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Defend the Homeland, Get A Brown Shirt!
Still insanely claiming they're arresting "the worst of the worst" gardeners, roofers, abuelas and taco-makers - and eager to spend their shiny new billions on more rag-tag thugs to meet their quotas - ICE Barbie et al have launched a new recruitment campaign asserting, "Your country is calling you (to) defend the homeland," a phrase surely inadvertently carrying a crisp whiff of blood-and-soil Nazism. Ditto - right? - an Uncle Sam raging of an America "invaded by criminals and predators - we need YOU to get them out."
Of course the urgent call for 10,000 more racist goons with anger issues and zero oversight to boost our flourishing new "sado-populism" comes alongside all the regime's other, once-unimaginable "weird shit": The celebration of deadly coal: "She is the moment," say wut?; Florida's half-mast tribute to "shitheel" Hulk Hogan, "Donald Trump with muscles and a mustache"; the once-reputable Smithsonian lamely bowing to North-Korea-style pressure to remove evidence of former guy's impeachments; Press Barbie squawking it's "well past time" he get "the Noble Peace Prize"; and his new "Marie-Antoinette-on-steroids" move to turn the White House into a "tacky golf motel" cum brothel with a $200 million vulgar golden ballroom even though we can't afford veterans' health care, to feed hungry kids, to save HIV patients etc because, duh, "For me not thee, Part 1 million."
Amidst these atrocities - and facing a random, frenzied, Goebbels mandate to make 3,000 arrests a day and “save America” - ICE continues to hunt down defenseless, largely innocent brown people who came to this country to do all the lousy, low-wage jobs here that native-born Americans don't want to do. The passage of Trump's big ghastly bill has ominously ramped up that effort, with ICE's budget swelling from $8 billion to $28 billion and over $4 billion allocated to hire up to 10,000 more thugs. ICE, meanwhile, somehow still clings to the fantastical, self-serving claim their "brave" officers are targeting "the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens"; in a recent post, they boasted they just arrested five bad guys, failing to mention the other, vicious, 2,995 dry-wallers, house-painters, farmworkers, dishwashers, landscapers and child-care workers they daily save us from.
On Planet Earth, injustices abound. The over 200, mostly innocent Venezuelans flamboyantly, illegally disappeared to an El Salvadoran gulag - then quietly returned to their country - say they endured months of torture and abuse. Across the country and mostly notably in California during this "Summer of ICE," roving bands of masked goons in tactical gear continue to hunt down immigrants at work sites, markets, courtrooms with escalating violence and an unacknowledged "shattering of norms." Men and women beaten up, grabbed in the street, torn from crying kids, dragged from their cars after thugs blithely opt to "smash their fucking windows." People hauled away by anonymous stormtroopers to parts unknown, forced to leave behind cars, keys, phones, pets, lawnmowers still running, their lives imploded in minutes - atrocities that another court just, again, ruled illegal..
It's everywhere - residents of Rochester NY saw 17 cars of hooligans arrive at a popular neighborhood Asian market to drag off a handful of scared workers, residents in Maine's small tourist town of Wells are protesting their police becoming the only ones in Maine cooperating with ICE - as is its economic impact, which experts unequivocally declare disastrous. Fewer bodies, less production, empty assembly lines, less revenue, crops rotting, great swathes of the work force at construction sites, factories, restaurants, nursing homes have suddenly vanished. In Omaha, Nebraska, a once-thriving meat-packing plant lost most of its work force; its production dropped 70%. And no, Medicaid recipients or the "proverbial 29-year-old living in his mother's basement" doesn't want the meat-packing jobs, thanks. So much winning.
Now, with head thug Tom Homan vowing to "flood the zone" with $4 billion more and 10,000 new slots, just think of the wins. Citing its "mission to protect America from cross-border crime and illegal immigration that threaten national security and public safety," its new recruitment campaign seeks to "attract the next generation of law enforcement professionals to find, arrest, and remove criminal illegal aliens" at "a defining moment in our nation’s history." Arguing "your skills, your experience, and your courage have never been more essential," DHS offers multiple tantalizing incentives to sweeten the fascistic pot: Up to a $50K signing bonus, a 25% Pay LEAP for Special Agents, Enhanced Retirement Benefits and even student-loan forgiveness, though Trump trashed Biden's efforts to forgive student loan debts as a “vile” publicity stunt and swiftly ended those “anti-American" efforts.
