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Centering Their Voices: This Is What Power Looks Like
After decades of silence born of fear, shame, trauma, over 20 Epstein survivors came together in D.C. for the first time to publicly tell their grievous stories of rape and abuse - what did it cost them? - when they were 14, 15, 16 years old. Facing not just their own dark pasts but dogged denial, stonewalling, and a literal silencing by a senseless military flyover, they still wielded "the fire and the power of our voices" to insist, "We are the proof that fear did not break us."
It was months after Trump vowed to release the Epstein files "on Day One" and Pam Bondi said an upright DOJ was "lifting the veil" on Epstein's crimes - and decades after they were committed - when the resolute victims came to stand together, speak of "the weight we live with daily," and demand to be heard. Their signs said "He Is On the List," "S-H-A-M-E," "Trust the Victims, Not the Felon." Many had never met each other, and thought they were the only ones bruised and haunted by long-ago rape, abuse, enduring trauma. "Our government could have saved so many women. Those women didn’t matter,” said Marina Lacerda, who was 14 when she was raped by Epstein. "Well, we matter now. We are here today, and we are speaking, and we are not going to stop speaking."
Last week's historic press conference was facilitated by Dem Rep. Ro Khanna and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie - yes, of the AK-47-packing family Christmas cards, go figure - who've come forward to support a full release of the DOJ's Epstein files. The event, headlined by nine Epstein victims - some of whom had never spoken out before about their assaults - drew up to 100 other survivors in solidarity. "Courage is contagious," said one organizer, who was approached by several women they didn't know who said they "needed to be here...This gave me strength." Most had also "been let down by system after system," and far from the games of political chicken playing out elsewhere, felt they had to speak. "The abuse was real," one said. We know the truth."
The truth, in story after story, is harrowing. Lacerda, 37, was "minor victim 1" in Epstein's 2019 federal indictment. She was a 14-year-old migrant from Brazil working three jobs to help her family get by when she heard about "a dream job" giving "an older guy a massage" for $300. It quickly became "my worst nightmare" as one of a dozen girls she knew - "We were just kids" - lured into Epstein's mansion on East 71st Street. She went so often she dropped out of high school: "Every day, I hoped he would offer me a real job, like the American dream, but that day never came. I had no way out." At 17, he told her she was too old. Today, she finally feels she "has a voice." Airing the truth, she says, would "help me heal... help me put the pieces of my own life back together."
Haley Robson was a 16-year-old "high-school athlete with good grades and aspirations for college" when a friend recruited her "to give an old rich guy a massage." Her emotional testimony: "When I got into (the) room, Jeffrey undressed" - draws big breath - "and asked me to do things to him. My eyes welled up. I have never been more scared in my life." After, he paid her $200 and told her to bring a friend next time; when she refused, he "gave me an ultimatum...You come massage me when I call you, or you bring me friends to massage me, and I'll pay you $200 per girl. I hoped never to hear from him again, but he called every day." He was so rich and powerful, "I felt I had no choice - if I disobeyed him, I knew something bad would happen." After two years, an adult intervened; police "treated me like a criminal" and wild press accounts "hurt real people who have already been hurt."
"The truth is, Epstein had a free pass," said Chauntae Davies. From lack of critical victim outreach to victim-blaming, "Everyone seemed to look away" - especially when it came to our Predator-In-Chief. "Jeffrey bragged about his powerful friends, and (Trump) was his biggest brag," she said. "He had an 8x10 framed picture of him on his desk, with the two of them." Meanwhile, "What I endured will haunt me forever. I live as a mother trying to raise my child while distrusting a world that has betrayed me. Trauma never leave you. It breaks families apart. It shapes the way we see everyone around us...Unless we learn from this history, monsters like Jeffrey Epstein will rise again. It is not just my story. It is a story about every survivor who carries invisible scars."
Again and again, survivors spoke of raw, hard years of feeling alone and powerless at the hands of "an evil man" safeguarded by his money, power and connections. "You have a choice," Anouska de Georgiou told complicit Republicans. "Stand with the truth, or with the lies that have protected predators for decades." Lisa Philips stressed that Epstein's abuses reached far beyond "just underage girls in Florida" to "the top of the art, fashion and entertainment world. Many around him knew. Many participated, and many profited." "Hundreds of women have lived in the shadow of this man’s crimes," says Stacey Williams, who briefly dated Epstein until he famously, smilingly acquiesced to Trump groping her in front of him. "They deserve truth, not secrecy."
Towards that truth, the women grimly, defiantly announced that if the House fails to compel release of all the Epstein files, they will "confidentially compile" their own list of regular clients in the Epstein world in the name of "every woman who has been silenced, exploited and dismissed...together as survivors." "We know the names," one said. "Many of us were abused by them." They were cogent, steadfast: "We are not asking for pity. Justice and accountability are not favors from the powerful - they are obligations, decades overdue." "We have lives to live." "We are not the footnotes in some infamous predator's tabloid article. We are the experts, and the subject of this story." "The question: Will you protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors?"
