LIVE COVERAGE
Bomb Bomb Iran: Idiot Mob Boss Declares Wack Victory
As evidence mounts the reckless, illegal, peace-through-stupidity attack on Iran's nuclear sites did not in fact "OBLITERATE" them and could be perilous, the moronic man-child lurches, rages, yammers on with deranged declarations - THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT! CNN is scum! Prosecute Dems! - duly parroted by his rabid flunkies: "Wave American Flags!" Still, they go lower and crasser: Who had a juvenile White House resurrecting Vince Vance & The Valiants' Bomb Iran on their Clown Show Bingo Card?
After Israel finally got a U.S. president dumb enough to bomb Iran if they did - and to take his Very Serious strategic geo-political leads from what Fox News was saying - the TV-game-show-host-in chief who'd always wanted to be in a war as long as he didn't have to, you know, be in it violated U.S. and international law by launching strikes on Iran's three largest nuclear sites without legally mandated Congressional approval to do so, probably after both Israel and Iran went to him with tears in their eyes and said, "Please sir, you're the only one who can save us." Then, with only early, flimsy reports coming in, he swiftly proclaimed it "ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY" and a "PERFECT FLIGHT" and "total Obliteration for years and years" by "genius people in the military" and "it was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and STOP THE WAR!” Uh huh
After declaring a yuge fake victory, he declared a yuge fake ceasefire - which he evidently thought was like pressing the button on the Resolute Desk for Diet Coke, or like Michael Scott in The Office yelling, "I declare bankruptcy!" - by announcing that both Iran and Israel, now that they'd "gotten it all out of their 'system,'" had agreed to “a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” that would lead to “an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR." He excitedly added, "CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, ITS TIME FOR PEACE!" (No, really, he did.) "THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT! DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
The announcement, "friendly plane wave" and all, took not just Israel and Iran but his own advisers by surprise, probably because the so-called leader of the free world is a batshit crazy, power-mad, 12-year-old living in a fever dream reality show who thinks saying something, no matter how delusional, makes it so. It didn't. Iran promptly said, "As of now, there is NO ‘agreement’ on any cessation of military operations." Israel, despite all those impressive CAPS, promptly dropped a load of bombs that the ignored, enraged ringmaster for the 7,846th time called "the likes of which I've never seen before." "Israel has to calm down," he testily told reporters. "These are two countries fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing" - a blaring pot/kettle allusion that most of the sentient world savagely noted and mocked, but he somehow missed.
Still, reality came calling. Emerging assessments - from U.S. intelligence, European leaders, media like The Financial Times, New York Times, CNN - found the attacks did less-than-obliterating damage, likely only setting back the nuclear program a few months and leaving the stockpile "largely intact.” Evidence, including photos of trucks lined up the day before removing uranium enriched material to unknown sites, suggest Iran knew the attacks were coming. Other questions linger: Maybe Fordow wasn't a major site, maybe the bombs didn't go deep enough to inflict serious damage, etc. Meanwhile, Iran charged the U.S. had "crossed a very big red line," suspended cooperation with nuclear watchdog agencies, and, experts say, may have decided to move ahead with a nuclear weapon having learned that diplomacy is "reversible, fragile and vulnerable to changes in leadership in Washington."
With the rest of us now facing what Gestapo Barbie calls "a heightened threat environment" thanks to a clusterfuck regime of clowns who make Dr. Strangelove look like a statesman, the inept juvenile who failed at casinos, steak, water, wine and now war just keeps blustering: "The sites (were) totally destroyed and everyone knows it," "It's called obliteration. No other military on Earth could have done it," "an unbelievable hit by genius pilots," "It’s gone for years, years. Inside, it’s all collapsed. Nobody can get in. It's a room that has ten million tons of rock in it." Also, he gloated, it was just like Hiroshima: "That hit ended the war. And this was essentially the same thing.” Finally, for any lingering doubts or discomfiting facts, blame "Fake News," with ZERO CREDIBILITY!” who are "scum....They're bad people. They're sick," including a CNN reporter who should be "thrown out 'like a dog."
Puffed up, he also urged the trial of fellow felon Netanyahu be "CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY" to save a "Great Hero," because America "saved" Israel and "now it is going to be the United States of America that saves" Bibi." At NATO, he tolda head-swiveling, wildly under-reported story about Iran asking if it was OK they shoot 14 retaliatory missiles at the U.S. military base in Qatar at 1 o'clock. "They were very nice," Trump burbled. "They gave us warning...I said it's fine," despite America's alleged commander-in-chief agreeing to be bombed sure sounds like treason to us. "I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done...There will, hopefully, be no further HATE." He also sagely explained that everyone was taken off the base "except the gunners - they call them the gunners." At his side, Marco Rubio looks like Homer Simpson trying to melt into bushes.