ICE says it is looking for "law enforcement personnel who aspire to the highest standards of performance, professionalism and leadership." Its gigs include "Deportation Officer. For the enforcers. For the brave. For those who fight to keep America safe." "Criminal Investigator. For the protectors. For the analytical. For those who seek the truth." And "General Attorney. For the closers. For the resolute. For those who represent the USA." Its materials and posters have a nice totalitarian tinge, from Uncle Sam intoning, "America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need YOU to get them out," and the imperative, "Your
Country needs you. Join the fight to deport criminal illegal aliens from the U.S." Most striking is their creepy baseline command and accompanying rhetoric, reminiscent of 1930s Berlin: "Defend The Homeland. Join ICE today."
The dark history of the term "homeland" precedes by years, even centuries, George Bush's Department of Homeland Security, and even the newly introduced, distinctly Germanic "homeland" - no longer "fatherland" - that Hitler fervently vowed to defend at 1934's famous Nuremberg rally. Hitler's Nazi Germany was a messy concoction of "blood and soil" loyalty, a racial identity that tied the German people to their land, mixed with the "semi-tribal passion" of 1920s Zionists for Israel as a Jewish homeland, mixed with ancient, occult, German paganism and spirituality that glorified Aryans' supposed racial superiority and their origins in mythical earlier civilizations. After World War ll, the notion of a lofty "homeland" for an invented "German race" "all but disappeared from German vernacular...People were ashamed to use a word that stood for such terrible things."
Now, in Trump's America, it's back. "Your country is calling you to serve at ICE," said an unrepentant ICE Barbie in a statement. "Together, we must defend the homeland." Along with Trump and Uncle Sam, a dolled-up Noem appears on campaign posters reportedly heading to college campuses and job fairs to rally racist, unemployed goons with a cruel streak. Weirdly, then she took off for Argentina, many miles from the homeland she's allegedly paid to secure, to do some yee-haw cowgirl cosplay, post videos of herself riding horses - "No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle" - praise President Milei for his border security and promise to consider easing visa rules for his citizens. Observers were miffed to be funding a vacation for "MAGA Cult Barbie Dog Killer" - with ewww her illicit boyfriend Corey Lewandowski yet - but figured she has "ancestors of the 3rd Reich living there."
Still, the coming expansion of ICE is universally expected to be "a colossal shitshow." Local law enforcement are pissed ICE's offer to pay triple what they make will empty out and wreak havoc on local police departments. ICE's minimal requirements - B.A. "OR Combination of Education and Experience" ("Majored in gooning with a minor in glass-smashing"), driver's license, drug and fitness test, firearm proficiency - means ranks already packed with thugs, dregs, criminals, Proud Boys, white supremacists, insurrectionists, bullies drunk on power and former cops too racist or violent to keep a job will lower criteria to stuff innocent people into unmarked white vans to, "Help Wanted: Heartless Villains For Destruction of Democracy, Criminal Record Required." As to student loan forgiveness: "Most ICE inbreds didn't finish high school - these are the people who stole other kids' lunches."
Thanks to the ravages of DOGE and a tumbling economy, ICE added a special webpage for former government workers, calling on them to "RETURN TO MISSION (among) the courageous men and women of ICE." To date, the site shows openings in 21 locations, from California to D.C; maybe, muses one hopeful patriot, "The labor pool of vicious, obese racists is only so large." Others decry "$50K in blood money to sell your soul" or warn of a "short-term grift with Abu Ghraib-style bullshit" after which Repubs will "throw you under the bus when the reckoning comes (at) the next Nuremberg Trials." Some consider sabotage - "We'll call ourselves 'NICE' - but figure they'd be outed "the first day you have to put your knee on a pregnant woman's neck." Besides, "You cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools." The most common question: "Are the brownshirts and armbands free?"
Aug 02, 2025
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Insurance Giant Chubb Breaks 2019 Coal Pledge: Report
Chubb's 2019 decision to stop underwriting new coal projects or offering policies to businesses that generate more than 30% of their revenue or energy production from the fossil fuel was welcomed as a "major step forward" that could pressure other insurance giants to follow suit—but six years later, Wednesday reporting revealed that the company "has reversed its stance."
"It appears to have broken that pledge last week by reinsuring Nghi Son 2, a 1.2GW power plant on Vietnam's coast fueled entirely by coal," The Bureau of Investigative Journalism detailed. "Nghi Son 2 could emit up to 175 million metric tons of CO2 over 25 years—more than the annual emissions of the Philippines—according to Global Energy Monitor, which tracks energy data."
While Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg said six years ago that the company recognizes the reality of climate change and the substantial impact of human activity on our planet," neither the insurer nor Nghi Son 2 Power responded to the outlet's requests for comment.
Meanwhile, Giovanna Eichner, shareholder advocate at Green Century Capital Management, which holds shares in the insurer, said that "it's absurd for Chubb to continue to underwrite activities that are causing climate change and then turn around and pay for the claims and payouts caused by these activities."