To date, 134 lawmakers - all 212 Democrats, 12 Repubs - have signed onto a Massie-Khanna discharge petition to force a vote to compel the DOJ to release all files; they need two more to pass. Massie has faced "immense" pushback from a White House that calls the petition an "attention-seeking...hostile act"; rich MAGA donors have run $2.5 million in ads against him for opposing child rape, and GOPers who've signed on have been blasted. Among them - go figure redux - is MTG, who's vowed to reveal "every damn name” on the House floor if survivors ask her to. In response, former MAGA besties have called her a "FRAUD," "traitor," "phony two-faced bitch" and "backstabbing loser" who's "teamed up" with the enemy - again, lest we forget, for denouncing child rape.
Bootlicking Mike Johnson, who sent the House home early to avoid the issue, is right there with them. After claiming 20 women chronicling their rape as teenagers are "a hoax Democrats are using to attack him, like the Russian dossier," he feverishly insisted Dear Predator is "horrified" by the "unspeakable evil" that is "detestable to him" and "has no culpability" and actually, "He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down." Wait. What happened to the hoax? Caught in a clusterfuck, Mike later said he possibly "misspoke" or "didn't use the right terminology" - "The word is lied, Mike. You fucking lied" - but "everyone knows" Trump "assisted with the investigation." And of course he'll meet with the victims: "He has great compassion for them. The president has a very compassionate heart."
The guy with the very compassionate heart still calls the case of a demon who for years raped 14-year-olds "a Democrat hoax" by "the worst scum on earth" and "all the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen." It's also "something that’s totally irrelevant. We should talk about the greatness we’re having." As proof of the greatness, during a visit by the Polish president, to honor a Polish pilot who died in a training crash - having ignored the training deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Lithuania - he ordered a rare, loud flyover completely coincidentally just as Epstein's victims were telling their stories. The women paused, looked at the sky, and kept talking. Responses: "Classless move by a classless man," "He who has nothing to hide, hides nothing."
Flyovers aside, facts owe. Says Brad Edwards, an attorney for several survivors, "You're either on the side of the victims or you're on the side of evil." In an extended interview, multiple survivors agreed, "The government has failed us." The seven women were joined by two brothers of Virginia Giuffre, who killed herself in April after a lifelong struggle with the trauma of her abuse. "We've come together, beautifully and tragically," said one. "We don't just speak for ourselves but for every survivor whose story is still unspoken, for Virginia, whose courage lit the path and opened the door for us to walk through." Asked near the end of the interview how many had been contacted by the DOJ, felt treated with dignity, been heard, none of the nine raised their hands.
More damning scraps keep surfacing. Massie dropped one bombshell name in Epstein's "black book": John Paulson, a hedge fund billionaire and huge donor to Trump and MAGA Mike. In a stealth video by shady right-wing James O'Keefe, a DOJ deputy chief of staff brags to a date "they'll redact every Republican" in the files and leave Dems in; the DOJ said the comments "have absolutely zero bearing with (sic) reality." The Wall Street Journal published, and House Dems released, the creepy birthday card to Epstein Trump denied he sent: "We got (the) note Trump says doesn't exist. Time to end this White House cover-up." Press Barbie called it "FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax" and - up is down - argued "it's very clear" Trump didn't draw or sign it.
Despite Dear Leader's "great compassion," days after the survivors met, nine attorneys for about 50 of them hadn't "heard anything" in response. Monday, survivor and Trump voter Haley Robson told CNN she'd invited White House officials to meet with her and other survivors: "I've heard crickets." Still, said Jess Michaels, a self-described "1991 Jeffrey Epstein survivor," their stories matter. "For 27 years, I thought I was the only one (Epstein) raped," she told the D.C gathering. "I thought I was alone. But I wasn't. None of us were. And what once kept us silent now fuels the fire and the power of our voices...This is what power looks like. Survivors united, voices joined, refusing to be dismissed. We are no longer victims. We are one powerful voice too loud to ignore. And we will never be silenced again." Women hold up half the sky. The heavier half.
Sep 09, 2025
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'A Mockery of Science': Experts Slam Trump DOE's Climate Report in New Paper
The US Department of Energy's July climate report is "biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking," according to a comprehensive review released Tuesday by a group of 85 scientists who reviewed the document independently.
The department's "Climate Working Group" drew up the report as part of the effort by US President Donald Trump to fatally undermine the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) determination, commonly known as the "endangerment finding," that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane endanger human lives by warming the planet.
"If successful," Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M, says, "this move could unravel virtually every US climate regulation on the books, from car emissions standards to power plant rules."
The Energy Department's nearly 150-page paper, titled "A Critical Review of the Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate." Dessler describes its five authors as "climate contrarians who dispute mainstream science." The team behind the report, he argues, was "hand-picked" by Energy Secretary Chris Wright to lend legitimacy to the Trump administration's predetermined conclusions about climate science.
