount of work. "At this FBI, we're not gonna criminalize and prevent victims from serving (America) in the premier law enforcement agency in the world." Maybe it was, before him. Or not. Just sayin'.
Hacks, trolls, crooks, clowns. "This is what unseriousness looks like," noted one observer, "when it finally hits a wall." And when the edict, "Do not obey in advance" matters. Tolstoy: "The wicked become even worse when they are tolerated." Friday night, with a few hours' notice, organizers of a protest dubbed "Hands Around the Kennedy Center" hoped for a turnout of 400 to 800 people. They were pleased when 950 signed up. Then over 6,400 showed up. The mood was defiant. One longtime volunteer said she'd "stand in front of the wrecking ball." People formed a human chain around the concert hall an inept, vengeful narcissist had just closed and called "a dump," relishing what it felt like “to hold hands with somebody you don’t know for something you believe in.” Afterwards, they all sang America the Beautiful. There may be hope. (Or not.)
Sep 21, 2026
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'Perpetual Villainy': Trump Admin Preps Yet Another Attack on Endangered Species
"Hmmmm.... I've done a lot of horrible things lately. What is another evil, cruel, nonsensical idea? Ya know, one that would have irreversible generational consequences?"
That's how University of Alberta professor Timothy Caulfield responded to The New York Times' Wednesday reporting that President Donald Trump's administration "is quietly moving to strip a core protection" of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), according to an internal memo obtained by the newspaper.
Signed by US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik, the memo interprets the law to mean that only the intentional killing or wounding of a protected species is illegal. The Times explained that excluding accidental acts "would be a seismic shift," because "the killing of endangered animals almost always happens incidentally, in the course of economic activity."
The memo is dated September 14—the same day that another Trump administration attack on the ESA took effect. That legally contested earlier policy rescinds the regulatory definition of "harm" under the 1973 law so that extractive industries can degrade crucial habitats. When the move was announced in July, critics called it "a death knell for America’s wildlife."
The effort revealed by the Times goes even further. Andrew Mergen, a Harvard University law professor who previously supervised ESA litigation at the US Department of Justice, told the paper that "this is really an assault on the act like we've never seen before."
"What the administration is proposing to do is take all of the force out of what we have all understood the act to mean: Don't kill endangered species," he said. "What they seem to be saying in this document is, it doesn't matter if you killed an endangered species if you didn't mean to."
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that "this stabs at the very heart of the Endangered Species Act by giving federal approval to the killing of some of America's most beloved wildlife... The Trump administration is desperate to annihilate environmental protections, but this incredibly radical measure is both cruel and profoundly unlawful. Killing endangered wildlife is illegal, whether that's your purpose or not."
"If you chop down a tree full of endangered birds or race a huge ship through a pod of endangered whales, you should be held accountable for your destructive acts," Hartl added. "But this administration wants to give wildlife killers a 'Get out of jail free' card. Imposing new limitations on the entire definition of take is a flagrant and illegal attempt to rewrite the Endangered Species Act via unilateral fiat. This would drive imperiled species over the cliff to extinction."
Other opponents of the plan called it "pure evil," and blasted the "perpetual villainy" of Trump's second administration—which has continued an assault on the landmark law launched during the Republican's first presidential term. All of his previous attacks on the ESA have faced resistance from conservation organizations and many members of Congress.
The rule on harm has sparked not only legal challenges from advocacy groups and state attorneys general, but also legislative pushback. In late July, US Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), co-chairs of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, introduced the Safeguarding Endangered Species Act, to nullify the policy.
Then, last month, Democratic US Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution that, if passed, would repeal the policy. As the rule took effect on Monday, a Schiff spokesperson told CNN that "the senators will look to force a vote in the coming weeks."
This article has been updated with comment for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Sep 16, 2026
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'Misled' and 'Strung Along' by Trump, Financial Pain of Farmers Grows as Costs Continue to Skyrocket
Farmers across the US are speaking up about their struggles as President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran and trade war with Canada are taking a hammer to their finances.
In an interview with CBS News published Thursday, North Carolina farmer Matt Bell revealed that "I have never worried and stressed like I have the last year," thanks to the soaring costs of fuel, fertilizer, and farm equipment, all of which have gotten more expensive thanks to Trump's policies.
"The fertilizer, fuel, chemicals, seed, parts—you know, the whole nine yards," said Bell, "everything that we touch has gone up."
"We are fighting for survival."
Matt Bell, 52, has been farming for more than half his life in central North Carolina.
He grows soybeans, corn and wheat and raises beef cattle on more than 1,000 acres. But Bell, who voted for President Trump, says soaring prices for fuel,… pic.twitter.com/9ELYXkJywt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 18, 2026
Bell, who voted for Trump, said he feels "misled" and "strung along" when it comes to the president's rationale for attacking Iran without congressional authorization in February.
The North Carolina farmer said his costs for diesel fuel have doubled in the last year, driven in large part by Trump's war.
According to data released Friday by the American Automobile Association, the average price of diesel in the US now stands at a record-high $6.45 per gallon, a 74% increase of the average price of diesel one year ago.
"We are fighting for survival," Bell emphasized, "and we're running out of options."
Bell is far from the only farmer struggling.
Theresa Sisung, commodity and regulatory relations manager at the Michigan Farm Bureau, said in an interview with Up North Live that farmers in the state are about to "use a ton of fuel on their farms" due to the start of harvest season, making the record-high diesel prices particularly inconvenient.
"We have seen a slight increase in farm bankruptcies across the nation," said Sisung. "We are seeing those farms that are more stressed. We've had some negative margins for farms for a few years now, so there is certainly stress out in the countryside."
Michigan farmer Russell Ketchum told Up North Live that the high diesel prices have made what was already a challenging year and farming even more difficult.
"We started out the year with a lot of cold weather, a lot of freeze damage," Ketchum explained, "so we've been working on short crops all year and then the diesel fuel prices and the gas prices all on top of that, they made everything challenging to say the least."
North Dakota farmer Chris McDonald told the North Dakota Monitor in an interview published Wednesday that diesel prices have climbed so high that they "can erase your profit."
McDonald also tied the increase in diesel costs directly to Trump's war, which the president said would only last a matter of weeks but has since dragged on for more than six months.
"I think a lot of people expected that maybe the war would wrap up," said McDonald, "and the prices would go down some, and they never really did drop very much. Then it just skyrocketed.”