In fact, the outlet highlighted, Chubb stopped covering wildfire-prone areas of California in 2021. Experts at the advocacy groups As You Sow and the Consumer Federation of America called out Chubb for contravening its coal policy—and doing so while ditching customers who need coverage in the face of extreme weather made worse by the continued use of fossil fuels.
Chubb, one of the world’s largest insurers, was one of the first to stop covering coal-projects, pledging to ‘do its part as a steward of Earth’But it has now become the lead reinsurer for a coal-fired power plant in Vietnam
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— The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (@tbij.bsky.social) July 23, 2025 at 7:07 AM
It's not immediately clear what Chubb's reported move in Vietnam will mean for other decisions. For example, as with the 2019 coal announcement, the insurer was praised by climate, environmental, and Indigenous rights defenders last year for abandoning a highly controversial methane gas project on the Texas Gulf Coast after facing months of grassroots community pressure.
Wednesday's reporting comes after a working paper published last month by a trio of researchers at the University of Zurich explained that insurers adopting restrictions on coal were accelerating the shift away from it.
Writing about the findings on Substack, longtime climate campaigner Peter Bosshard noted that "the Insure Our Future campaign has pressured the insurance industry to shift away from coal and other fossil fuels since 2017. We have seen a lot of anecdotal evidence that the restrictions which insurers adopted during this period have created bottlenecks for coal companies and made it impossible to build new coal power plants in much of the world."
"Through freedom of information requests, the Zurich researchers managed to access 9,745 insurance policies across 456 mines during the 2014-24 period, covering more than three-quarters of U.S. coal production," he continued. "Based on this data, they can for the first time offer hard evidence on the impact of insurers' coal restrictions."
While the paper identifies two exceptions to the overall trend—Lloyd's and Zurich—the researchers still concluded that insurers' policies can limit coal mining activity. Given that, Bosshard asserted that "insurance companies should use their clout to accelerate not just the shift away from coal, but also from oil and gas."
Jul 23, 2025
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Campaign's Interactive Tool Tracks How Much Trump and GOP Are Raising the Cost of Living
Six months into U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, an economic justice group on Thursday unveiled an interactive tool to help Americans put a number on the unmistakable feeling many have reported having about the Republican leader who promised to "make America affordable again": that costs have in fact gone up under Trump, and that the White House and the GOP are to blame.
Using the tool introduced by Unrig Our Economy, people across the U.S. can see exactly how much the price of essentials has gone up in their state, with the advocacy group connecting the dots between the rising cost of living and Trump's tariffs as well as corporate tax breaks Republicans have relentlessly pushed to pass.
According to the "Don't Inflate Our Plates" tool, the price of beef in Texas has gone up nearly 47% since the early days of Trump's second term, while eggs cost $3.19 more than they did before Trump took office.
In California, eggs now cost over $5.00 more than they did before Trump's second term, based on "historical trends, real-time supplier data, and market analysis" that Unrig Our Economy examined.
Unrig Our Economy gained some of its data from Kroger's pricing data, finding that in states with Kroger stores, the price of beef has gone up between 16% and 72%, with the biggest price hikes in Alaska and Utah.
Egg prices in particular were a talking point for Trump during his presidential campaign, but they've risen in many states where Kroger operates, with customers in Michigan—where the president won in 2024—paying 58% more for eggs.
"Trump and Republicans in Congress are singlehandedly inflating the cost of everyday items that Americans rely on," said Leor Tal, campaign director for Unrig Our Economy. "While billionaires and corporations cash in on Republican-backed tax breaks, working-class families are left paying higher prices for eggs, coffee, and more."
Unrig Our Economy pointed to reporting on Trump's tariffs, more of which are set to be announced Friday, with the president expected to impose rates up to 50% on some imports.
As Common Dreams reported this week, the advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative found that just as corporate executives used labor shortages and supply chain disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic as cover to keep prices high even after those problems were resolved, many are now using tariffs as a justification for price increases.
"We certainly welcome a reduction in the Chinese tariffs, but we'll be announcing a price increase here regardless of any changes of the Chinese tariffs over the next week or two to go into effect in June," the CEO of one footwear brand said in a recent earnings call.
Unrig Our Economy pointed to recent polling that showed Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump's tariffs, including 47% of Republican voters.
The Trump administration has also made a number of regulatory moves benefiting corporations that aim to take as much money from working families' household budgets as possible, including a push for the cancellation of a Biden-era Federal Trade Commission rule allowing consumers to easily cancel subscriptions; the FTC's decision to drop a lawsuit challenging price discrimination by PepsiCo; and the commission's move shutting down public comments on corporate pricing tactics.
The interactive tool was unveiled weeks after the president signed into law his sweeping domestic policy and budget package, which includes the largest cuts to public programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in history, increases monthly payments for student loan borrowers under repayment assistance plans, and hands out $117 billion in tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans while providing just $77 billion in cumulative savings to the bottom 60% of earners.