The DOE report's five authors seek to contradict the much more rigorous analyses conducted by groups like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose reports have been written by over a thousand researchers and which cite tens of thousands of academic studies.
The multinational panel has concluded that human fossil fuel usage has considerably warmed the planet, causing increased amounts of extreme weather, threatening food and water security, destroying ecosystems, and risking dangerous amounts of sea-level rise.
The Energy Department's report advances the main idea that climate scientists like those at the IPCC broadly "overstate" the extent of the human-caused climate crisis as well as its risks. Unlike other research of its kind, the department crafted its report in secret, which prompted the expert response.
"Normally, a report like this would undergo a rigorous, unbiased, and transparent peer review," said Dr. Robert Kopp, a climate and sea-level researcher at Rutgers. "When it became clear that DOE wasn't going to organize such a review, the scientific community came together on its own, in less than a month, to provide it."
Their review found that the Energy Department's report "exhibits pervasive problems with misrepresentation and selective citation of the scientific literature, cherry-picking of data, and faulty or absent statistics."
For instance, the report claims that there is "no obvious acceleration in sea-level rise" even though the number of days of high-tide coastal flooding per year has increased more than 10-fold since the 1970s.
It also attempts to portray CO2 emissions as a net benefit to the environment, particularly agriculture, by pointing to its benefits for crop growth, but ignores that the impact of increased droughts and wildfires far outweighs those benefits.
And it attempts to pick out isolated historical weather events like the Dust Bowl during the 1930s as evidence that dramatic climatic changes happen very frequently within short amounts of time and that the unprecedented increase in global temperatures over the past century and a half is not worthy of alarm.
"My reading of the report uncovered numerous errors of commission and omission, all of which slant toward a conclusion that human-caused climate change poses no serious risks," said Kerry Emmanuel, a meteorologist and climate scientist who specializes in hurricane physics. "It seems to work backward from a desired outcome."
Dessler notes that over 99% of the literature included in the IPCC's report was simply ignored by the Department of Energy. He described the report as a "mockery of science" akin to a "Soviet show trial."
"The outcome of this exercise by the Department of Energy is already known: climate science will be judged too uncertain to justify the endangerment finding," he said. "Once you understand that, everything about the DOE report makes total sense."
In 2025, the US National Weather Service issued a record number of flash flood warnings, while 255 million Americans were subject to life-threatening triple-digit temperatures in June. The previous year, 48 of 50 US states faced drought conditions, the most ever recorded in US history, while nearly 9 million acres burned due to wildfires.
"We live in a world where the impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt by citizens all around the globe—including communities throughout the US," said Andra Gardner, a professor of environmental science at Rowan University.
"This is perhaps what makes the DOE Climate Working Group report most astounding," she continued. "In a country where we have the tools to not only understand the impacts of climate change but also to begin meaningfully combating the crisis, the current DOE has instead decided to promote fossil fuel interests that will further worsen the symptoms of climate change with a report that turns a blind eye to the established science."
According to an analysis from Climate Power published in January, oil and gas industry donors gave $96 million in direct donations to the campaign of Donald Trump and affiliated super PACs during the 2024 election, while spending $243 million to lobby Republicans in Congress.
The result has been an administration that has purged climate science information from federal websites, laid off thousands of EPA employees, and gutted government funding for wind and solar energy.
Becca Neumann, an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Washington, says that "the goal" of the report "is clear: to justify inaction and avoid meaningful emissions reductions."
Sep 02, 2025
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Trump Tariff Regime Slammed as Manufacturing Jobs Crater
US President Donald Trump's tariff policies, imposing levies as high as 50% on the United States' trading partners, have not proven compatible with his campaign promise to turn the US back into a "manufacturing powerhouse," as Friday's jobs report showed.
The overall analysis was grim, with the economy adding just 22,000 jobs last month, but manufacturing employment in particular has declined since Trump made his April 2 "Liberation Day" announcement of tariffs on countries including Canada and Mexico.
Since then, the president has introduced new rounds of tariffs on imports from countries he claims have treated the US unfairly, and all the while manufacturers have tightened their belts to cope with the higher cost of supplies and materials.
Overall manufacturing employment has plummeted by 42,000 jobs, while job openings and new hires have declined by 76,000 and 18,000, respectively, according to the Center for American Progress (CAP), which released a jobs report analysis titled Trump's Trade War Squeezes Middle-Class Manufacturing Employment on Friday.
"The manufacturing sector is struggling more than the rest of the labor market under Trump's tariffs, and manufacturing workers' wage growth is stagnating," said CAP.
Last month, the sector lost 12,000 jobs, while wages for manufacturing workers stagnated.
In line with other private employees, workers in the sector saw their wages go up just 10 cents from July, earning an average of $35.50 per hour.
"Despite Trump's claims that his policies will reignite the manufacturing industry in the United States, his policies have achieved the opposite," wrote policy analyst Kennedy Andara and economist Sara Estep at CAP.