Still, lacking alternatives, the minions have gamely climbed on board. Press Barbie screeched the attack was an "overwhelming success - everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets," but spent more time trashing a CNN reporter who suggested it wasn't. Drunken Pete, even angrier and more unhinged, proclaimed the strikes "the most complex and secretive military operation in history" - except how Iran knew about them and D-Day's Allied invasion of France took a year's planning, 156,000 soldiers, 195,700 navy personnel, and the cooperation of 13 nations - and launched a furious diatribe for an audience of one against mean media for seeking accurate information, aka "hunting for scandals," insulting Dear Leader and "brave pilots," and trying to "manipulate the public mind" rather than "talk about how special America is" and "Wave an American flag." What a belligerent asshole.
Trump loved it, praising "one of the greatest, most professional, and - running out of adjectives besides "beautiful" and "strong" - most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" Less entertainingly, he simply ignored diverging assessments of the U.S. intelligence community - a move former CIA Director Leon Panetta called "a very scary prospect" - dismissed the whistleblower who leaked them as a “low-level loser” while "declaring a war on leakers," announced he will (illegally, irrationally) limit classified information he shares with Congress despite no evidence the leaks came from Congress, the next day charged Dems leaked the information and "they should be prosecuted!" - this from the idiots who leaked actual war plans on Signal - and jabbered that the photos of trucks lined up at nuclear sites were those of "concrete workers trying to cover up the tops of the shafts." Say what?
Improbably, even without SCOTUS madness, it keeps getting weirder and worse. After NATO Sec. General Mark Rutte made a cringe joke about Trump as "Daddy," MAGA picked up and ran with the grotesque "Daddy" shtick: The White House posted a "Daddy's home" video, Fox giddily smirked that, thanks to those cool, pointless big-boy bombs being dropped, Republicans are "back to being the Daddy party - he gets things done," hideous orange Daddy merch instantly materialized. The final, puerile, demented abomination (for this week), like something from The Whitest Kids U' Know: He posted a 1995 parody video of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann by Vince Vance & The Valiants called Bomb Iran: "Went to a mosque/ Gonna throw some rocks." Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. His country's stunned response: "Bro, how the fuck is this real?" Honestly, we have no idea.
Fury as Trump Puts Tens of Millions of Protected Forests on the Chopping Block
A top Trump official on Monday announced a plan to end a rule that protects tens of millions of acres in the National Forest System and which would clear the way for road development and timber production on those lands—news that elicited alarm from conservation and environmental groups.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that the Trump administration plans to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which has for decades protected 58.5 million acres of forests from timber harvesting and road construction.
Rollins called the rule overly restrictive and added that the move "opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation's forests. It is abundantly clear that properly managing our forests preserves them from devastating fires and allows future generations of Americans to enjoy and reap the benefits of this great land."
The environmental law group Earthjustice took issue with wildfire prevention being used to justify the rollback.
"While the Trump administration has suggested that wildfire risk is an underlying reason for these sweeping policy changes, rolling back the roadless rule actually threatens to cause more fires. That's because fire ignitions are far more likely in roaded landscapes," said Drew Caputo, the group's vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife, and oceans, in a statement on Monday.
Rollins made the announcement at the annual meeting of the Western Governors' Association. Hundreds of protestors gathered outside of the building where the event was taking place in Santa Fe, New Mexico in order to denounce efforts that might lead to federal public lands being privatized, according to The Associated Press.
The roadless rule covers areas including the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture codified a regulatory framework that exempted Tongass from the roadless rule. Former President Joe Biden undid that change while he was in office.
Idaho and Colorado have adopted state roadless area rules that supersede the boundaries of the federal roadless rule boundaries for those states, according to the USDA's website, which appears to mean that not all of the 58.5 million acres would be impacted if the Trump administration goes through with this change.
"The roadless rule is one of the country's conservation success stories, safeguarding singular natural values across nearly 60 million acres of America's great forests," said Garett Rose, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Great Outdoors Campaign Director Ellen Montgomery at Environment America similarly said that "the roadless rule is the most effective conservation rule on the books at protecting mature and old-growth forests."