As Unrig Our Economy unveiled its tool allowing Americans to see exactly how their household budgets are being impacted under the Trump administration, the Century Foundation (TCF) and Morning Consult released the results of a poll in which they asked more than 2,000 people in June how they were being affected by the high cost of living over the past six months.
More than half of respondents said "billionaires, corporations, and congressional Republicans have made their lives harder," and 60% said the Trump administration is to blame for the higher cost of living.
More than 4 in 5 Americans said they were concerned about the price of groceries, and nearly half were concerned about their ability to pay their rent or mortgage. Forty-eight percent said they would have difficulty paying an unexpected $500 bill, like a home repair or medical bill, without borrowing or using credit, and nearly 20% said it would be "very difficult" to make the payment.
Even among households with incomes over $100,000, more than a third said they would have a hard time meeting the surprise expense without dipping into savings or using credit cards—suggesting that these households are using a large proportion of their relatively comfortable monthly income for essentials
"While the federal government tears down programs such as Medicaid and food assistance and federal regulators give the green light to companies to rip off consumers, families are being forced to construct their own safety nets from a web of risky financial practices," said TCF.
Unrig the Economy said that with Don't Inflate Our Plates, the group is calling out "the Republican-backed policies that got us here" and demanding "that Congress put working people first."
Jul 31, 2025
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Sanders Heading to West Virginia and North Carolina for Latest Swing of 'Fighting Oligarchy' Tour
For the first time since U.S. President Donald Trump signed his domestic policy into law, handing out tax breaks to the rich that will far outweigh those for working-class families and slashing healthcare and food assistance programs that millions depend on, Sen. Bernie Sanders will be face-to-face with voters in Republican districts this weekend for the latest leg of his Fighting Oligarchy Tour.
Sanders is headed to several towns in West Virginia Friday and Saturday and will make his way to Greensboro and Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday—all in deep red districts like those the Vermont independent senator has visited in states like Idaho and Texas as he talks to voters from across the political spectrum about "the takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country's move toward authoritarianism."
"I'll be heading to West Virginia and North Carolina to discuss the need for decent paying jobs, healthcare for all, and the end of a corrupt campaign finance system in which billionaires buy politicians," said Sanders.
So far, more than 240,000 people have attended Sanders' rallies, where he's been joined by musical guests and, at some stops, by other progressive leaders including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas) and United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Well-attended rallies hosted by Sanders, a longtime critic of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who take donations from billionaires and corporate interest groups, have frequently been dismissed by the political and media establishment, but the senator has argued that the crowds of people showing up to hear his message this year demonstrate that Americans across demographic divides, throughout the country, are fed up with politicians who don't fight for the working class.
"Red state, blue state—the people of this country are opposed to an economy that works for the 1% and not for working-class Americans," Sanders said Thursday.
More than two-thirds of people who have RSVP'd to the tour have been new to Sanders' mailing list, and about a third of them have not been registered Democrats. Livestreams of Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy rallies have also been viewed more than 8 million times.
Sanders' latest stops in West Virginia and North Carolina will begin days after he and his team held an online "National Training" to organize around efforts "to defeat every member of Congress who voted for Trump's disastrous budget bill and elect progressives up and down the ballot."
"We have to organize people," said Misty Rebik, Sanders' chief of staff, on the call. "Over the past several months, we have organized thousands of people to attend rallies, canvasses, office visits, town halls in swing districts across the country. We've recruited more than 7,000 people to run for office. Over half of those are running as independents."
Americans are answering Sanders' call to help defeat oligarchy and Trump's anti-worker, anti-immigrant, and anti-democracy agenda, said Rebik, because they "do not think that billionaires should control our government and they are not sitting around. And that's why President Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' has to be the defining issue of the 2026 campaign. And as Bernie has said, no member of Congress who has voted for this disastrous legislation should be reelected."
The five cities Sanders will visit this weekend are all represented by Republicans who voted for Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act and are up for reelection in 2026.
Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards, whose Western North Carolina district includes Asheville, got thousands of calls from constituents urging him to vote against the bill, with nearly 300,000 of his constituents facing the possibility of losing healthcare and food assistance as a result of its passage.
Jul 31, 2025
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'Capitulation Index' Tracks How US Media Companies Are Responding to Trump Bullying
Media advocacy organization Free Press on Tuesday unveiled an index that documents and rates major media organizations' reactions to the coercive demands being made by U.S. President Donald Trump.
As Free Press explained in a press release, its Media Capitulation Index tracks actions being taken by 35 major media conglomerates who are facing pressure from Trump and his allies to curb critical reporting and commentary on his administration.