The Iran War isn't the only Trump policy that's hurting US agriculture and bringing pain to US farming families, as a Tuesday NPR report highlighted the impact that the president's trade war with Canada is having on farmers in Montana.
As noted by NPR, Canada is Montana's biggest trading partner, as it accounts for "$1 billion in cross-border sales." But the tariffs imposed by Trump, and the counter-tariffs imposed by Canada, have both harmed Montana farmers' sales and made the equipment they buy more expensive.
Steve Sheffels, a Montana wheat farmer, told NPR that he'd like to buy "a new drill" and some "grain bins that come out of Canada," but now fears that "I won't be able to afford them" thanks to the trade war.
Sheffels, whose wife is Canadian, also told NPR that he was not happy to see America's relationship with its largest trading partner deteriorate throughout Trump's second term.
"You don't treat your neighbors like this," he said.
Sep 18, 2026
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Van Hollen Says ICC Members Would Sanction Trump and Rubio If They 'Have Any Self-Respect’
As the United Nations General Assembly prepared to meet, a US senator said President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio should face sanctions for their role in trying to destroy the International Criminal Court in order to protect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If European countries and other signatories to the International Criminal Court (ICC) have any self-respect, they'd sanction Rubio and Trump for obstructing investigations of Netanyahu's war crimes," wrote Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) Monday on social media.
He was responding to a report from the Wall Street Journal detailing "a sharp escalation" in the Trump administration's efforts to, in Rubio's words, "dismantle" the ICC, which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024. The body accused the prime minister and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war.
The ICC has also reportedly launched investigations into two other far-right ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for their roles in aggressively expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law.
The Trump administration had already aggressively sanctioned ICC officials involved in efforts to prosecute Americans or Israelis, including then-chief prosecutor Karim Khan and several judges and prosecutors. It had also sanctioned UN special rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese and several Palestinian human rights organizations that had brought evidence of alleged Israeli crimes before the tribunal.
Now, The Journal reports that:
The Trump administration is preparing to impose sweeping sanctions on the [ICC]...
The sanctions would forbid most transactions with the ICC after a grace period of six to seven months... That could potentially cripple the court by prohibiting it from conducting transactions in US dollars, cutting it off from much of the global financial system.
It is unclear when a final decision and announcement might come, though some US officials said the move could be finalized as soon as this week during the United Nations General Assembly meeting or in the following days.
Several world leaders have been vocally critical of the US attack on the ICC, though they've stopped short of calling for sanctions against US officials.
Responding to Rubio's sanctions in August, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa said that the ICC's "judges and officials must be able to act independently and without external pressure."
Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen, whose nation is home to the ICC, said the Netherlands disapproves of efforts to sanction the court, adding that Dutch officials were actively working with the EU to protect the court from institution-wide US sanctions. Possible protective measures reportedly include alternative banking and payment arrangements outside the US dollar system.
There have also been calls within the European Parliament, including from Spanish socialist politician Iratxe García Pérez and others, to activate the EU's so-called "blocking statute," which would prohibit European companies from complying with the US sanctions.
Sep 22, 2026
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'This Violence Cannot Continue': ICE Shooting of Man in Austin Sparks Outrage
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and wounded a man in Austin, Texas on Sunday, prompting demands for an independent investigation and renewed calls from progressive lawmakers and activists to abolish ICE amid the Trump administration's deadly immigration crackdown.
Local ABC affiliate KVUE reported that the shooting occurred in the 7000 block of West Anderson Lane, near the intersection of Research Boulevard and Anderson Square. An unidentified man was taken to a hospital. His condition was initially unclear; the Austin American-Statesman later reported that he was alert and talking.
The circumstances leading to the shooting are under investigation.
Independent journalist Emiliano Tahui Gómez spoke with two witnesses.
"Nedevia Bolaños and her husband, Carlos, own a business just off the intersection where the shooting happened," Gómez reported on social media. "Shortly before 1 pm they say they heard what sounded like two gunshots. Carlos ran out first. A blue Toyota sedan and a black Escalade were stopped under the highway."
Carlos said he saw a man who looked like he was in his 30s "leaning backwards against his seat. A masked agent was standing outside the car. The agent refused to answer questions. Within a few minutes, as many as 10 other ICE agents arrived."
Gómez continued:
Carlos asked the victim if he was ok. “Yes,” the man said in Spanish, but he looked exhausted. Carlos asked why they had shot him. “Because I didn’t stop.”
Bolaños ran up next. She said she continuously asked the ICE agents about why they’d shot him and if they were going to render aid. They didn’t answer her. It was an [Austin Police Department] officer who later arrived and cut open the young man's shirt, revealing a deep hole between his shoulder blades.
The ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after and carried him off.
“I’ve never seen all this. Thank God I’m a citizen,” Bolaños said in Spanish. “Or I’d be living like this. In a dream of terror.”
CBS Austin reporter Vinny Martorano said on social media that Austin City Councilman Mike Siegel told him that "an ICE agent, who is well-known in the city’s Latino community, sideswiped the man’s car. Then the officer got out and shot the driver five times through the windshield."
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas)—who represents the district where the shooting occurred—said on social media that "the horror has come to our city: ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning."
"As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law," he continued. "Over and over, ICE has shot people and then lied about what happened. We can see the lies with our own eyes. We will demand truth, transparency, and accountability."
"Just like Americans have from Minneapolis to Houston, Austinites will speak out peacefully against this deadly mass deportation machine," Casar added. "ICE has been terrorizing our country for far too long. We will not be silent."
Breaking: ICE shot and injured a man in Austin, Texas, earlier today. Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms way again and again and Governor Abbott is complicit every time.I am demanding the body camera footage and full accountability.
[image or embed]
— Joaquin Castro (@joaquincastrotx.bsky.social) September 20, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, said at a press conference: "I'm very angry about this. I'm extremely unhappy. A person being shot on the streets of Austin by someone purporting to be law enforcement, particularly when it's ICE, is something that causes me to be unhappy and angry about it."
"And while I'm unhappy and I'm angry about it, I'm not surprised at all," he added. "It's happened in other cities with the nature of ICE and the way ICE is doing its business these days and the chaos that we see it performing and fomenting. There's no reason for us to be surprised by it."
Texas state Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-47), who is running for lieutenant governor, said that "this violence cannot continue."
Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) contended that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "remains the biggest threat to our collective safety."