The findings are in line with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Texas Manufacturing Survey, which was taken from August 12-20 and found that 72% of manufacturing firms say the tariffs have had a negative impact on their business.
"The argument is: We're all meant to sacrifice a bit, so that tariffs can help rebuild American manufacturing. Let's ask American manufacturers whether they're helping," said University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers on social media, sharing a graph that showed the survey's findings.
As Philip Luck, a former deputy chief economist with the US State Department, told the CBC last month, Trump has been promising "millions and millions of jobs" will result from his tariff regime, but those promises are out of step with the reality of manufacturing in 2025.
"We do [manufacturing] now with very few workers, we do it in a very automated way," Luck told the CBC. "Even if we do increase manufacturing I don't know that we're going to increase jobs along with it."
The outlet noted that while the number of Americans employed in manufacturing peaked in 1979, the value of manufacturing production has continuously trended up since then.
Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, told the CBC that "no treasure trove of jobs" is likely to come out of Trump's tariffs.
The president "walked into an economy that was seeing the largest manufacturing production in American history," Hicks said. "That is really a testament to how productive American workers are, the quality of the technology, and capital investment in manufacturing."
But the rate of hiring at manufacturing firms is far below its 2024 level, said CAP, revealing the negative impact of Trump's tariff regime.
US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed to nearly 800 workers who lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector this week, including 120 whose company's sawmill closed in Darlington, South Carolina; 101 who worked at an electronics assembly plant for Intervala in Manchester, New Hampshire; and 170 whose sawmill positions were eliminated in Estill, South Carolina.
The US Supreme Court is expected to soon review Trump's tariffs after the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled last week that many of them are illegal.
Sep 05, 2025
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Left Voices Speak Clearly on Horror—and Dangers—of Charlie Kirk Assassination
In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's assassination on Wednesday, some prominent left-wing voices not only condemned the killing, but also explained why no progressive should cheer or support such violence against a political opponent.
In an essay in Jacobin, Ben Burgis and Meagan Day described Kirk's death as "a tragedy and a disaster" that also carries ominous implications for any supporter of left-wing politics.
First, they argued that murdering anyone for their political views is morally wrong, full stop.
"No one should be killed as punishment for political expression, no matter how objectionable," they wrote. "In addition to our basic abhorrence of violence, we are also proponents of democracy, which depends on free speech and open inquiry. Without them, collective self-governance is impossible and tyranny becomes inevitable. Imposing silence on political opponents by brute force... undermines a principle that democratic socialists have always held dear."
Burgis and Day then warned that any kind of descent into violence would not benefit the left in any way.
"In scenarios dominated by factional bloodshed, it no longer matters who has the most appealing political program or the largest potential constituency—only who has the most militant and heavily armed ideologues with the least reluctance to kill," they said. "The left will not win that battle."
In conclusion, they argued, "there is nothing to celebrate here" but "there is much to fear."
Burgis and Day weren't the only left-wing voices to forcefully condemn Kirk's assassination. Writing in The Nation, Jeet Heer warned that Kirk's shooting could be the start of a spasm of political violence across the country akin to the infamous "Years of Lead" in Italy.
Additionally, Heer warned that President Donald Trump appears to be a uniquely dangerous figure to lead the US through this time given that he has long relished pouring gas on fires rather than trying to turn down the temperature.
"In terms of political violence, he's an arsonist, not a firefighter," Heer wrote. "He mocked the assault on Paul Pelosi and joked about 'Second Amendment people' going after Hillary Clinton. He has hailed the January 6 rioters as heroes... There's every reason to think that, as he did in recent National Guard deployments in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, Trump will use the Kirk killing to justify an authoritarian crackdown."
Heer ended his piece by writing that the "killing of Kirk was an atrocity that should be condemned without reservation," before warning that "Democrats have to be prepared to resist any onslaught against civil liberties, not least because a crackdown will only increase the likelihood of far worse violence."
Noting the attacks on Pelosi and various others—including Trump, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.), and Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband—US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned in a Thursday video that Kirk’s assassination “is part of a disturbing rise in political violence that threatens to hollow out public life and make people afraid of participating” in a democracy.
Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, the co-presidents of Public Citizen, decried the assassination of Kirk as antithetical to a free and democratic society, while also warning of dangers that it presents to progressives.
"Every act of political violence threatens a worsening cycle that is fundamentally antithetical to democracy and popular rule," they said. "Murder does more than illegitimately silence the voice of the targeted person. Heightened threat levels make others pull back or drop out. Rational if heated discourse is displaced by fear and intimidation. Chaos is used to justify political crackdowns. Ultimately, guns rule instead of the people."
Sep 12, 2025
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Declassified Report Belies UK 'Terrorism' Designation for Palestine Action
A declassified British intelligence report published Friday by The New York Times undermined the UK government's claims and rationale for banning the direct action group Palestine Action under the country's dubious anti-terrorism law.