"In this investigation, Free Press found that to varying degrees the owners of America's largest media firms are caving to pressure from an authoritarian-minded president and his captured federal agencies," the organization wrote. "This capitulation is not unique to owners of news outlets—like Paramount (which owns CBS), Disney (ABC) and Warner Bros. Discovery (CNN). Rather, it's a pervasive trend that applies to nearly all commercial media, including cable and telecommunications firms and online platforms."
Free Press argued that media companies have been bending to Trump's will through four major methods: Paying out lavish settlements in lawsuits brought by the president; rolling back their programs for enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion; pressuring journalists and commentators to soften or even censor their criticisms of the president; and "attempting to curry favor with the president during inaugural ceremonies, private dinners at Mar-a-Lago, and meetings in the White House."
The index uses a scale to rate media organizations that range from "independent" on one end to "propaganda" on the other. Of all the media companies surveyed by Free Press, only two are rated as independent: Bloomberg Media Group and Netflix. The New York Times Company for now is the least compromised of any print media conglomerate outside of Bloomberg and is merely listed as "vulnerable," while Nant Capital, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, is the most compromised and is rated as "obeying" the Trump administration.
When it comes to broadcast media, no companies earned an "independent" ranking, and CBS owner Paramount was ranked as "obeying" the Trump administration in the wake of its decisions to give Trump a $16 million payout and then cancel the show of longtime Trump critic Stephen Colbert.
Former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan, a longtime critic of the American media's response to Trump, praised Free Press on her Substack page for highlighting the major problems facing the American media in the second Trump term.
"Huge, diverse corporations own news companies, and independent journalism all too often takes a back seat to corporate profits, mergers, and other forms of consolidation," she said. "Meanwhile, public media has been defunded, local journalism lacks local ownership, and partisan propaganda has found an influential home on radio and cable news."
She also interviewed Tim Karr, who works as Free Press' senior director of strategy and communications, about why her former employer did not earn an "independent" rating on the index.
"There is a tendency to 'both-sides' reporting about the Trump administration,” Karr said of The New York Times' coverage, which he added seems to give "equal weight to the forces of democracy and the forces of authoritarianism."
Jul 30, 2025
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'The Tide Is Turning,' Says Sanders as Majority of Senate Dems Vote to Block Arms Sales to Israel
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' latest effort to block additional American arms sales to Israel failed again late Wednesday at the hands of every Republican senator and some Democrats.
But a majority of the Senate Democratic caucus voted in favor of Sanders-led resolutions that aimed to halt the Trump administration's sale of 1,000-pound bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits, and tens of thousands of assault rifles to the Israeli government.
The first resolution, S.J.Res.41, failed by a vote of 27-70, and the second, S.J.Res.34, failed by a vote of 24-73, with the effort to block the sale of assault rifles to the Israeli government garnering slightly more support than the bid to prevent the sale of bombs.
The following senators voted to block the assault rifle sale: Sanders, Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
And the following senators voted to block the sale of additional bombs: Sanders, Alsobrooks, Baldwin, Blunt Rochester, Duckworth, Durbin, Heinrich, Hirono, Kaine, Kim, King, Klobuchar, Luján, Markey, Merkley, Murphy, Murray, Schatz, Shaheen, Smith, Van Hollen, Warnock, Warren, and Welch.
Three Democratic senators—Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan—did not vote on either resolution.
"Every senator who voted to continue sending weapons today voted against the will of their constituents."
In a statement responding to the vote, Sanders said growing Democratic support for halting arms sales to the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an indication that "the tide is turning" in the face of Israel's "horrific, immoral, and illegal war against the Palestinian people."
"The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza," the senator said. "The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future."
Wednesday's votes revealed a significant increase in support for halting U.S. military support for the Israeli government compared to earlier this year, when only 14 Democratic senators backed similar Sanders-led resolutions.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who did not vote on the Sanders resolutions in April, said Wednesday that "this legislative tool is not perfect, but frankly it is time to say enough to the suffering of innocent young children and families."
"As a longtime friend and supporter of Israel, I am voting yes to send a message: The Netanyahu government cannot continue with this strategy," said Murray. "Netanyahu has prolonged this war at every turn to stay in power. We are witnessing a man-made famine in Gaza—children and families should not be dying from starvation or disease when literal tons of aid and supplies are just sitting across the border."
The Senate votes came days after the official death toll in Gaza surpassed 60,000 and a new poll showed that U.S. public support for Israel's assault on the Palestinian enclave reached a new low, with just 32% of respondents expressing approval. The Gallup survey found that support among Democratic voters has cratered, with just 8% voicing approval of the Israeli assault.