"This weekend, after abusing and hurting peaceful protesters in Illinois, they have just shot another person in Austin, Texas," she added. "The pattern is clear. The agency can't be reformed. I’ve heard the community: I am ready to melt ICE and dismantle DHS! My colleagues in Congress should be too."
Sunday's shooting came 10 weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican man, in Houston. Salgado's death followed a series of shootings involving federal immigration agents, including the January killing of US citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
A letter sent in July by Democratic lawmakers to DHS officials noted that agents had shot at least 22 people since President Donald Trump's return to office, with six of those shootings fatal. The lawmakers said that in multiple cases, federal authorities had made allegations against shooting victims that were later contradicted by evidence.
More than 50 people have died in ICE custody during Trump's second term.
Sep 20, 2026
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'Do I Blow the Entire Nation Up?': Trump Says He's in 'Deciding Mode' on Iran War
Three days after saying that he's weighing whether or not to “annihilate” Iran in a bid to end his increasingly unpopular and protracted war against the Middle Eastern nation, US President Donald Trump on Sunday again said that he is deciding if he should destroy the entire country of over 90 million people.
Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reported he "just spoke with President Trump about the situation with Iran" and that the US leader said he's "in a deciding mode and that very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future."
Trump said he is considering three strategies for ending the 204-day war: "wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically, or making a deal."
"My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up, they better behave," Trump added, according to Yingst.
Fox correspondent: "The president said the US is in constant communication with the Houthis, and that they've agreed not to fight the United States. But the big headline here is the president said he's in a deciding mode as it relates to Iran, adding that the Iranians better… pic.twitter.com/nCTMRlEvWY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 20, 2026
On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera that Tehran has conveyed its conditions for ending the war to Qatari mediators and is "awaiting President Trump's response."
“Our conditions are an end to the war on all fronts, the release of our frozen funds, and an end to the naval blockade,” Rezaei added. “It is in Washington’s interest to accept these conditions. Trump’s threats will not achieve any results. We are prepared for a decisive war.”
Iran's military responded to Trump's latest threat by warning US allies Sunday that they will be considered "complicit" if American strikes resume, vowing "painful attacks" in retaliation.
Trump—who has been threatening to destroy Iran since at least 2019—is facing pressure on multiple fronts to end his highly unpopular and illegal war of choice, in which at least 23 US troops have died and tens of thousands of Iranians have been killed or wounded.
Americans are feeling the pain of higher consumer prices, especially for gasoline and diesel fuel, for a war that many say is making the country less safe. Six in 10 US voters queried in a new Fox News poll said Trump was wrong to wage war on Iran, while 7 in 10 respondents believe that his administration has no clear strategy for ending the conflict.
Republican lawmakers are also increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with the war and distancing themselves from the conflict ahead of November's midterm elections, with some going as far as helping to pass a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran, and one—outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—supporting the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Sep 20, 2026
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Paltry Concessions Given to Secure Paramount-Warner Merger Deal Decried as 'Meaningless Bullshit'
"Billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top," said one critic.
Sep 22, 2026
"A settlement that promises less than nothing."
That's how one critic of Paramount Skydance's planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday described the paltry concessions extracted by Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state officials to enable the proposed $111 billion media megamerger.
Critics argue that the proposed settlement agreement lacks meaningful antitrust enforcement and hands control of major news and entertainment properties to a billionaire family closely aligned with President Donald Trump.
“Every! single! one! of these concessions is meaningless bullshit,” writer Cory Doctorow said Tuesday on Medium. “Bonta just handed the American movie and TV sector to two of the most odious creeps to draw breath, surrendering without firing a shot."
The settlement, which was announced Monday, clears a major roadblock to Paramount CEO David Ellison's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, and numerous cable networks. The combined company would control nearly 30% of both US theatrical film distribution and basic cable channel licensing.
The agreement contains a pledge to distribute at least 30 films annually for the first two years, then 32 movies each year after, invest hundreds of millions of dollars in US film production, maintain existing theater rental terms for three years, not sell Paramount and Warner Bros. studio lots for five years, and create an editorial independence board for CBS News and CNN.
In a Monday Substack post, American Economic Liberties Project research director Matt Stoller pointed out an apparent loophole in the settlement's film distribution requirement.
“They only have to distribute that many films,” he wrote. “They can make half as many. And those can be co-produced. So in fact, if you add up the numbers, Ellison promised to make fewer films going forward than Paramount and Warner are putting out today."
The settlement's editorial oversight board for CBS News and CNN have also come under fire. The five-member board overseeing the two entities will be appointed and paid by the combined company. Reuters reported Tuesday that the board would have no explicit investigative authority and that the company would be empowered to fill vacancies.
“As we learned from the failed and widely panned Facebook oversight board, a fake bipartisan oversight committee won’t save CNN,” Jessica González, the co-chief executive of the advocacy organization Free Press, said Monday. “We have all the evidence we need from the Ellisons’ destruction of CBS about what they do to warp journalism at Donald Trump’s request.”
David Ellison's father, tech billionaire Larry Ellison, is a Republican megadonor.
Seth Stern, a media attorney and chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that "it's unclear how the attorneys general or courts can constitutionally hold Paramount accountable for the board's actions or inaction without themselves interfering in content."
Stoller noted that the agreement's force-majeure clause, which would reportedly allow Paramount-Warner to dodge its commitments in the event of economic recessions, strikes, and other labor disruptions.
Other opponents of the proposed deal bristle at the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of Saudi and Emirati investment in the new company that would be created if the merger is approved.
Alvaro Bedoya, a senior adviser to the American Economic Liberties Project, lamented that “today, billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top."
“Layoffs will follow. People from [Los Angeles] to Atlanta will lose their jobs, small businesses will lose their contracts, your cable bill and movie ticket will be even more expensive,” he continued. “Dissent against money and power will be even harder to find.”
“This did not have to happen," Bedoya stressed. "Thanks to an extraordinary outpouring of grassroots anger against the merger, a coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block it. They beat Paramount in court, winning a court-ordered pause on the merger, and beat them again at the negotiating table, getting the conglomerate to agree to pause the merger until as late as next June.”
“But the Ellison family does not care about the law. Instead, they loudly threatened to leave California if their merger did not go through immediately," he added. "[Gov.] Gavin Newsom caved to that pressure. So did [former state Attorney General] Xavier Becerra. And eventually, so did Attorney General Rob Bonta, agreeing to a weak settlement that will be exceedingly difficult to enforce.”