"Once again, the Trump administration is ignoring the voices of millions of Americans to pursue a corporate giveaway for his billionaire buddies. Stripping our national forests of roadless rule protections will put close to 60 million acres of wildlands across the country on the chopping block," said Sierra Club's forest campaign manager, Alex Craven, in a statement on Monday. "That means polluting our clean air and drinking water sources to pad the bottom lines of timber and mining companies—all while pursuing the same kind of mismanagement that increases wildfire severity."
Caputo at Earthjustice made some of these same points and indicated his organization is ready to sue over the move. "If the Trump administration actually revokes the roadless rule, we'll see them in court," he said.
The move follows a March executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump directing Rollins and the secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior to take steps to increase timber production.
Tax the Rich, Cut Corporate Fraud: Khanna Details Progressive Path to Trim Deficit by $12 Trillion
As congressional Republicans push a megabill that would add an estimated $2.4 trillion to the national debt while giving lavish tax breaks to the rich and gutting anti-poverty initiatives for the working class, Congressman Ro Khanna on Tuesday unveiled a progressive plan to cut the deficit by $12 trillion and enable investment in "essential programs for ordinary Americans: childcare, universal healthcare, affordable housing, free college, student debt cancellation, advanced manufacturing, and good-paying jobs."
The California Democrat's Progressive Deficit Reduction Plan, introduced in a report and floor speech, has five recommendations to cut spending: modernize the military ($850 billion), get rid of upcoding and fraud in Medicare Advantage ($830 billion), negotiate Medicare drug prices ($200 billion), end fossil fuel subsidies ($170 billion), and implement smarter procurement and contracting ($333 billion).
"There is absolutely no reason Americans should pay two to four times more for prescriptions than people in Canada, Germany, or the U.K."
Khanna's proposal points out that the Pentagon—which has a budget of nearly $1 trillion—has never passed an audit, and that getting ripped off by contractors is an issue not only at the Department of Defense but across the federal government. The document also emphasizes the need to crack down on fraud involving Medicare Advantage and argues that "there is absolutely no reason Americans should pay two to four times more for prescriptions than people in Canada, Germany, or the U.K."
On the fossil fuel front, the plan says that "we shouldn't be paying polluters to give our kids asthma and fleece the American public," and highlights that ending subsidies would not only save billions each year but also prevent 6 billion tons of carbon pollution.
The plan doesn't just advocate for spending cuts, it also features a trio of recommendations for generating revenue: tax corporations fairly ($2 trillion), tax billionaires ($4.7 trillion), and protect Social Security ($2.9 trillion).
Specifically, Khanna's proposal "restores the domestic corporate tax rate to 28%, collects international corporate taxes, closes loopholes like carried interest, and adds a 0.01% financial transaction tax." He also wants to make billionaires pay taxes on their wealth and loans on it, close inheritance loopholes, restore the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, reinstate Internal Revenue Service funding to go after tax cheats, and remove a cap that allows them to pay into the program at a fraction of the rate that most working-class Americans pay.
Khanna, who is expected to run for president during the next cycle, also contrasted his plan with the budget reconciliation package currently moving through the GOP-controlled Congress. His report asserts that the Republican legislation is "not fiscal responsibility—it's a giveaway to the wealthy that sticks future generations with the bill."
In addition to increasing the deficit, the report says, "their bill risks driving up prices, pushing interest rates even higher, and making our tax code more convoluted. It could shake market confidence and ultimately drag down long-term economic growth—all while doing less for working families."
"Do they think Americans can't do the math? We can—and we know their numbers don't add up. Ours do," the document declares, laying out all of the figures for the next decade in a chart on the final page.
The congressman's blueprint—which resembles watchdog Public Citizen's January report responding to President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency—comes as Senate Republicans consider the controversial megabill recently passed by the House of Representatives.
On Tuesday, GOP leaders in the upper chamber sent their House counterparts a list of policies "that need to be erased" from the package, according toPolitico.
"If the flagged items aren't deleted, the bill won't enjoy special party-line treatment in the Senate and the filibuster would be enforced for passage of the 'big, beautiful bill' Republicans want to enact this summer," the outlet detailed. "In response, House GOP leaders plan to tee up a vote this week to nix specific provisions the Senate parliamentarian has identified as rule violations."
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear GOP Effort to Further Gut Campaign Finance Law
The Supreme Court is taking up another Republican legal case seeking to erode campaign finance law and give more power to the wealthy donors seeking to influence elections.
On Monday, the court agreed to hear a challenge to campaign finance restrictions w limit the ability of party committees to directly coordinate spending with individual candidates. The anti-corruption group Public Citizen argues that this provision was put in place to "guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions."