Speaking earlier this week, UK State Security Minister Dan Jarvis defended the government's terror designation for Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act of 2000, accusing the group and its supporters of an "escalating campaign involving intimidation and sustained criminal damage, including to Britain's national security infrastructure."
The report was published by the Times as former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock condemned the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's stance on Palestine Action, telling Middle East Eye that "simply, I can't see how belonging to or demonstrating for a group that is rightly extremely concerned about the appalling situation in Gaza is terrorism."
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock says Palestine Action are not terrorists in split with StarmerMost high-profile divide so far: Kinnock tells @MiddleEastEye people have a right to be appalled at situation in Gaza and proscription 'blunting' terror lawswww.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusi...
[image or embed]
— Defend Our Juries (@defendourjuries.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 8:31 AM
But the leaked report, issued March 7 by the UK's Joint Terrorism Analysis Center (JTAC) and first reported by journalist Craig Murray in August, acknowledges that "the majority" of activities by Palestine Action "would not be classified as terrorism" under the law because they typically involve relatively "minor" property damage, such as "graffiti, petty vandalism, occupation, and lock-ons."
The group's actions include damaging property belonging to weapons makers such as the Israeli firm Elbit Systems, spray-painting warplanes at a British military base, and defacing US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland—acts experts say do not constitute terrorism.
"UK domestic counterterrorism legislation defines terrorist acts broadly to include 'serious damage to property.' But, according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages, for purpose of intimidating a population or to compel a government to take a certain action or not," United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said in July.
Türk added that the UK legislation "misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism to expand it beyond those clear boundaries, to encompass further conduct that is already criminal under the law."
Still, JTAC asserted that Palestine Action "commits or participates in acts of terrorism" under the law by perpetrating "incidents that have resulted in serious property damage with the aim of progressing its political cause."
The report accuses Palestine Action members of "using weapons, including sledgehammers, axes, and whips, to cause a significant amount of property damage" in one action, during which "two responding police officers and a security guard were assaulted and suffered injuries."
However, JTAC noted that it is "highly unlikely" that Palestine Action would ever "advocate for violence against persons."
"Any such call for action would constitute a significant escalation" of Palestine Action's "strategy and intent," the report states.
At least 138 people have been charged with terrorism offenses under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, which bans displays of symbols or wearing clothing that "arouse reasonable suspicion that [a person] is a member or supporter of a proscribed organization."
The Terrorism Act has long been condemned by civil liberties defenders, who decry the law's "vague and overbroad" definition of terrorism, chilling effect on free speech and expression, invasive stop-and-search powers, pre-charge detention and control orders, sweeping surveillance and data collection, and other provisions.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested during demonstrations of support for Palestine Action—mostly organized by the group Defend Our Juries—since the group's proscription, including nearly 900 attendees of a September 6 rally in London's Parliament Square.
Many of those arrested did nothing more than hold up signs reading: "I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action."
Arrestees include many elders, including 83-year-old Rev. Sue Parfitt, who argued that "we cannot be bystanders" in the face of Israel's US-backed genocide in Gaza, which has left more than 237,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, hundreds of thousands more starving by design, and around 1 million others under the threat of imminent ethnic cleansing as Israeli forces move to conquer and occupy the coastal strip.
"I know that we are in the right place doing the right thing," said Parfitt, who was arrested at a July 6 Defend Our Juries protest in Parliament Square against the terror designation for Palestine Action.
Last week, two Metropolitan Police officers speaking under condition of anonymity said they felt guilty and ashamed of having to arrest peaceful Palestine Action supporters.
“Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists," one of the officers told Novara Media, "we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children’s lives."
Sep 12, 2025
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After 'Years of Neglected Oversight,' House Votes to Repeal Authorization Used by Presidents to Wage 'Forever Wars'
Almost exactly 24 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US House of Representatives voted Tuesday to finally repeal a pair of more than two-decade-old congressional authorizations that have allowed presidents to carry out military attacks in the Middle East and elsewhere.
In a 261-167 vote, with 49 Republicans joining all Democrats, the House passed an amendment to the next military spending bill to rescind the Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in the leadup to the 1991 Persian Gulf War and 2003 War in Iraq.
The decision is a small act of resistance in Congress after what the Quincy Institute's Adam Weinstein described in Foreign Policy magazine as "years of neglected oversight" by Congress over the "steady expansion of presidential war-making authority."
As Weinstein explains, these AUMFs, originally meant to give presidents narrow authority to target terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and use military force against Saddam Hussein, "have been stretched far beyond their original purposes" by presidents to justify the use of unilateral military force across the Middle East.
President George W. Bush used the 2002 authorization, which empowered him to use military force against Iraq, to launch a full invasion and military occupation of the country. Bush would stretch its purview throughout the remainder of his term to apply the AUMF to any threat that could be seen as stemming from Iraq.