Stoller said that "there are a bunch of reasons they cleared the deal, such as threats to move the studio out of California, corruption, and general incompetence."
"I personally think CNN is terrible, and I’m glad it’s going to be discredited," Stoller wrote. "I also find it embarrassing that the Democratic AGs used antitrust law in an attempt to shade news coverage. But it’s downright comical they demanded that David Ellison not corrupt CNN by having David Ellison appoint a board ensuring that David Ellison not do that."
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Amnesty Slams UEFA for Allowing Israel in Nations League Despite 'Occupation, Apartheid, and Genocide'
"The beautiful game should bring people together, not rubber-stamp apartheid."
Sep 22, 2026
Human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday slammed the Union of European Football Associations for allowing the Israel men's team to participate in upcoming Nations League matches despite the Israeli government's continued systemic human rights abuses against Palestinians.
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s regional director for Europe, called Israel's participation in the UEFA games "unconscionable," citing "clear evidence that Israel’s football association continues to support illegal settlements."
Cockburn said that UEFA should have long ago suspended the Israel Football Association (IFA) over its "refusal to exclude clubs based in illegal settlements" in the occupied Palestinian territories.
"As the money keeps flowing from FIFA and UEFA to the IFA," Cockburn said, "they risk contributing to the sustainability of illegal settlements and of Israel’s unlawful occupation... and therefore Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ human rights."
"Sport should never be used as a public relations spectacle for states committing atrocities," Cockburn added. "As the Israel team travels to Europe, Palestinian families are being displaced and dispossessed, their land stolen, their olive trees uprooted, and their histories erased by settlers with the support of the Israeli military. The beautiful game should bring people together, not rubber-stamp apartheid."
As explained in a Tuesday report from BBC, Israeli's inclusion in the Nations League has been a source of controversy for months.
Delegates for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), which faced signifiant public pressure to boycott matches between Ireland and Israel, recently voted in favor of playing the matches, although roughly 30% of delegates voted in favor of a boycott.
Regardless, more than 160 Irish athletes on Monday signed an open letter organized by Irish Sport for Palestine urging FAI to reconsider its vote in favor of the matches.
Heimer Hallgrimsson, manager of the Irish men's team, tried to justify the matches by arguing that Ireland was playing against Israel, which meant it was really playing "against genocide."
The IFA shot back at Hallgrimsson, accusing him of "ignorance, hypocrisy, and stupidity."
The BBC also noted that the two scheduled matches between Israel and Ireland will be played on neutral cites in Hungary and Serbia "against a backdrop of ongoing and increasingly volatile disagreement between the two countries about Israel's military offensive in Gaza."
Cockburn praised efforts by sports fans to keep pressure on the UEFA to "demand accountability, justice and, fair play."
"When rules are broken, when occupation, apartheid, and genocide are ongoing," he emphasized, "we cannot look the other way.”
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Majority of Democratic Voters Want to Prosecute Both Biden and Trump Administration Officials Over Gaza
The vast majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza and want its supporters in both parties to face consequences.
Sep 22, 2026
The majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza for the past three years. And they want the American politicians in both parties who supported it to pay.
In a poll released on Monday by the Center for Strategic Politics and commissioned by the magazine Liberal Currents, 683 Democratic voters were asked whether the next Democratic administration should "pursue criminal prosecution of members of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel’s genocide in Gaza."
More than half, 57%, of the Democrats surveyed answered "yes," while only 22% answered "no" and another 22% said they "don't know."
Self-described "socialists" and "progressives" were most bullish on Gaza-focused prosecutions. But so were 52% of "liberals" and even 48% of Democrats who called themselves "moderate" or "conservative."
It is one of several questions in the poll about a hypothetical Democratic administration prosecuting its predecessors over policies considered deadly and destructive.
About two-thirds, 66%, said they wanted to see Trump administration officials prosecuted for actions taken during its aggressive war with Iran, which has led to the deaths of more than 1,700 civilians and wrought economic turmoil.
Nearly three-quarters, 72%, believed Trump officials should face similar accountability for their campaign of extrajudicial strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which have killed more than 234 people in what a top United Nations official recently said may constitute "crimes against humanity."
And more than three-quarters said they wanted to see Trump officials face legal penalties for actions committed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which have waged a violent mass deportation campaign that has entailed numerous documented due process violations, instances of racial profiling, and several shootings of immigrants and US citizens without clear justification.
The question about Gaza is the only one in the survey in which Democrats were asked about the prospect of prosecuting members of their own party as well as Republicans. And while fewer Democrats ultimately answered yes, it indicates that their ire toward the American politicians supporting the genocide transcends party loyalty.
The poll results come as some activists pursue accountability for the Biden administration in other ways. Last week, organizers launched a campaign to pressure universities and other prominent institutions to cut ties with what they called the "Genocide 20."
These are officials like former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan who crafted and defended the administration's policy of unrestricted military aid for Israel despite mounting evidence that it was killing scores of civilians and enacting a campaign of starvation against the people of Gaza.
The United States provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military assistance between October 7, 2023, and the end of former President Joe Biden's term in January 2025, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. During that period, more than 47,000 Palestinians were confirmed killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the US has continued to provide Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, including $3.8 billion in regular annual military aid, while the Trump administration has approved billions more in arms sales and expedited weapons deliveries. The death toll has risen to nearly 74,000, according to official figures, but independent experts have suggested this may be a significant undercount.
According to Monday's poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said that “foreign policy (including Israel and Iran)” is important to them in deciding which candidates to support, compared with just 4% who said it is not.
Foreign policy has been a critical dividing line in several recent Democratic primaries, in which voters have revolted against candidates backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
This includes Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who was defeated by Abdul El-Sayed in a contest for the US Senate despite her more than $30 million in backing from AIPAC, which helped to turn it into the most expensive Democratic primary ever.
AIPAC-backed House candidates have similarly suffered high-profile defeats at the hands of progressives calling to cut off US funding for Israel. Some of the victors include Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and Aisha Wahab, who won a special election in California.
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'FAA Should Not Use My Constituents as Guinea Pigs': House Democrat Demands End of AI Air Traffic Control
"Dangerously rushing a system that holds Americans’ lives in its hands is not a good use case for artificial intelligence."