"The vast majority of Democratic voters say Israel is committing genocide, and have repeatedly demanded that their party's elected officials in Congress stop helping President Trump deliver more and more weapons to Israel with our tax dollars," Margaret DeReus, executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, said Wednesday. "Tonight proved that an increasing number of Democrats in the Senate–more than half of the Democratic caucus–are hearing that demand."
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, called the vote "unprecedented" and said it "shows that the dam is breaking in U.S. politics."
"Our job is to increase the pressure on every member of Congress to stop all weapons and military funding," said Miller. "For 22 months, the U.S. has enabled, funded, and armed the Israeli government's slaughter and starvation in Gaza, and still the majority of senators just voted to continue sending weapons to a military live-streaming its crimes against humanity."
"The overwhelming majority of Americans want to stop the flow of deadly weapons to the Israeli military and end U.S. complicity in its horrific genocide against Palestinians," Miller added. "Every senator who voted to continue sending weapons today voted against the will of their constituents."
Jul 31, 2025
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Top UNICEF Official Says Gaza Children 'Being Starved' by Israel
"This simply should not be happening. The children I met are not victims of a natural disaster."
Aug 02, 2025
The deputy director of UNICEF returned from his most recent trip to the Gaza Strip this week and has issued a fresh warning to the world that immediate and forceful action must be taken to end the suffering that is being imposed by Israel on the children who live in the war-torn enclave that now teeters on the edge of full-blown famine as bombs continue to be dropped, nowhere is safe, and kids are dying at a rate of more than two dozen every single day.
UNICEF deputy director Ted Chaiban said in a Friday statement that he had just completed his fourth in-person visit to Gaza since the war that began "after the horrors of October 7th," but that there was no preparing for what he witnessed in recent days.
"You see the images on the news, and you know what has happened, but it is still shocking when you are there," he said. "The marks of deep suffering and hunger were visible on the faces of families and children. Over 18,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war. That's an average of 28 children a day, the size of a classroom, gone. Children have lost loved ones, they are hungry and scared, and they are traumatized."
Calling the conditions that Israel has created on the ground in Gaza "inhumane," Mr. Chaiban demanded a sustained ceasefire and a political way forward. He also detailed how the United Nations has now identified two indicators showing that Gaza has "exceeded the famine threshold," and that the occupied territory "faces grave risk of famine" due to the ongoing Israeli blockade that prevents humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians, even as the number of documented deaths from acute starvation continue to mount and the killings of people trying to reach aid distribution points continues to climb.
"This simply should not be happening. The children I met are not victims of a natural disaster," Chaiban said Friday of the young Palestinians, critically malnourished, he met during his visit to Gaza in the preceding days. "They are being starved, bombed, and displaced."
Aid organizations as well as Palestinians living in Gaza are describing horrific scenes as the famine conditions grip the population and the suffering of children escalates from a situation that has been described as "hell on earth" for well over a year.
"All my children have lost nearly half of their body weight," Jamil Mughari, a 38-year-old from Maghazi in central Gaza, told the Guardian in an interview published Saturday. "My daughter, who is five years old, now weighs only 11kg. My son Mohammad has become just skin and bones. All my children are like this."
"I myself used to weigh 85kg," Mughari explained, "and now I'm down to 55."
Rejecting the misguided suggestion that airdrops should be part of the solution to the starvation crisis in Gaza, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said Friday that a large number of trucks, alongside the return of experts in the distribution of humanitarian aid, is the best solution.
"As the people of Gaza are starving to death, the only way to respond to the famine is to flood Gaza with assistance," said Lazzarini. "UNRWA, the largest UN agency on the ground, has 6,000 trucks loaded with aid stuck outside Gaza waiting for the green light to enter."
While UNICEF is helping some limited aid reach people in need, Chaiban said the trickle allowed by Israel is nowhere close to what's needed to save lives and that efforts to change the policies have been rebuffed, even as "children are dying at an unprecedented rate" with no end in sight.
"We are at a crossroads," he said, after calling for the entry of at least 500 trucks per day to deliver life-saving supplies. "The choices made now will determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die. We know what must be done and what can be done."
Amidst the carnage and growing global outrage over Israel's genoce in Gaza, critics of the U.S. backing of the underlying policies continue to acknowledge and decry the shameful complicity of the Trump administration, members of Congress, and influential media outlets who offer material support and political cover to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The debate over whether or not Gaza is a genocide is, effectively, over. So can we now also stop pretending that we are mere bystanders to this genocide? That our sin is one only of omission rather than commission?" asked Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan in a Guardian op-ed on Saturday.
"The inconvenient truth is that the U.S. has not just looked the other way, as tens of thousands of Palestinians have been besieged and bombed, starved and slaughtered, but helped Israel pull the trigger," argued Hasan. "We have been complicit in this genocide, which is itself a crime under article III of the Genocide convention."