The challenge was brought by the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, as well as the 2022 campaigns of two Ohio Republican congressmen: former Sen. JD Vance, who has since become vice president, and former Rep. Steve Chabot, who lost his re-election bid in 2022.
The case seeks to overturn rules implemented in the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971, which put strict limits on the ability of party committees to spend money in coordination with specific candidates. The Democratic National Committee will defend the rule before the court after filing a motion to intervene.
The rules were put in place, in part, to stop wealthy donors from using parties to get around rules about coordinating individual spending with candidates.
Under current law, how much coordinated spending parties can undertake is limited by the population of the state or district in question. At most, parties can coordinate nearly $4 million worth of spending for a single Senate candidate and $127,200 for a single House candidate.
The Republicans bringing the challenge have argued that the limits on coordinated spending violate the First Amendment.
The Campaign Legal Center, which has argued before the court against weakening these rules, has described them as a powerful bulwark against corruption.
"Since the party coordinated spending limits were enacted in the 1970s, these limits have checked the corruptive effect of large contributions flowing through party committees to candidates and prevented the quid pro quo exchanges that such contributions would otherwise facilitate," they wrote last year in a policy page arguing against the GOP challenge.
"Because the limits allow political parties to spend only a prescribed amount of their money in direct coordination with a candidate," the Campaign Legal Center continued, "they moderate the risk that a party committee could effectively pass on every big donation—or six-figure check collected via joint fundraising—to the donor’s chosen candidate in the form of coordinated expenditures."
"This case has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with Republicans' obsession with creating a government by and for billionaires," said Brett Edkins, a spokesperson for the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America.
In 2001, the Supreme Court upheld coordination limits in another case brought by Republicans: FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee.
In that case, often described as the Colorado II decision, the majority ruled 5-4 that "a party's coordinated expenditures, unlike expenditures truly independent, may be restricted to minimize circumvention of contribution limits."
Since then, however, the Supreme Court has helped the Republican Party chip away at laws that kept powerful donors in check.
Most notably, in the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC case, they ruled that political spending is a form of protected speech and that individuals could spend unlimited amounts of money influencing the election process, so long as it was not directly coordinated with candidates and instead done through "independent expenditure only" committees, more commonly known as super PACs.
"In the 15 years since the Supreme Court's abysmal Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate and billionaire campaign spending, the corruption of American politics has gone from bad to worse," said Jon Golinger, a spokesman for Public Citizen.
Despite the supposed wall of separation, most candidates now rely on super PACs for large amounts of their political communication and organizing. In 2015, a report by Public Citizen titled "Super Connected" found that 45% of super PACs spending over $100,000 directed that spending toward a single candidate.
The amount of election-related corporate spending directed to these largely unaccountable entities has exploded in recent years. According to OpenSecrets, outside spending reached an unprecedented $4.5 billion in the 2024 election, compared with just $555 million in 2008, the last presidential election year before Citizens United.
The top three individual spenders—the Mellon family, Elon Musk, and the Adelson family—spent a combined $369 million to help Donald Trump win the presidency.
"The right-wing supermajority on the Court already dismantled decades of campaign finance protections in Citizens United, and now they’re poised to gut what few remain, inviting billionaires to bankroll candidates through political parties with no limits," Edkins said.
Jayapal Slams ICE for Targeting Law-Abiding 'Moms, Dads, Grandparents'—Not Criminals
Progressive U.S. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on Thursday hosted a "shadow hearing" on Immigration and Customs Enforcement's targeting of asylum-seekers, families, relatives of American citizens, and other law-abiding people for deportation—policies and practices that belie President Donald Trump's claim that his administration would focus on removing undocumented criminals.
Jayapal (D-Wash.)—the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Integrity, Security, and Enforcement and an immigrant—convened the panel, called Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump's Weaponization of Immigration Courts. The shadow hearing "examined the disturbing trend of broad efforts to erode access to legal services and due process in immigration proceedings, especially as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been targeting immigrants showing up for legal proceedings—following the requirements set for them by courts."
"These actions are a direct attack on the legal immigration system and the people who are trying to follow all the legal steps."
A sampling of the more than 65,000 people arrested by ICE since Trump reentered office in January reveals people including a beloved resident of a staunchly pro-Trump town, a decorated combat veteran, a child with cancer, anti-genocide protesters, and a woman with an American husband and child who's lived in the U.S. for nearly 50 years.