Sep 22, 2026
A Democratic US congressman on Monday urged the Federal Aviation Administration to immediately suspend a new artificial intelligence system being used to help manage air traffic around Washington, DC, accusing the agency of using passengers as "guinea pigs" without adequately vetting the new technology.
The Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) system, developed by AI firm Air Space Intelligence under an $875 million contract, began limited operations Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the system uses AI to synthesize roughly 200 data streams—including weather, flight paths, airline schedules, airport capacity, and controller staffing—to anticipate congestion and recommend ways to avert delays and cancellations.
The FAA claims that use of SMART will result in fewer flight delays and cancellations, optimized airspace, more predictable operations, and lower airfare costs for consumers.
"To really improve the flying experience for the American people, we needed to build a 21st century scheduling tool like SMART,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “By fundamentally reshaping how we manage our airspace and preventing problems before they happen, SMART will slash those frustrating delays, reduce stress on air traffic controllers, and lower travel prices."
“It's always going to be a human that manages the airspace in America,” Duffy promised. “Humans control the airspace, humans make decisions.”
The industry trade group Airlines for America called SMART “exciting and bold," while United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told The Washington Post that “if it works as we think it can, it will do more to reduce delays and cancellations than anything that’s happened in decades."
However, Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.)—whose district includes Reagan National Airport—said in a statement that “the FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system."
"The safety of the 24 million people traveling through DCA each year must be the top priority," he added, referring to the International Air Transport Association code for Reagan National Airport.
The FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system that has Americans’ lives in its hands.I’m calling on the FAA to immediately suspend use of this AI system at Washington area airports until its safety has been established.My full statement:
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— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) September 21, 2026 at 1:25 PM
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation concluded that the January 2025 midair collision between a US Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet, operated by PSA Airlines—which killed 67 people—was caused by a chain of human errors.
"Residents of this region are still uncertain about air safety after last year’s fatal accident, and the administration did shockingly little to educate the traveling public about this development before implementing it in one of the most complex airspaces in the world," Beyer said.
The congressman continued:
Unfortunately, I was informed today that air traffic controllers were not consulted on the SMART system’s design and development, and were not trained on using it prior to the system’s adoption at local airports. I was further informed that the air traffic controllers have been told the SMART system can adjust schedules and potentially even routes. Despite outward appearances, the airlines reportedly were privately "panicking" about the hasty implementation of this system. I do not know why the administration felt the need to race it into use, but it is unacceptable to use AI as a substitute for rebuilding the human-directed air traffic controller workforce.
“Dangerously rushing a system that holds Americans’ lives in its hands is not a good use case for artificial intelligence," Beyer asserted. "I call on the FAA to immediately suspend its operation, at the very least until it is clearly established beyond doubt via air traffic controller feedback and independently verified stress testing that the technology is safe."
Duffy responded to Beyer's concerns in an interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, saying: "I like Don [but] this is just complete stupidity. The problem with this analysis is our new software is predictive, so we can predict weather and make better decisions on when we fly and weather."
Beyer isn't the only lawmaker voicing concerns over the use of SMART. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Monday that "safety must always be the FAA's number one priority. This is extremely concerning, and we need immediate answers about what this means for travelers."
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said that it was not involved in the SMART rollout.
“NATCA has not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and therefore cannot speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce at this time,” the union said, adding that any new technology “should complement and not replace the experience, training, and professional judgment of air traffic controllers who are responsible for the safety of the National Airspace System.”
The FAA's launch of SMART comes as the agency continues to suffer from a shortage of certified air traffic controllers. The Washington Post reported that the FAA had about 11,000 certified controllers as of April, more than 1,500 short of its official target of 12,563.
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Federal Judge Blocks DHS From Deporting Austin Man Shot by ICE
"DHS must not obstruct or otherwise interfere with this investigation by removing Mr. Garces Perez from the country," said lawmakers.
Sep 22, 2026
The attorney representing Wilber Rafael Garces Perez said Tuesday that a federal judge had granted her emergency request to block the Trump administration from deporting the 28-year-old delivery driver, who was shot by an immigration agent Sunday and has since been transferred multiple times between hospitals and a detention center—all while the officer's bullet reportedly remains lodged in his back.
"We have filed a federal lawsuit, and the judge has ordered that he be present at the first hearing, which is scheduled for Wednesday, September 30," said Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch. "And that means he won't be deported in the meantime."
Lincoln-Goldfinch applauded the rare piece of "good news" that has come out of Garces Perez's case since he was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent while making DoorDash deliveries in his car Sunday afternoon.
As Common Dreams reported, Garces Perez was transferred from an ICE detention center in Pearsall, Texas to a hospital late Monday after reporting that he had lost feeling in the left side of his body, likely as a result of the bullet that remained close to his spine.
But Lincoln-Goldfinch and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said Tuesday that Garces Perez had again been taken back to the detention center.
Castro said he and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) plan to visit Garces Perez at South Texas ICE Processing Center on Wednesday, to "check on his condition and demand his release."
"It is nothing more than a prison," said Castro. "Wilber came to the United States legally. He had work permits and was an asylum seeker. None of this should have ever happened."
Garces Perez arrived in the US in 2024 from Venezuela, using a government program for asylum seekers and the CBP One app that was introduced by the Biden administration to make an appointment for approval from immigration agents. He received a work permit and applied for asylum.
He mistakenly missed an immigration hearing after a notice was sent to an old address, The New York Times reported, which led to his deportation order. He has no criminal history.
Lincoln-Goldfinch had been planning to visit her client in the hospital Tuesday, where he was taken after he called in to a press conference the lawyer was holding Monday and said that he had not received medical treatment for his gunshot wound.
After speaking to Garces Perez via a video call Tuesday morning, Lincoln-Goldfinch reported on social media:
Wilber tells me that after he spoke publicly, guards at the Pearsall detention center forcibly took the tablet from his hands, revoked his communication privileges, and moved him out of the infirmary into an isolated room with a flat bed that cannot be adjusted like a medical bed.
[...]
At the hospital, Wilber says doctors finally spoke directly to him about his care and gave him IV morphine for his pain. We now understand that the gunshot fractured his clavicle and that he has significant swelling and is wearing a sling. We still do not have clarity about the cause or extent of the loss of movement he experienced.