After Congress refused to pass a new authorization for the fight against ISIS—an offshoot of al-Qaeda—President Barack Obama used the ones passed during the War on Terror to expand US military operations in Syria. They also served as the basis of his use of drone assassinations in the Middle East and North Africa throughout his term.
During his first term, President Donald Trump used those authorizations as the legal justification to intensify the drone war and to launch attacks against Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria. He then used it to carry out the reckless assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.
And even while calling for the repeal of the initial 2001 and 2002 authorizations, former President Joe Biden used them to continue many of the operations started by Trump.
"These AUMFs," Weinstein said, "have become like holy writ, documents frozen in time yet endlessly reinterpreted to justify new military action."
The amendment to repeal the authorizations was introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
Meeks described the authorizations as "long obsolete," saying they "risk abuse by administrations of either party."
Roy described the repeal of the amendment as something "strongly opposed by the, I'll call it, defense hawk community." But, he said, "the AUMF was passed in '02 to deal with Iraq and Saddam Hussein, and that guy's been dead... and we're now still running under an '02 AUMF. That's insane. We should repeal that."
"For decades, presidents abused these AUMFs to send Americans to fight in forever wars in the Middle East," said Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) shortly before voting for the amendment. "Congress must take back its war powers authority and vote to repeal these AUMFs."
Although this House vote theoretically curbs Trump's war-making authority, it comes attached to a bill that authorizes $893 billion worth of new war spending, which 17 Democrats joined all but four Republicans Republicans in supporting Wednesday.
The vote will also have no bearing on the question of President Donald Trump's increasing use of military force without Congressional approval to launch unilateral strikes—including last week's bombing of a vessel that the administration has claimed, without clear evidence, was trafficking drugs from Venezuela and strikes conducted in June against Iran, without citing any congressional authorization.
Alexander McCoy, a Marine veteran and public policy advocate at Public Citizen, said, "the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs" are "good to remove," but pointed out that it's "mostly the 2001 AUMF that is exploited for forever wars."
"Not to mention, McCoy added, "we have reached a point where AUMFs almost seem irrelevant, because Congress has shown no willingness whatsoever to punish the president for just launching military actions without one, against Iran, and now apparently against Venezuela."
In the wake of Trump's strikes against Iran, Democrats introduced resolutions in the House and Senate aimed at requiring him to obtain Congressional approval, though Republicans and some Democratic war hawks ultimately stymied them.
However, Dylan Williams, the vice president of the Center for International Policy, argued that the repeal of the AUMF was nevertheless "a major development in the effort to finally rein in decades of unchecked use of military force by presidents of both parties."
The vote, Williams said, required lawmakers "to show where they stand on restraining US military adventurism."
Sep 11, 2025
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Volunteer Doctors Describe How Israeli Troops 'Deliberately Targeted' Gaza Children
"How is it possible that, in this small hospital, four children are lying here with gunshot wounds to the head—all admitted within the past 48 hours?" said one US trauma surgeon.
Sep 15, 2025
International medical professionals who volunteered in Gaza hospitals said they treated more than 100 Palestinian children who were shot in the head or chest by Israeli forces in what appears to be a pattern of deliberate targeting, according to an investigation published Saturday by a Dutch newspaper.
De Volkskrant interviewed 17 doctors and a nurse from the Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and United States who worked in six hospitals and four clinics in Gaza since October 2023. Fifteen of the 17 doctors described treating 114 children under the age of 15 who had a single bullet wound to the head or chest.
Former Royal Netherlands Army Commander Lt. Gen. Mart de Kruif told de Volkskrant's Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra that such wounds mean that the victims were all but certainly shot on purpose.
"Just think about how small the head is compared to the rest of the body," he said. "If you’re seeing a high number of gunshot wounds to the chest area and the head, that’s not collateral damage—that’s deliberate targeting.”
Dr. Mimi Syed, a US emergency physician who volunteered for two four-week rotations at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and al-Aqsa Martyrs Government Hospital in Deir al-Balah, described one 4-year-old victim, a girl named Mira.
“They said she’d been shot by a quadcopter [drone] while walking around in the humanitarian zone declared by Israel," Syed told de Volkskrant. "I was told to just let her die by my colleagues. The assessment was, unfortunately, that there wasn’t much we could do. But she was still moving a little bit. She was very young. A little girl. I just couldn’t look away. There was something in her face that struck me. So I took a chance.”
Working with colleagues, Syed saved Mira. Seeing so many similar injuries, she thought: "I have to document this. I realized—these are war crimes.”
Syed documented 18 children with single-shot wounds to the head or chest.
Mira, a Palestinian girl from Gaza, survived a single gunshot wound to her head. (Photo: Dr. Mimi Syed via de Volkskrant)
Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a 43-year-old California trauma surgeon, described his first day volunteering at European Hospital in Gaza in March 2024. Sidhwa—who has previously described seeing children as young as 3 years old being deliberately targeted in numerous interviews and his own writing—told de Volkskrant that he saw four boys under age 10 with identical head wounds within 48 hours of his arrival.