While the Trump administration claims that "3 in 4 arrests were criminal illegal aliens," most people caught up in Trump's mass deportation drive have no criminal records or have only committed minor offenses including traffic violations. According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 65% of people taken by ICE had no criminal conviction whatsoever and 93% had no conviction for violent offenses.
"Republicans like to talk about how they support immigrants who quote 'do things the right way,'" Jayapal said during the hearing. "Now that they control Congress and the White House, they should be putting their money where their mouth is and ensuring that the legal immigration process remains open to those who pursue it—but that's not what's happening."
HAPPENING NOW: I’m hosting a shadow hearing on Trump’s undermining of due process.ICE is ramping up arrests at immigration courthouses, attacking the legal immigration system, and generating enormous fear in communities across America.Tune in now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqVC...
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— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) June 26, 2025 at 5:44 AM
"They have arrested people at their citizenship interviews, their check-in appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and increasingly, at immigration court," Jayapal continued. "These actions are a direct attack on the legal immigration system and the people who are trying to follow all the legal steps."
"These actions only serve to make the immigration system even more chaotic and unjust than it already is," she added. "Just when you think this administration cannot sink any lower, they get out a shovel and keep digging."
House Democrats Judy Chu (Calif.), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Sylvia Garcia (Texas), Glenn Ivey (Md.), Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr. (Ga.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Mark Takano (Calif.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) took part in Thursday's hearing.
Speakers on Jayapal's panel included retired immigration judge A. Ashley Tabaddor, National Immigrant Justice Center policy director Azadeh Erfani, Acacia Center for Justice chief of staff Bettina Rodriguez Schlegel, andImmigrant ARC interim director of programs Gillian Rowland-Kain.
Trump, Stephen Miller, and Tom Homan are arresting as many immigrants as possible — moms, dads, grandparents.ICE isn’t going after the “worst of the worst” like Trump promised. They’re disappearing asylum seekers, families, and relatives of citizens — many with no criminal record.
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— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) June 26, 2025 at 9:31 AM
"Due process in a courtroom means that every part of the system functions fairly and in concert. That requires an independent judge, a level playing field, and a safe, accessible forum for all participants," Tabaddor said. "Yet noncitizens have no right to appointed counsel—even in life-or-death matters."
"Now, the Trump administration claims that immigration judges are effectively at-will employees, directly undermining their independence," she continued. "At the same time, immigration courts are being transformed into enforcement zones, deterring participation and eroding public trust."
"As a former judge, I can tell you: When even one part of the machine breaks—when judges are undermined, when legal support disappears, or fear keeps people from appearing—the entire system collapses," Tabaddor added. "And when that happens, it doesn't just fail immigrants. It fails all of us."
Erfani said: "Nothing is off the table for ICE to meet Trump's arrest quotas and build the largest mass detention system in recorded history. First, they took away all legal services so no one could represent themselves. Next, they raided the courts and took away access to judges. And lately, they have set traps at ICE check-in appointments, where individuals with pending cases trying to comply with their proceedings are shackled and disappeared into remote jails."
"As ICE tramples all semblance of due process and the rule of law, they are terrorizing our communities," she added.
Rodriguez Schlegel noted how "the Trump administration's attacks on due process have upended the lives and futures of our families, neighbors, and friends."
"In addition to the profound impact on our communities, ending legal access programs has further exacerbated the limited capacity of the immigrant legal services field," she said. "Alongside our inspiring network of legal service provider partners, we will continue to fight for these lifesaving programs to be restored so that families, children, and adults aren't forced to navigate our country's increasingly dehumanizing immigration system alone."
"As ICE tramples all semblance of due process and the rule of law, they are terrorizing our communities."
Stressing that "this is more than a policy shift," Rowland-Kain called the Trump administration's actions "a coordinated effort to sideline due process and deport people without giving them the opportunity to present their case."
"What should have been a space for due process is instead a site of fear," she said. "Masked and armed federal agents are arresting and intimidating people who attend court. Volunteers and attorneys are being surveilled. Every day, our members are in those courtrooms—often the only ones there to stand beside immigrants facing an unjust system. We will continue to do our work and to push back."
Israel's 'Weaponization' of Food Is a 'War Crime': UN
After more than 20 months of Israel using a blockade on humanitarian aid as a "method of war," as one leading human rights group said earlier this month, the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday that Israel-backed aid operations have also amounted to a "weaponization of food"—and constitute a war crime.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at least 410 Palestinians have now been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while trying to retrieve food aid from distribution points set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israel-backed group staffed by U.S. security forces.
