SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

* indicates required
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Opinion
Climate
Economy
Politics
Rights & Justice
War & Peace
MAGA makes its ugly priorities clear at the RNC
Further

Send Them Back: These People Are Hateful Human Locusts

Sorry, but much like your kids' projectile vomiting - remember it? - the them-and-us vitriol spewing from a crumbling, raving Grand Wizard and his Nazi-adjacent minions still persists in a "disinformation maelstrom" aimed at Fake News, "dumb women," raping-and-dog-eating "vile animals," windmills that "aren't wind," and Dems doing gender transition surgery on kids at recess as he pot-kettle-calls Bob Woodward, reporting on his Putin love-fest, "an angry little man, truly demented and deranged." Pleasemake it stop.

Trump's rancid word-salad has gotten so garbled even the both-sides New York Times finally deigned to write about it. Starting with the by-now-common lunatic moment when Trump claimed the audience "went crazy" for him at the Harris debate where there was no audience, they broke the shocking news it wasn't the only time he's seemed "confused," noting, "He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought," (sic) which are often incoherent, half-finished, or "factually fantastical." How does he ramble? Let us count the ways. Sharks, boats, Hannibal Lecter, his "beautiful" beach body, his "wide margin" in the polls, Komrade Kamala paying for “transgender operations on illegal aliens,” his "great day in Louisiana" which was in Georgia, his fear "North Korea is trying to kill me" though he meant Iran and his imaginary dystopian hellhole of an America where you can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped by immigrants "living in those hotels and laughing at our soldiers."

Wednesday, the Times undid whatever meager good they may have done with a breezy piece on Trump's rallies - "freewheeling performances full of jokes and audience participation," presumably like shrieking "Send Them Back!" - to help readers see his "themes." WTF NYT? We wonder what "themes" they'd uncover in his call for a new Muslim ban, his plan to imprison people who oppose the overturning of Roe v Wade as well as climate protesters for up to 10 years, his strategy on Iran - "Hit the nuclear button first, that's what it's for, and worry about the rest later" - his "stunningly stupid," The Purge-like public safety idea for "one really violent day" - "and I mean real rough" - and "the word will get out and it will end immediately." He also said JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon endorsed him (not), charged migrants "are ripping down and burning our shopping centers," and mused about a fly at the podium: "I wonder where the fly came from? Two years ago, I wouldn’t have had a fly up here. We can’t take it any longer.”

Not just the crazy is escalating; so is the stomach-churning misogyny. Color us shocked. Fishing for any schoolyard diss that comes into his mean wee brain, the accomplished Kamala Harris is "stupid," “low IQ,” "mentally disabled," "a bad person": "Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way." The master of projection on his debate loss: "We had a woman debating. She just talked about, like, the birds and the bees. She didn’t talk about...when you asked a question, there was never an answer...It's all lies. Everything she says is lies." The sexual predator on Roe v Wade: "And the women thing - they'll understand I did a great thing." The ultimate, infantalizing patriarch on a choice-free future: "I will be your protector. You will no longer be thinking about abortion.” On The View's hosts who welcomed Harris: They're “degenerates” and "dumb women." The ugly bottom line from women who know and want better than his "thoroughly stifling" 19th century vision of womanhood: "The truth is, he hates all of us."

Most grotesquely, the racism is spiraling, gushing, curdling, ever more vicious. Brown-skinned migrants are “vermin,” "foreign jihad sympathizers," "not humans," and "infesting" America, says the blood-and-soil eugenicist who's openly embraced Nazi race science: "I'm proud to have that German blood." "Murder is in a person’s genes, and we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now," he says. "American girls are being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens." His last Wisconsin rally featured huge photos of three people killed by undocumented migrants - two stabbings, one meth-crazed car crash - and banners urging, “Deport Illegals Now!" Each day, a local right-wing site helpfully highlights those "horrific" crimes by non-citizens, declaring, "Every state is a border state." Trump vowed to "liberate Wisconsin from the mass migrant invasion" of what he called "stone-cold killers and monsters" wanting to “rape, pillage, thieve, plunder and kill the people of America." The crowd roared, "Send them back!"