He was discharged back to Pearsall around midnight. Today, he tells me he is receiving only Tylenol and ibuprofen for pain. He remains in isolation, on a flat bed, and without the tablet he previously used to communicate. We are asking for his communication privileges to be immediately restored and for him to be provided an appropriate medical bed and adequate medical care. Most importantly, we are continuing to advocate for Wilber’s IMMEDIATE release.
Also on Tuesday, it was revealed that the ICE agent who shot Garces Perez was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting—similar to the case of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Maine in July.
"Before we hear anything from ICE about, 'We pulled him over, or he was fleeing, or he was aggressive,' our response to any statements like that is, 'We won't believe you until you show us,'" said Goldfinch-Lincoln. "Show us your body cam footage, show us your dash cam footage."
On Tuesday, more than 100 members of Congress signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE Director David Venturella, spearheaded by Casar, calling on ICE to release Garces Perez and "abandon efforts to swiftly deport him or remove him from Texas."
"ICE has provided no justification for this shooting, and there is no indication Mr. Garces Perez posed a threat to officers," reads the letter, noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "has a history of withholding information and attempting to obstruct active investigations into wrongdoing by its agency."
"DHS must not obstruct or otherwise interfere with this investigation," said the lawmakers, "by removing Mr. Garces Perez from the country or interfering with the release of footage, data, or other information by Texas state or local agencies involved in the operation."
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'Do I Drive Them Into Hell?' Trump Again Threatens to 'Annihilate' Iran in Genocidal UN Speech
"Trump doesn’t know how to end the war he started with Iran," said one critic. "He’s so desperate that he’s threatening war crimes in front of the entire United Nations."
Sep 22, 2026
In a rambling, lie-laden speech Tuesday to world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, US President Donald Trump again threatened to "annihilate" Iran if its leaders don't agree to a deal to end the illegal war of choice he started nearly seven months ago in the Middle Eastern country.
"I have a big decision to make," Trump said. "Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?"
"Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?" the president continued. "But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already and won in a landslide."
President Trump says Iran deal will be made after the midterm elections, and says he has decision between a deal with Iran or destroying them: "Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?" pic.twitter.com/Y5K6v4B326
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 22, 2026
Trump has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran—a country of over 90 million people—since his first term. However, his latest menacing remarks raised eyebrows for their brazeness on the world stage.
"It’s one thing to make genocidal threats against a nation on social media. It’s another thing to do it from the podium of the UN," University of Colorado Law School associate professor Maryam Jamshidi said on X. "That's what Donald Trump just did. He used his speech at the UN to threaten Iran with annihilation."
While Jamshidi urged UN Secretary-General António Guterres and member states to condemn Trump's threat, independent journalist Taylor Noakes said of Trump that "what’s particularly sad about this (aside from the fact he’ll likely never be prosecuted for war crimes) is how so many leaders of other liberal democracies have stood by and done nothing while the Americans make a mockery of the UN as an instrument for global order."
The Democratic veterans group VoteVets accused Trump of "casually contemplating war crimes in front of the entire UN [General] Assembly," calling his threat "deranged and dangerous."
Bonus for whoever wrote this chyron
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— Brandy Zadrozny (@brandyzadrozny.bsky.social) September 22, 2026 at 7:54 AM
Journalist Mehdi Hasan said: "For shame. The president of the United States goes to the United Nations and threatens genocide against a UN member state in front of the world. This is where we’re at."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called Trump's comments "dangerously unhinged."
"Such rhetoric is not merely reckless, it is a criminal threat of genocide against an entire nation," he added. "US lawmakers and US partners around the world should condemn Trump’s remarks and take all due steps to bring an end to the war on Iran.”
Trump didn't just openly mull committing war crimes, he groundlessly boasted in his speech that the US "has carried out dozens of strikes on cartel drug boats, destroying 97% of the drugs coming into the ocean and sea."
Citing data from US Southern Command and Trump administration officials, The New York Times says that at least 234 people have been killed in a minimum of 70 strikes on boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The administration has provided no solid evidence to support its trafficking allegations. Regional leaders and relatives of victims contend that at least some people killed in the strikes were fishers with no narcotrafficking ties. Legal experts assert that the attacks violate international law regardless of whether or not the targeted vessels were engaged in drug trafficking.
Trump's speech was laced with demonstrably false or unfounded statements, including an accusation that the Iranian government killed 72,000 people this year, that his invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro left the US with "more than 60% of the oil in the world," that his administration "ended the war in Gaza," and that he settled eight wars.
"Donald Trump’s maniacal rant before the UN General Assembly today, complete with ridiculous braggadocio, narcissistic puffery, an almost unbroken line of absurd, demonstrable lies, open criminality, and deranged, murderous threats, should awaken even the most cowardly and complicit among world leaders that their attempts at appeasement of Trump and the tyrannical axis that he leads can only result in further aggression, economic terrorism, murder, and genocide," said Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN official who resigned in protest of what he described as the world body's failure to stop Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
"The world must unite to counter the threat and to defend peace, human rights, and the rule of law," he added, "which are, after all, declared purposes of the UN."
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Weighing 2028 White House Run, AOC Says Stakes of Race Would Be ‘All or Nothing’
"Life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things," the Democratic congresswoman said amid nationwide progressive political momentum. "Sometimes life just makes things ready for you."
Sep 22, 2026
As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighs whether to run for president in 2028, there are numerous factors that complicate her decision: her identity as a Latina woman, her role as a leader in a progressive movement on the verge of unprecedented power, and her considerations about raising a family in the future.
Whatever decision the 36-year-old Democratic congresswoman makes, however, it will be “all or nothing,” she said in an interview published Tuesday by The New York Times, in which she spoke candidly about the stakes of what would be a historic and potentially transformative bid for the nation’s highest office.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 2018 in a victory over the Democratic Party establishment that became a model for the wave of progressive momentum that has defined this year’s cycle.
Amid what she described as the “ascendance” of her movement—marked by the insurgent victories of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed over opponents with establishment support and big money behind them—Ocasio-Cortez is now wondering aloud whether her own moment has arrived.
“There’s an argument that some make that this is a very unique political window and, oftentimes in politics, you do only get one shot,” she said. “And you don’t—and just in life in general—life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things. Sometimes life just makes things ready for you.”
But she is well aware of the obstacles and sacrifices, both personal and political. Having recently opened up publicly about receiving fertility treatments, she wondered aloud what a potential candidacy might mean for her life, including a possible future pregnancy.