"I thought: What the hell?" he said. "How is it possible that, in this small hospital, four children are lying here with gunshot wounds to the head—all admitted within the past 48 hours?"
Over the following 13 days, Sidhwa saw nine more children with similar single gunshot wounds to the head and chest by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, who pride themselves on being some of the world's best-trained marksmen. Israel and the US have frequently described the IDF as the "most moral army" in the world.
"I started to wonder if my hospital was near some crazy sniper," he said. "Or a drone team killing children just for fun."
Numerous previous investigations have documented IDF soldiers deliberate targeting of Palestinian children in Gaza. In July, the BBC examined the cases of more than 160 Palestinian children who were shot by IDF troops in Gaza and found that in 95 cases, the child was shot in the head or chest.
"Some of the cases we looked at like children were allegedly shot while fleeing battle zones, but many others were shot while playing outside their tents in humanitarian zones and some in areas the IDF themselves had marked as evacuation corridors," BBC noted.
IDF officials deny that Israeli troops deliberately target children and have even claimed that Hamas may be shooting them in a new iteration of the age-old blood libel against Jews. Israeli and US officials have also claimed that hundreds of Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza not because of Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian relief but because Hamas is stealing the aid—even as IDF officers have refuted the theft allegations.
Israeli troops have admitted to being ordered to shoot to kill "anyone who enters" a so-called "kill zone" in central Gaza, including children.
Other IDF whistleblowers have described orders to open fire on Gazan civilians including children with live bullets and artillery at aid distribution centers.
“We’re killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs," one IDF officer said earlier this year. "We’re destroying their houses and pissing on their graves.”
One IDF soldier even boasted online about how "fun" it is to kill Palestinian children, while another is heard saying in a video uploaded to social media that “we are looking for babies, but there are no babies left"—so instead "I killed a girl that was 12."
Yet another IDF soldier proudly claimed: “I just went to Gaza, and there were two little girls playing football. So, what did I do? I took my weapon and shot them in the head.”
Operating under loosened rules of engagement that effectively permit the killing of an unlimited number of civilians when targeting even a single low-ranking Hamas member, Israeli troops have killed more than 20,000 Palestinian children and disabled over 21,000 others in Gaza since October 2023, according to Gaza officials, United Nations agencies, and international humanitarian groups.
The use of artificial intelligence to rapidly select targets, as well as dropping fragmentation, incendiary, and 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs—many supplied by the US—has exacerbated the civilian casualty crisis and contributed to an unprecedented surge in amputations, often performed without anesthesia.
So many wounded Gazan children have also been orphaned that medical professionals have coined a grim new acronym to describe them: WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family.
According to Gaza and United Nations officials, more than 1,500 medical professionals have also been killed in Gaza since October 2023, many of them while working, including the paramedics who were killed while trying to rescue Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old girl massacred along with six relatives while trying to flee to safety last year.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are also being deliberately starved in a US-backed Israeli war of conquest and occupation that is increasingly viewed by the world as genocidal, and that has left at least 238,500 Gazans dead, maimed, or missing. Last week, former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi acknowledged that Israel has killed or wounded 10% of Gaza's pre-war population of approximately 2.2 million.
Early in the war, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called Gaza “the world’s most dangerous place to be a child.” Last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time added Israel to his so-called “List of Shame” of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts.
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'Just Kill Em': Fox News Host Endorses Giving Homeless People 'Involuntary Lethal Injection'
"Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder," said one healthcare advocate.
Sep 14, 2025
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade is facing calls to resign after suggesting earlier this week that the state should execute homeless people who decline help during a live broadcast.
Kilmeade made the comments during a Wednesday episode of Fox & Friends, during which the panel discussed the recent shocking video of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a mentally ill homeless man, which has ignited a flurry of often racist vitriol on the right toward Black Americans and homeless people.
Another of the hosts, Lawrence Jones, claimed that the government has "given billions of dollars to mental health, to the homeless population," but that "a lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary."
Jones continued: "You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you, or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now."
Kilmeade then interjected with his suggestion that instead of jail, they should be given "involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill 'em."
As one X user noted, Jones and co-host Ainsley Earhardt, "[didn't] even blink an eye" in response to this call for mass murder.
While the claim that homeless people often "refuse" abundant services is a common talking point, it is not borne out by data. According to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2023, more than three-fourths of direct service providers reported that they were forced to turn away homeless people due to staffing shortages.
But even in cases where homeless people are offered services—such as temporary shelter beds—and decline them, they often do so not because they prefer to be on the street but because shelters are often overcrowded and poorly maintained, or have restrictive rules that require them to separate from their families, pets, and belongings.
When homeless people are offered permanent shelter, they are comparatively much more likely to accept it. According to one 2020 study from UC San Francisco, 86% of "high-risk" chronically homeless people given access to permanent supportive housing were successfully housed and remained in their housing for several years, a much higher rate than those given temporary solutions.
But as Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, "Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder."