On Friday, as Common Dreams reported, Human Rights Watch issued a new report on the starvation in Gaza and said it was "indefensible" for the U.S. government to continue its backing of Israel.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who led another failed effort this week in the U.S. Senate to block further military support of Israel, struck a similiar tone in the Boston Globe on Friday when he wrote that most Americans, according to recent polling, oppose what's taking place in Gaza.
"At a time when Israeli soldiers are routinely shooting civilians trying to get food, when Gaza faces mass starvation, and when extremist settlers terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank, the United States should not provide more weapons to enable these atrocities," Sanders wrote.
"Americans want this to end. They do not want to be complicit in an unfolding famine and daily massacres. Congress has the power to act—to use our leverage of billions in military aid to demand Israel end this slaughter," he added. "History will condemn those who fail to do so."
Sparing neither the current nor former U.S. administrations in his remarks, Hasan said that the history books will remember where people stood and when.
"To the Biden and Trump administrations, to Democrats and Republicans in Congress, to the US media, I say this: history will judge you," Hasan wrote. "For the bombs you sent, the votes you cast, the lies you told. This will be your shameful legacy when the dust finally settles in Gaza, when all of the bodies have been pulled from the rubble. Not defending your ally or fighting terrorism, but non-stop complicity in a genocide; aiding and abetting the crime of crimes."
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In Boost to 'Dictator' Bukele, El Salvador Abolishes Presidential Term Limits
"But you won't see Marco Rubio or Donald Trump calling him a dictator, as they do with Maduro," one critic said of the Salvadoran president.
Aug 01, 2025
El Salvador's Legislative Assembly—which is controlled by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's New Ideas party—on Thursday approved a series of constitutional reforms, including abolition of presidential term limits, that critics warned pose a grave threat to the Central American nation's fragile democracy.
As El Faro reported, lawmakers approved measures allowing for indefinite presidential terms, expanding the current five-year presidential terms to six years, eliminating the second round of presidential elections, and advancing the end of Bukele's term from 2029 to 2027 in order to synchronize presidential, legislative, and municipal elections.
New Ideas Congresswoman Ana Figueroa, who proposed the reforms, argues that if other elected offices in El Salvador do not have term limits, why should the presidency?
"This is quite simple, Salvadoran people. Only you will be able to decide how long you support your president," Figueroa said Thursday.
Congressional Vice President Suecy Callejas, also of New Ideas, contended that "power has returned to the only place to which it truly belongs... to the Salvadoran people."
However, opposition lawmakers, journalists, human rights defenders, and others condemned the measures, which come amid an ongoing "state of emergency" that, while dramatically reducing crime in what was once the world's murder capital, has seen widespread repression of human and civil rights.
"Democracy has died in El Salvador today," said Congresswoman Marcela Villatoro of the opposition ARENA party, who argued that the reforms were "approved without consultation, in a gross and cynical way."
Thiago Süssekind, a Brazilian scholar and professor at the University of Oxford in England, called the reforms' passage "the moment when El Salvador buried its democracy."
"Nayib Bukele—the darling dictator of the Latin right—can now govern forever," Süssekind added. "The discourse, paradoxically, is about democracy—deliberately conflating it with the will of the majority."
Chilean pollster Marta Lagos argued on social media that El Salvador is being transformed into "an electoral dictatorship" that "excludes an essential element of democracy: respect for minorities, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and civic and political freedoms."
Lagos noted "the detention of thousands of people without due process," an apparent reference to prisons including the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump—an erstwhile critic-turned-ally of Bukele—is sending deported migrants, including innocent people, to face abusive and sometimes deadly imprisonment.
Juanita Goebertus, director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch (HRW), argued that New Ideas is "following the same path as Venezuela."
HRW and other human rights groups accuse the United Socialist Party government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of grave human rights and electoral abuses, and many leftists in Venezuela and beyond feel the Bolivarian Revolution launched under former President Hugo Chávez has been betrayed.
"It starts with a leader who uses their popularity to concentrate power, and ends in dictatorship," Goebertus warned.
Like Trump, Bukele has shrugged off—and at times even embraced—the "dictator" label. He once called himself the "coolest dictator in the world."
Trump—who has himself flirted with the concept of being president for life, or at least for a third term—has remained silent about Bukele's democratic backsliding, even as his administration imposes staggering tariffs on Brazil and punitive sanctions on a leading member of its judiciary for defending democracy.
Plaudits for Bukele, Magnitsky sanctions for de Moraes. The Rubio way.
[image or embed]
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) July 30, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Such actions, along with the Trump administration's record of targeting certain authoritarian governments while courting and coddling others, drew stinging rebuke by social media users in El Salvador and beyond.