The GHF has been opposed by the U.N. and humanitarian groups that have long served Palestinians in Gaza, with advocates warning the group's plan to require civilians to travel on foot across the war-torn enclave to retrieve food boxes at hubs guarded by the IDF violates basic principles of neutrality in humanitarian aid.
Thameen Al-Keetan, spokesperson for the OHCHR, said that after nearly a month in operation, the U.N. has determined that the "militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism is in contradiction with international standards on aid distribution."
"The weaponization of food for civilians, in addition to restricting or preventing their access to life-sustaining services, constitutes a war crime and, under certain circumstances, may constitute elements of other crimes under international law," said Al-Keetan.
The statement came after at least 51 Palestinians were killed at aid sites in the IDF's latest attacks on Tuesday. The killings were among those that brought the total death toll of Israel's assault on Gaza, which has been called a genocide by leading experts and human rights groups, past 56,000.
"Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food."
While the GHF's food boxes are "leaving unaddressed the critical needs of those who have so far survived," according to the latest update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), hundreds of Palestinians have been either "shelled or shot" by the IDF while trying to reach GHF hubs.
Numerous reports have surfaced of Israeli soldiers shooting at crowds of Palestinians when they have deviated from "designated access routes" or moved toward the IDF at GHF distribution points.
At least 3,000 Palestinians have also been injured in attacks while trying to access aid.
"Desperate, hungry people in Gaza continue to face the inhumane choice of either starving to death or risk being killed while trying to get food," said the OHCHR.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Whittall, the head of office in the occupied Palestinian territories for the OCHA, noted that the U.N. and other experienced aid agencies stand ready to provide sufficient humanitarian aid to the enclave's more than 2 million people—1 in 5 of whom were facing imminent starvation last month when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released its latest assessment.
"It is weaponized hunger," said Whittall of the current conditions inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli government. "It is forced displacement. It's a death sentence for people just trying to survive. All combined, it appears to be the erasure of Palestinian life from Gaza."
The U.N. and other aid providers currently rely on Israel to facilitate all humanitarian relief missions, and over the weekend, said the OHCHR, only eight out of 16 operations were approved.
"Half of [the missions] were denied outright, hindering the tracking of water and fuel, the provision of nutrition services, and the retrieval of the bodies," said Alessandra Vellucci, director of information services at U.N. Geneva.
Al-Keetan toldReuters that the legal determination regarding whether Israel is guilty of a war crime related to its reported targeting of civilians at aid sites "needs to be made by a court of law."
South Africa has a case pending at the International Court of Justice regarding its allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, as well as as a Hamas commander who is now dead, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The U.N.'s statements on Tuesday came a day after 15 rights groups wrote to the GHF, warning the privatized group that its contractors working with the IDF risk "aiding and abetting or otherwise being complicit in crimes under international law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide," and could be liable in a court of law in the U.S. or internationally.
"By obliging starving, exhausted Palestinians to walk long distances through militarized zones, or by effectively forcing them to relocate in order to obtain food and aid under a system overseen by Israeli forces and U.S. private military contractors, the scheme creates an immediate risk of forced displacement that may violate the prohibition on forcible displacement of civilians," said the groups, including Al Haq, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
"By instrumentalizing humanitarian aid for political or military ends," said the groups, "the scheme risks rendering its participants complicit in collective punishment, the starvation of civilians, and other acts prohibited under customary international law, the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Genocide Convention."
'We Cannot Be Silent': Tlaib Leads 19 US Lawmakers Demanding Israel Stop Starving Gaza
"This current blockade is starving Palestinian civilians in violation of international law, and the militarization of food will not help."
As the death toll from Israel's forced starvation of Palestinians continues to rise amid the ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege of the Gaza Strip, Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday led 18 congressional colleagues in a letter demanding that the Trump administration push for an immediate cease-fire, an end to the Israeli blockade, and a resumption of humanitarian aid into the embattled coastal enclave.
"We are outraged at the weaponization of humanitarian aid and escalating use of starvation as a weapon of war by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people in Gaza," Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—and the other lawmakers wrote in their letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "For over three months, Israeli authorities have blocked nearly all humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, fueling mass starvation and suffering among over 2 million people. This follows over 600 days of bombardment, destruction, and forced displacement, and nearly two decades of siege."
"According to experts, 100% of the population is now at risk of famine, and nearly half a million civilians, most of them children, are facing 'catastrophic' conditions of 'starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels,'" the legislators noted. "These actions are a direct violation of both U.S. and international humanitarian law, with devastating human consequences."