Of course the lunatic nadir of this racist frenzy was in Springfield, Ohio where, Trump famously declared during the debate, "They're eating the dogs!" Improbably for a party boasting puppy-murdering Kristi Noem and a Project 2025 author who killed a neighbor's dog with a shovel, the fictional story proved wildly popular: Incorporating the key "they are taking from us" concept, it extends the migrant threat to a blood libel against beloved pets, a perfect, wrenching parable of American decline. After the tale prompted 33 bomb threats against schools and terrified Haitians, city officials repeatedly insisted there is "no evidence" of said pet-eating by what are legal Haitian migrants revitalizing the economy, and a Haitian advocacy group filed seven charges against the idiotic Vance and Trump's "aggravated menacing" - after that, Miss Sassy Pants, the missing Maine Coon cat who started the insanity, emerged uneaten from a few days' nap in the basement of MAGA owner Anna Gilgore, who's likely leery of her new black neighbors - we love the poorly educated! - but apologized to them anyway.

Of course the return of Miss Sassy Pants did nothing - we also really love alternative facts! - to stem the flood of vile immigrant demonizing at the core of Trump's otherwise entirely hollow campaign. The bonkers, brazenly false claims that migrants are to blame for all of America's ills still rage: They've “unleashed a deadly plague of migrant crime," they're draining social services, trying to vote, making housing expensive, taking jobs, bringing fentanyl, boosting inflation - all ugly fiction. Often, state and local officials take their purported leader's malevolent lead and run with it. Arizona is furiously combing voter rolls to look for illegal voters; so far they've found 97,688, but they're all old, white Republicans. Ohio's Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski asked constituents to report nearby homes with yard signs for Harris, aka "the Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena"; that way, when they arrive in the neighborhood, he'll know where to direct the perpetrators of the "migrant crime wave," aka the "illegal human locusts.”

He has much deplorable company. Louisiana GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, a failed ex-cop and David Duke fan who argued the FBI brought feds to Jan. 6 on "ghost buses" and once filmed a selfie inside an Auschwitz gas chamber, called the Haitians "wild thugs" and “slapstick gangsters” from "the nastiest country in the western hemisphere" who needed to "get their ass out of our country.” He later deleted the post, but when confronted he dug in. "It's all true," he squawked. "We do have freedom of speech - I’ll say what I want. It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life." Jasmine Crockett had a word; so did Hakeem Jeffries, calling Higgins "an election-denying, conspiracy-peddling racial arsonist - this is who they've become. Still, fellow Louisiana Nazi MAGA Mike defended "the gentleman": "Look, he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down...But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here."

They also believe in mass deportation so fervently they won't let facts - like Miss Sassy Pants is fine, thanks - get in the way of their racist narrative. Vance, who also blames kids' car seat rules for bringing down American birth rates (don't ask), never apologized for starting the Springfield furor, but he did pivot to attack the media: “Did you ever think about listening to people instead of harassing them...Listening to people speak their truth?" (Weirdo Scumbags 'R Us). Meanwhile Trump, whose enduring daddy issues spark outbursts like, "THE WORLD IS LAUGHING AT US AS FOOLS, THEY ARE STEALING OUR JOBS AND OUR WEALTH. WE CANNOT LET THEM LAUGH ANY LONGER,” has lumbered ahead with rants about the "beautiful little town (he's never seen) taken over by 32,000 illegal immigrants" - though they're legal and it's about 10,000 - who will be "the first rounded up...That's a terrible thing that happened. They've gotta get much tougher. We’re gonna get these people out. You have to get them the hell out."