She is also well aware that she would be up against the weight of very recent history. Two of the last three Democratic candidates for president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris, were women, and they both lost to President Donald Trump after campaigns in which sexism—and, in Harris’ case, racism—featured prominently in attacks against them.
“Pretty candidly, I think about my identity," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I’m not naïve to the fact that we are living under a very regressive administration, and I happen to be a woman, and I, you know, happen to be Latina. And I think that there’s a lot of conversation about electability, and I don’t kind of shy away from those realities.”
Those realities are indeed hard to ignore, especially in contrast to her mentor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who ran two formidable Democratic primary campaigns for president in 2016 and 2020 and with whom Ocasio-Cortez embarked on a wildly successful "Fight Oligarchy" rally tour last year, speaking to large crowds in both red and blue districts.
Though they have long campaigned together and advance a platform centered on the same signature policies of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a tax on billionaire wealth, Sanders consistently ranks among the most well-liked politicians in office, while a New York Times/Siena poll this month showed AOC with just 30% favorability, compared with 41% unfavorability among likely voters.
There are other paths in front of AOC that could put her on a more traditional long-term trajectory to the White House, which has never in modern history been occupied by a president who ascended straight from the US House.
She also said she was considering a primary bid against the Democratic Party's current Senate leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), whom many Democratic voters have come to see as the embodiment of all that is sclerotic and unchanging about their party's entrenched elite.
At a time when backing from corporations and other powerful special interests plays an unprecedented role in achieving political power, Ocasio-Cortez emphasized her near-exclusive backing from small donors, which she said makes her one of "very few people who are financially independent from special interests that are able to advocate directly for the needs of working people.”
Regardless of the decision she makes, she recognizes the enormous stakes.
“It’s very all or nothing,” she said. “If I were to run in this cycle, and not win, I would be done.”
“And I am not opposed to that,” she added. “That, in and of itself, does not exclude the decision... But it has to make it worth it.”
Ocasio-Cortez has previously emphasized that her "ambitions" have less to do with achieving the highest possible seat for herself than with helping her movement succeed.
“My ambition is to change this country,” she said during a forum in May. “Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever, a living wage is forever, workers’ rights are forever, women’s rights, all of that.”
She told the Times that the question that will ultimately determine her path forward is: "Where can I do the most good?”
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Guterres Hailed for Fiery Outgoing Speech Demanding Polluters Pay for Climate Crisis
"We know that fossil fuel interests won't step aside on their own," said the UN chief. "When the harms of Big Tobacco became undeniable—governments acted. The climate crisis demands the same determination."
Sep 22, 2026
With United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres set to leave his post at the end of this year, he used his final address to the UN General Assembly on Monday to share a familiar call: "Polluters must pay" for fueling the global climate emergency.
Since the Portuguese politician began his first five-year term leading the world body nearly a decade ago, he has repeatedly called for international action to rapidly phase out the coal, gas, and oil that are heating up the planet. In late 2023, he emphasized that "the science is clear. The 1.5°C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate."
The UN chief announced at the end of 2024 that "the top 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years," and declared: "This is climate breakdown in real time. We must exit this road to ruin." Last year, he argued that fossil fuels represent "the greatest threat to energy security today," and countries clinging to them are "sabotaging" their own economies and futures.
Earlier this month, after a UN report found that at least temporarily surpassing the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels is now inevitable, Guterres stressed that "this summer’s scorching heat, raging wildfires, and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead," and called for making the overshoot "as small and short as possible."
Speaking to the General Assembly on Tuesday, he cited that recent finding: "Now we face a near-certain breach of the 1.5-degree limit, with a supersized El Niño speeding straight for humanity. The dangers are real. But so is the hope."
"The sun belongs to no one. The wind cannot be embargoed. Innovation can come from everywhere," he said. "Renewables are now the cheapest source of new electricity in most of the world. And the most viable path to energy security, independence, and sustainable growth... A future beyond fossil fuels is in sight. The question is how."
"Will it be a just and orderly transition built on international cooperation—or chaotic and costly, leaving people and countries behind?" he asked, urging every government to adopt a Paris Agreement-aligned national plan to transition away from fossil fuels.
"We know that fossil fuel interests won't step aside on their own. For decades, Big Oil has treated the atmosphere as an open sewer—and cashed in on the consequences," he acknowledged. "We have seen this kind of abuse of power before. When the harms of Big Tobacco became undeniable—governments acted. The climate crisis demands the same determination."
According to the UN chief: "Those who polluted the most—and profited the most—must do far more to repair the damage they caused. Polluters must pay. And to the leaders, cities, civil society and citizens working to hold them accountable: I say, you are on the right side of history. Keep going."
"And governments must keep going on all fronts: To end deforestation. Invest in grids and storage. Cut methane emissions," he continued. "But these actions are not enough: We need climate justice with a focus on adaptation and finance. Developed countries must respect their commitments. They must triple adaptation finance.And make the Loss and Damage Fund work at scale."
"We must also ensure that the mining of critical minerals does not dig deeper into the inequities of the past," he added. "Producing countries and affected communities must retain a far greater share of the value created from their resources. No more plundering. No more exploitation."
While Guterres' speech didn't just focus on "the power fueling climate chaos and the war on nature"—it also addressed peace and security, inequality, and artificial intelligence in detail—climate campaigners welcomed the time he devoted to the crisis.
"When the UN secretary-general calls for fossil fuel companies to pay, you know this demand has become impossible to ignore," said Louise Hutchins, co-convenor of the Make Polluters Pay International Coalition, in a statement. "Millions of people around the world are calling for it, and governments are starting to listen."
His address came just a day after campaigners from groups around the world delivered over 2 million petition signatures calling on governments to make polluters pay to Selwin Hart, the UN's assistant secretary-general for climate action, in New York City.
"For years, campaigners and communities on the frontlines have been saying the same thing: The companies that profited from fossil fuels must pay their fair share of the costs of the crisis they helped create. Today, that demand is moving into the mainstream," 350.org executive director Anne Jellema noted after Guterres' remarks. "The voices of more than 2 million people are now being brought to the UN. Governments have the power to make polluters pay, and they must use it."
Enough is enough: over 2 million petition signatures at UNGA to Make Polluters Pay www.greenpeace.org/internationa...