Kilmeade's calls to execute the homeless were met with horror and disgust from advocates. Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, called for Kilmeade to resign.
“It is dangerous. It shows a lack of human compassion and it is really the worst possible time for that kind of language to be expressed,” Whitehead told the Irish Star.
Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC, noted in The Independent that Kilmeade's comments come as the Trump administration "is proposing government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums" to house the homeless.
In August, the president launched a crackdown against homeless encampments in DC that advocates say has left hundreds of people with nowhere to go and dependent on overwhelmed city services. Meanwhile, his administration and recent Republican legislation have introduced massive cuts to housing funding for homeless people across the United States.
“America’s homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. These Fox hosts are calling for mass murder—it’s sick.”
Kilmeade apologized for his comment on Sunday, describing it as an "extremely callous remark.” There is no indication from Fox News that Kilmeade will be subject to any disciplinary action over his remarks, which critics found noteworthy given the punishments other figures in mainstream media have faced for saying far less.
Photojournalist Zach D. Roberts pointed out that earlier this week, MSNBC fired contributor Matthew Dowd for criticizing the "hateful" and "divisive" rhetoric of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk shortly after he'd been assassinated.
"On MSNBC, a contributor got fired for lightly criticizing Charlie Kirk," Roberts said. "Meanwhile, on Fox News, Brian Kilmeade calls for the murder of homeless people for being homeless. Nothing has happened to him. I don't know if there can be a more obvious divide in politics."
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RFK Jr.'s Vaccine Panel May Restrict Covid-19 Shots for Those Under 75, Citing Unverified Death Reports
"They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people," said one doctor Kennedy fired from the panel.
Sep 13, 2025
Health officials working under Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may seek to restrict access to the Covid-19 vaccine for people under 75 years old.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the officials plan to justify the move by citing reports from an unverified database to make the claim that the shots caused the deaths of 25 children.
The reports come from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a federal database that allows the public to submit reports of negative reactions to vaccines. As the Post explains, VAERS "contains unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences with vaccines submitted by anyone, including patients, doctors, pharmacists, or even someone who sees a report on social media."
As one publicly maintained database of "Batshit Crazy VAERS Adverse Events" found, users have reported deaths and injuries resulting from gunshot wounds, malaria, drug overdoses, and countless other unrelated causes as possible cases of vaccine injury.
As Beth Mole wrote for ARS Technica, "The reports are completely unverified upon submission, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff follow up on serious reports to try to substantiate claims and assess if they were actually caused by a vaccine. They rarely are."
Nevertheless, HHS officials plan to use these VAERS reports on pediatric deaths in a presentation to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) next week as the panel considers revising federal vaccine guidelines.
One person familiar with the matter told the Post that HHS officials attempted to interview some of the families who claimed their child died from the vaccine, but it is unclear how many were consulted and what other information was used to verify their claims.
In June, Kennedy purged that panel of many top vaccine experts, replacing them with prominent anti-vaccine activists, after previously promising during his confirmation hearing to keep the panel intact.
The Food and Drug Administration under Kennedy has already limited access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Last month, it authorized the vaccines only for those 65 and over who are known to be at risk of serious illness from Covid-19 infections.
While the vaccine is technically available to others, the updated guidance has created significant barriers, such as the potential requirement of a doctor's prescription and out-of-pocket payment, making it much harder for many to receive the shot.
The Post reports that ACIP is considering restricting access to the vaccination further, by recommending it only for those older than 75. It is weighing multiple options for those 74 and younger—potentially requiring them to consult with their doctor first, or not recommending it at all unless they have a preexisting condition.
Prior to the wide availability of Covid-19 vaccinations beginning in 2021, the illness killed over 350,000 people in the US. And while the danger of death from Covid-19 does increase with age, CDC data shows that from 2020 to 2023, nearly 47% of the over 1.1 million deaths from the illness occurred in people under 75.
According to the World Health Organization, the US reported 822 deaths from Covid over a 28-day period in July and August this year, vastly more deaths than anywhere else in the world. CDC data reported to ACIP in June shows that Covid deaths were lower among all age groups—including children—who received the mRNA vaccine.
Nicole Brewer, one of the vaccine advisers eliminated by Kennedy, lamented that Kennedy and his new appointees are ignoring the dangers of Covid-19 while amplifying the comparatively much lower risk posed by vaccines.
"They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people," she told the Post. “The U.S. government is now in the business of vaccine misinformation.”
ACIP is also reportedly mulling the rollback of guidelines for other childhood vaccines for deadly diseases like measles, Hepatitis B, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
While ACIP's guidelines are not legally binding, the Post writes that its meeting next week "is critical because the recommendations determine whether insurers must pay for the immunizations, pharmacies can administer them, and doctors are willing to offer them."
"If you haven't gotten your updated Covid vaccine by now, book an appointment fast before next week's ACIP meeting," warned Dr. David Gorski, the editor of the blog Science-Based Medicine. "After that, you might not be able to get one."
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