Gaza officials have reported that hundreds of Palestinians—including at least 66 children—have died in Gaza from malnutrition and lack of medicine since Israel ratcheted up its siege in early March. Earlier this month, the United Nations Children's Fund warned that childhood malnutrition was "rising at an alarming rate," with 5,119 children under the age of 5 treated for the life-threatening condition in May alone. Of those treated children, 636 were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, the most lethal form of the condition.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 4,000 others have been injured as Israeli occupation forces carry out near-daily massacres of desperate people seeking food and other humanitarian aid at or near distribution sites run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israel Defense Forces officers and troops have said that they were ordered to shoot and shell aid-seeking Gazans, even when they posed no threat.
"This is not aid," the lawmakers' letter argues. "UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has warned that, under the GHF, 'aid distribution has become a death trap.' We cannot allow this to continue."
"We strongly oppose any efforts to dismantle the existing U.N.-led humanitarian coordination system in Gaza, which is ready to resume operations immediately once the blockade is lifted," the legislators wrote. "Replacing this system with the GHF further restricts lifesaving aid and undermines the work of long-standing, trusted humanitarian organizations. The result of this policy will be continued starvation and famine."
"We cannot be silent. This current blockade is starving Palestinian civilians in violation of international law, and the militarization of food will not help," the lawmakers added. "We demand an immediate end to the blockade, an immediate resumption of unfettered humanitarian aid entry into Gaza, the restoration of U.S. funding to UNRWA, and an immediate and lasting cease-fire. Any other path forward is a path toward greater hunger, famine, and death."
Since launching the retaliatory annihilation of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 56,531 Palestinians and wounded more than 133,600 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which also says over 14,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Upward of 2 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated a call for a cease-fire deal that would secure the release of the remaining 22 living Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas.
In addition to Tlaib, the letter to Rubio was signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic Reps. Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Henry "Hank"Johnson (Ga.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Chellie Pingree (Maine), Mark Pocan (Wisc.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Paul Tonko (N.Y.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
Biden National Security Adviser Among Those Crafting 'Project 2029' Policy Agenda for Democrats
"Jake Sullivan's been a critical decision-maker in every Democratic catastrophe of the last decade," said one observer. "Why is he still in the inner circle?"
Amid the latest battle over the direction the Democratic Party should move in, a number of strategists and political advisers from across the center-left's ideological spectrum are assembling a committee to determine the policy agenda they hope will be taken up by a Democratic successor to President Donald Trump.
Some of the names on the list of people crafting the agenda—named Project 2029, an echo of the far-right Project 2025 blueprint Trump is currently enacting—left progressives with deepened concerns that party insiders have "learnt nothing" and "forgotten nothing" from the president's electoral victories against centrist Democratic candidates over the past decade, as one economist said.
The project is being assembled by former Democratic speechwriter Andrei Cherny, now co-founder of the policy journal Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and includes Jake Sullivan, a former national security adviser under the Biden administration; Jim Kessler, founder of the centrist think tank Third Way; and Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and longtime adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Progressives on the advisory board for the project include economist Justin Wolfers and former Roosevelt Institute president Felicia Wong, but antitrust expert Hal Singer said any policy agenda aimed at securing a Democratic victory in the 2028 election "needs way more progressives."
As The New York Times noted in its reporting on Project 2029, the panel is being convened amid extensive infighting regarding how the Democratic Party can win back control of the White House and Congress.
After democratic socialist and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani's (D-36) surprise win against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week in New York City's mayoral primary election—following a campaign with a clear-eyed focus on making childcare, rent, public transit, and groceries more affordable—New York City has emerged as a battleground in the fight. Influential Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have so far refused to endorse him and attacked him for his unequivocal support for Palestinian rights.
Progressives have called on party leaders to back Mamdani, pointing to his popularity with young voters, and accept that his clear message about making life more affordable for working families resonated with Democratic constituents.
But speaking to the Times, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake exemplified how many of the party's strategists have insisted that candidates only need to package their messages to voters differently—not change the messages to match the political priorities of Mamdani and other popular progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
"We didn't lack policies," Lake told the Times of recent national elections. "But we lacked a functioning narrative to communicate those policies."
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have drawn crowds of thousands in red districts this year at Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy rallies—another sign, progressives say, that voters are responding to politicians who focus on billionaires' outsized control over the U.S. political system and on economic justice.
Project 2029's inclusion of strategists like Kessler, who declared economic populism "a dead end for Democrats" in 2013, demonstrates "the whole problem [with Democratic leadership] in a nutshell," said Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass—as does Sullivan's seat on the advisory board.