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— Nick Young (@nickofnz.bsky.social) September 21, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, highlighted that "the people who have contributed least to the climate crisis are paying the highest price. They are losing homes, livelihoods, and access to food and facing an increasingly uncertain future, while fossil fuel corporations and their billionaire backers continue to profit. The call to make rich polluters pay is about justice. It is about ensuring that those who have benefited most from the fossil fuel economy pay for the damage it has caused."
Greenpeace International executive director Mads Christensen pointed out that "Guterres has spent years warning leaders where fossil fuel dependence leads, and this year proved him right. From deadly heat to devastating fires and floods, the very dependence driving these disasters is shaking entire economies and leaving families exposed to volatile energy and food prices, while the companies behind it keep raking in the profits."
"New rules forcing governments to align their taxes and spending with global climate goals would raise hundreds of billions of dollars to support the countries and communities least responsible, while incentivizing money out of fossil fuels and into secure, renewable energy that actually protects people," he argued. "As long as destruction stays profitable, the transition to a safer, fairer future will keep being held back. Guterres has named the solution, governments must now act on it."
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'Corruption of the Highest Order,' Says Troy Jackson After Explosive Susan Collins Report
"We deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers. The jig is up."
Sep 22, 2026
Maine Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson pounced on Tuesday after ProPublica published a damning story putting incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins at the center of what the publication described as a "sprawling pay-to-play operation."
In a statement released shortly after the ProPublica story dropped, Jackson accused Collins of engaging in "corruption of the highest order."
"Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign," said Jackson, "and then [President] Donald Trump helped her cover it up."
The ProPublica report unearthed internal records revealing an FBI investigation into defense contractor Navatek, now known as Martin Defense Group, for making campaign contributions to politicians in exchange for federal contracts.
According to ProPublica, former Navatek CEO Martin Kao told a group of FBI agents and federal prosecutors in 2022 about a 2019 meeting he'd had with the head of a pro-Collins super political action committee where he committed to cut a big check to the Maine Republican's campaign if she steered federal cash to his company.
After the meeting, ProPublica wrote, Kao "sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company" and then told Navatek executives in an internal email two months later that "Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts."
The alleged corruption outlined in the report went far beyond Collins, as Kao also provided FBI agents with a 50-page document that named "dozens of lobbyists, congressional staffers, and members of Congress who he said helped him trade cash for contracts."
However, the probe into Kao's alleged efforts to bribe politicians was shut down shortly after Trump returned to the White House in 2025, which Jackson said may explain why Collins "voted with him 96% of the time and has rubber-stamped his agenda to hurt Maine."
"Susan Collins doesn’t care," Jackson added, "that we’re losing our healthcare that ICE is killing people on the streets, and that we’ve been dragged into a pointless war—as long as her donors get their contracts and her coffers get filled. We deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers. The jig is up."
Annie Clark, Collins' deputy chief of staff, disputed the allegations made in the ProPublica story, and accused the publication of wrongly lending credibility to Kao, whom she said "began making outlandish charges about the Collins office, deflecting blame from himself" for his own criminal behavior.
"The seven-year-old allegations made against Sen. Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false," said Clark. "There have never been any allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator campaign, and the campaign was never the target of the FBI investigation."
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Vance Fraud Task Force Condemned as ‘Smokescreen’ for Booting 700,000 More People Off Healthcare
"This so-called task force is nothing more than a bullshit distraction."
Sep 22, 2026
The Trump administration is planning to boot more than 700,000 people from their Affordable Care Act coverage as part of a purported initiative to root out fraud in the program—an effort that campaigners said is nothing more than a pretext to kick more people off healthcare.
Vice President JD Vance, who is leading the White House's "Task Force to Eliminate Fraud," announced the planned ACA purge during a press conference on Tuesday alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, whose agency has touted a right-wing think tank's dubious claim that millions of ACA enrollees are on the program improperly.
Vance insisted during Tuesday's press conference that the administration is putting itself "under an extraordinary burden of proof" to ensure its mass removal doesn't impact people who are eligible for ACA coverage, but advocates were not convinced.
"Vance's task force is a smokescreen for kicking people off coverage," declared the advocacy group Protect Our Care. The organization's president, Brad Woodhouse, said in a statement that Vance's task force "is nothing more than a bullshit distraction—a political stunt designed to throw even more people off their coverage while pretending to save taxpayers’ money."
"At a time when millions of Americans are already losing coverage and facing skyrocketing costs, Vance and this administration are making the crisis exponentially worse," said Woodhouse. "They are piling on more red tape, more confusion, and more opportunities for people to lose the coverage they rely on. Families need coverage they can afford and count on when they get sick. Vance’s task force won’t accomplish that. It’s a smokescreen for an administration whose sole mission is to make it harder to get and stay covered but to shower billionaires with tax breaks instead."
Millions of people have lost ACA and Medicaid coverage since the start of President Donald Trump's second White House term, due in large part to a Republican budget law that cut Medicaid by more than $800 billion and did nothing to extend enhanced ACA subsidies, sending premiums soaring.
Trump administration officials have baselessly claimed that their anti-fraud efforts were the key driver of ACA enrollment declines this year.
The word ‘fraud’ here obscures a lot.
Many of them may have been accidentally committing ‘fraud’ bc they live in a state that didn’t expand Medicaid and earn too little to qualify for ACA subsidies. There have been cases of brokers signing those folks up for the commission. pic.twitter.com/ek8gaVzJ7g
— Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann) September 22, 2026
The mass disenrollment push comes less than two weeks after the Trump administration said it would send $500 rebate checks to some Americans who were allegedly "overcharged" under the ACA. Critics noted that the checks would only go to a small sliver of ACA enrollees and would do virtually nothing to offset premium hikes that are hitting millions of Americans.
Vance indicated Tuesday that the roughly 750,000 individuals who will soon be removed from the ACA due to alleged fraud are just the start of a broader purge. Around 19 million people are currently enrolled in ACA marketplace coverage.
"We're gonna do some additional verification," said Vance, who suggested the administration is using artificial intelligence tools to identify purported fraud. "We expect that most of these people are fraudulently enrolled, but we're gonna do some additional verification on about 419,000 people."
Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the ACA, wrote Tuesday that "people losing healthcare isn't a bug, it's [Trump and the GOP's] plan."
"First Republicans stripped Medicaid from millions," the Democrats wrote on social media. "Then they let premiums spike for millions more. Now JD Vance is using claims of 'fraud' to take coverage from hundreds of thousands more."
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