Weeks ago, he said he was going to deep, dark Springfield. "You may never see me again, but that’s OK. I gotta do what I gotta do," he said. "'What ever happened to Trump? Well, he never got out of Springfield." (Cue Gary Larson's Far Sidecartoon of a dog trying to lure a cat into a washing machine with a scribbled "Fud" sign as he mutters, "Oh please, oh please...") After both the GOP mayor and governor said it'd be "fine" if he didn't visit, Trump instead descended on Charleroi, Penn., another now-"totally different place" with another "foreign invasion" he promptly "warped and weaponized." Seething about "the cruelty Kamala Harris has inflicted" with "thousands and thousands of migrants from the most dangerous places on earth," Trump seethed, "You have to get 'em the hell out." Again, local officials pushed back, noting it's 700-800 Haitians and they've really helped rebuild their post-Covid economy. The Manager Joe Manning: “There’s what the former president is saying, and then there’s easily observable reality."

Regrettably, the former president is wholly uninterested in observable reality, which is why he's doggedly charging on with his plan for "the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen." Appropriately, key to this dystopian, despicable initiative to deport over 10 million people is dystopian, despicable Stephen 'Goebbels' Miller, whose last project of brutally separating screaming babies from their distraught mothers at the border and/or putting them all in cages we all remember so fondly. Reportedly using as a model Eisenhower's infamous, deadly Operation Wetback to push migrants back into Mexico, a vast militaristic venture using trucks, planes and cargo ships later compared to slave ships, Miller giddily envisions a nationwide “detain-and-remove strategy”; for this noble cause, he will build enormous prison camps, each housing up to 70,000 immigrants, that he excitedly boasts will be "greater than any national infrastructure project in American history" - a vision one former DHS official likens to "Schindler’s List."

In this election season, the loathsome Miller has been popping up in interviews to confirm he's implausibly grown ever more vile. This week, he inexplicably appeared on Fox to offer "vomit-inducing" dating tips to other white supremacist ghouls. (Please don't ask). Last month, he had an on-camera hissy fit after NTN24 reporter José María del Pino challenged numbers he was spouting to support his claim that Venezuela is now safer than the U.S. after sending all their criminals here, a theory based on a debunked story about Venezuelan gangs taking over a Colorado apartment complex. As the Venezuelan-born del Pino kept asking, "Are you trusting the figures of the dictatorship?" Miller got redder, and louder, and burst. “I am trusting the fact (Harris) is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children,” shrieked the reviled-by-his-family descendant of immigrants. "CHILDREN ARE BEING RAPED AND MURDERED!" Del Pino: "Why are you yelling?" Miller stalked off. Only the best people.

Clutching at the only sorry facsimile of a "policy" he has - hatemongering and scapegoating poor people of color (along with Dems) for everything wrong in the world - Trump continues to play the vicious race card. The details can vary: In a recently unearthed audio from an August fundraiser in Colorado, he unleashes, for bootlickers willing to pay up to $500,000 to listen to it, a foul tirade claiming Democratic Republic of Congo officials just dropped 22 newly released prison inmates into the U.S - a charge the DRC flatly denies. In his supposed encounter with the supposed former inmates, "We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’. ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your fucking business.'" "You know why? Because they're murderers," he sneered. "These are the toughest people, coming in from (all) the bad parts, the parts where they’re rough, and the only thing good is they make our criminals look extremely nice." He only left out one exquisite bit of the supposed story: He flew in on Jeffrey Epstein's former jet.

From Bob Woodward's new book - he's suing him - it also transpires that as "president" and in the face of 1,125,000 American deaths from COVID he was secretly talking with and gifting Daddy Putin much-needed tests. Vance in response to outrage: "Is there something wrong with engaging in diplomacy?" So many lies, so little time. At a Pennsylvania rally, he bragged of his "beautiful" rallies, “We never have an empty seat, look at it.” Cue video of half-empty arena. At a Michigan rally, non-auto-worker yahoos wore Auto Workers For Trump shirts. At a flamboyant return to Butler, "this hallowed place" where his ear was grazed - "This man cannot be stopped," "In a true miracle God saved him" - he honored "our beautiful Corey" who died instead though he's joked about him. Then he lied about Dems: "They impeached me, indicted me tried to throw me off the ballot (and) maybe even tried to kill me. We have a very sick world." No wonder "undecided" voters look bewildered when asked about his "policies."