Comments from Latin American X users included:
- "Spending 20 years calling Hugo Chávez a dictator over the issue of indefinite reelection only to end up applauding Bukele for doing the same and calling him a democrat. They're so adorable!!!" -@ArondonFT
- "They criticize Venezuela and Cuba, but support the dictator Bukele? Hypocrisy disguised as democracy." -@zandrusky
- "To me, 'indefinite presidential reelection' sounds like a dictatorship, but since it's Bukele and not Maduro, I guess it's no big deal and just my imagination." -@BenderOfuscando
- "Bukele perpetuates himself in power, but the right will not call him a dictator as it does with Maduro. And El Salvador will not receive sanctions from the U.S., as Venezuela does. The right and the U.S. do not care that Bukele is a dictator, as long as he is one of theirs." -@andres20ad
Thursday's reforms—which must still be ratified by lawmakers—mark the second major modification of presidential term limits in El Salvador. Although the country's constitution prohibits presidential reelection, New Ideas purged the constitutional court's judges and replaced them with ones loyal to Bukele. The court subsequently ruled Bukele was eligible to run again, and he won last year's election in a landslide.
Bukele wasn't always so keen on presidential reelection. In a 2013 interview, he said that "in El Salvador, a president cannot be reelected."
"This is to ensure that he... doesn't use his power to remain in power," Bukele added.
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'Stop Starving Gaza': 50 Arrested for Jewish-Led Protest at Schumer and Gillibrand's Offices
"Israel is systematically destroying Palestinian life and society, and Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are writing the checks," said a spokesperson for New York City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, who was arrested.
Aug 01, 2025
The advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace announced Friday that 50 people, including elected officials, were arrested at the Manhattan offices of U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer while protesting the New York Democrats' continued support for Israel as it annihilates the Gaza Strip.
"The deliberate and shameless killing of Palestinians in Gaza is enraging the world," said scholar Judith Butler, a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Academic Advisory Council, in a statement. "If it is not bombing or shooting, it is a strategic plan of starvation, all of which are crimes against humanity. It is time, past time, to cease looking away. Actions such as ours are a message to all those who look away: Wake up, take a stand, and demand the end to this genocide."
Although a majority of U.S. Senate Democrats this week supported Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) latest effort to block additional arms sales to Israel, Gillibrand and Schumer, the chamber's minority leader, opposed the resolutions.
"It is absolutely unconscionable that Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand continue to arm the Israeli military while it carries out genocide against Palestinians and uses starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza," JVP's Jay Saper, who had family members killed in the Holocaust, said Friday. "The echoes of the past are not lost on us. We refuse to be silent—because never again is now."
Around 200 protesters gathered at the Manhattan offices of U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both New York Democrats, on August 1, 2025. (Photo: Ken Schles/Jewish Voice for Peace)
Protesters wore shirts with the message "Let Gaza Live," banged on pots and pans, and chanted "stop starving Gaza" in the lobby of the Third Avenue building. They held banners with messages including: "Jews for Palestinian Freedom," "Stop Arming Israel," and "End the Blockade."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the Israeli government has not only directed its forces to decimate Gaza but also severely restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into the coastal enclave. More than 150 people have died from starvation, according to local officials. Experts believe the official death toll of at least 60,332 is likely an undercount.
Outraged by the conditions in Gaza—enabled by the U.S. Congress and both the Biden and Trump administrations—200 people demonstrated at the Senate offices, JVP said. Protesters included New York City Councilwomen Alexa Avilés (D-38) and Tiffany Cabán (D-22), state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez (D-37), and actor Sara Ramirez.
The New York Daily News reported that Cabán and Valdez were among the protesters arrested, zip-tied, and put on decommissioned Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses. Cabán's spokesperson, Arden Dressner Levy, said she was taken into police custody for "participating in civil disobedience" to demand that "Israel stop starving Gaza."
"Israeli attacks in Gaza have created the highest rate of child amputees in the world. Israel is blocking food, medicine, and baby formula from entering Gaza. Israel is systematically destroying Palestinian life and society, and Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are writing the checks," Levy told the outlet. "Never again is now."
Religious leaders also joined the protest. Rabbi Abby Stein of the JVP Rabbinic Council said that "Jewish teachings compel us to take action to save lives. That is why we support blocking the sales of deadly U.S. weapons to the Israeli military, which is one of the few tools available to members of Congress that could actually, and immediately, save lives."
The protest came as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and President Donald Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, visited one of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites.
In response to their trip to Gaza, Oxfam America director of peace and security Scott Paul said that "we do not have time for symbolic measures—a few more trucks, airdrops, and humanitarian pauses may be better than nothing—but in reality, they are far more effective in grabbing headlines than they are at saving lives."
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