As national security adviser to President Joe Biden, Sullivan played a key role in the administration's defense and funding of Israel's assault on Gaza, which international experts and human rights groups have said is a genocide.
"Jake Sullivan's been a critical decision-maker in every Democratic catastrophe of the last decade: Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Israel/Gaza War, and the 2024 Joe Biden campaign," said Nick Field of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. "Why is he still in the inner circle?"
"Jake Sullivan is shaping domestic policy for the next Democratic administration," he added. "Who is happy with the Biden foreign policy legacy?"
Rick Scott Pushes Amendment to GOP Budget Bill That Could Kick Millions More Off Medicaid
Scott's proposal for more draconian cuts has renewed scrutiny regarding his past as a hospital executive, where he oversaw the "largest government fraud settlement ever," which included stealing from Medicaid.
Sen. Rick Scott has introduced an amendment to the Republican budget bill that would slash another $313 million from Medicaid and kick off millions more recipients.
The latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that 17 million people could lose their health insurance by 2034 as the result of the bill as it already exists.
According to a preliminary estimate by the Democrats on the Joint Congressional Economic Committee, that number could balloon up to anywhere from 20 to 29 million if Scott's (R-Fla.) amendment passes.
The amendment will be voted on as part of the Senate's vote-a-rama, which is expected to run deep into Monday night and possibly into Tuesday morning.
"If Sen. Rick Scott's amendment gets put forward, this would be a self-inflicted healthcare crisis," said Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress.
The existing GOP reconciliation package contains onerous new restrictions, including new work requirements and administrative hurdles, that will make it harder for poor recipients to claim Medicaid benefits.
Scott's amendment targets funding for the program by ending the federal government's 90% cost sharing for recipients who join Medicaid after 2030. Those who enroll after that date would have their medical care reimbursed by the federal government at a lower rate of 50%.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the increased rate in 2010 to incentivize states to expand Medicaid, allowing more people to be covered.
Scott has said his program would "grandfather" in those who had already been receiving the 90% reimbursement rate.
However, Medicaid is run through the states, which will have to spend more money to keep covering those who need the program after 2030.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that this provision "would shift an additional $93 billion in federal Medicaid funding to states from 2031 through 2034 on top of the cuts already in the Senate bill."
This will almost certainly result in states having to cut back, by introducing their stricter requirements or paperwork hurdles.
Additionally, nine states have "trigger laws" that are set to end the program immediately if the federal matching rate is reduced: Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
The Joint Congressional Economic Committee estimated Tuesday that around 2.5 million more people will lose their insurance as a result of those cuts.
If all the states with statutory Medicaid expansion ended it as a result of Scott's cuts, as many as 12.5 million could lose their insurance. Combined with the rest of the bill, that's potentially 29 million people losing health insurance coverage, the committee said.
A chart shows how many people are estimated to lose healthcare coverage with each possible version of the GOP bill.(Chart: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats)
There are enough Republicans in the Senate to pass the bill with Scott's amendment. However, they can afford no more than three defections. According to Politico, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have signaled they will vote against the amendment.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) also said he'd "have a hard time" voting yes on the bill if Scott's amendment passed. His state of West Virginia has the second-highest rate of people using federal medical assistance of any state in the country, behind only Mississippi.
Critics have called out Scott for lying to justify this line of cuts. In a recent Fox News appearance, Scott claimed that his new restrictions were necessary to stop Democrats who want to "give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits," even though they are not eligible for the program.
Scott's proposal has also brought renewed scrutiny to his past as a healthcare executive.
"Ironically enough, some of the claims against Scott's old hospital company revolved around exploiting Medicaid, and billing for services that patients didn't need," wrote Andrew Perez in Rolling Stone Monday.
In 2000, Scott's hospital company, HCA, was forced to pay $840 million in fines, penalties, and damages to resolve claims of unlawful billing practices in what was called the "largest government fraud settlement ever." Among the charges were that during Scott's tenure, the company overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by pretending patients were sicker than they actually were.
The company entered an additional settlement in 2003, paying out another $631 million to compensate for the money stolen from these and other government programs.
Scott himself was never criminally charged, but resigned in 1997 as the Department of Justice began to probe his company's activities. Despite the scandal, Scott not only became a U.S. senator, but is the wealthiest man in Congress, with a net worth of more than half a billion dollars.
The irony of this was not lost on Perez, who wrote: "A few decades later, Scott is now trying to extract a huge amount of money from state Medicaid funds to help finance Trump's latest round of tax cuts for the rich."