Because, per Paul Krugman, "The Trump campaign rests entirely on denouncing things that aren’t happening," he has now turned to another "firehose of lies" about the federal response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which he obviously calls "the worst ever." The lurid charges mount: Biden was at the beach, "they" control the weather, "they" only care about diversity not disasters, "they" stole all the FEMA money "so they could give it to illegal immigrants to vote for them" - which it turns out is what Trump did as president to fund migrant detentions; he also repeatedly, repulsively tried to deny disaster funds to blue states. A furious Biden pushed back - "He's lying" - as did peeved GOP pols demanding an end to "completely false" MAGA lies dangerously obstructing recovery efforts, and, again, observable reality.. They are in fact "deeply appreciative" of feds who are "working quickly," "working well," "a great team effort" and doing a "superb" job. Trump on the other hand, notes The Liberal Redneck, stays busy "tellin' lies and stirrin' shit."

And whining: 60 Minutes "must be investigated!" for their "FAKE NEWS SCAM" of editing Harris' interview, like every interview on every show, to make her look “more Presidential"; it's also "a major Campaign Finance Violation." "TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE!' he screeched. "An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems (should) concede the Election? WOW!” Yes, wow. He's also making windmill word salad - "The wind is bullshit" - trashing Detroit in Detroit - "Fuck this guy"- and as usual grifting. Having claimed the economy is so bad nobody can afford bacon - "the stomach is speaking" - he's launched a $100,000 Trump Victory Tour watch - "These watches are truly special" - and a $600-ish “Fight Fight Fight” watch - "Don’t wait, they will go fast!" He's also hawking crypto - AI needs a lot of electricity? with brilliant Barron as “DeFi visionary”? - and of course his $59.99 “God Bless the USA” Bible, which is not only selling fast in Oklahoma but, it turns out, is made in China. For under $3. Get your patriotic Chinese Bibles here. Don't wait, they will go fast.

O God who avenges, shine forth. - Psalms 94:1-2.

“God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time (to) judge every deed.” - Ecclesiastes 3:17

SEE ALL
Hurricane Milton victims
News

'Reckless Conduct' of Big Oil Caused Milton—And Now They Should Pay

As Hurricane Milton's 145 mile-per-hour winds began closing in on Southwest Florida on Wednesday and people crowded into makeshift shelters across the state, climate advocates and other observers said the life-threatening storm and massive disruption to millions of people's lives should make Americans "furious" at those who have helped make extreme weather more frequent and dangerous.

As Nathan J. Robinson wrote in Current Affairs, climate scientists and meteorologists have unequivocally told oil companies and policymakers that fossil fuel extraction is causing planetary heating, which has led to higher temperatures in oceans and bodies of water including the Gulf of Mexico, where the rapidly strengthening hurricane formed.

But despite the knowledge that fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil and Shell had decades ago that drilling for oil and gas would cause "violent weather" and "potentially catastrophic events," the industry's profits have only grown as the U.S. has continued to subsidize their pollution-causing activities.

"The failure by our political class to deal with this completely solvable issue is staggering and shameful," wrote Robinson. "Many of them have children and grandchildren. Presumably they would like their descendants to inherit a world worth living in. And they could make that happen. Unfortunately, it would require challenging the power and profits of some of America's most influential corporations."

In the Substack newsletter Heated, Arielle Samuelson explained on Wednesday how fossil fuel extraction and planetary heating "mutated" Hurricane Milton, which stunned weather experts this week as its wind speeds grew at a record-breaking pace, from 60 miles per hour to 180 miles per hour in just 36 hours.

It was the second time in recent weeks that a hurricane in the region has intensified quickly; areas that are expected to take a direct hit from Milton are still overwhelmed by the destruction left by Hurricane Helene.

Hot temperatures in the planets' oceans and gulfs fuels hurricanes, and as Samuelson noted, scientists say the "extremely hot" Gulf of Mexico "was made far more likely by heat-trapping pollutants from the fossil fuel, agriculture, chemical, and cement industries."

She continued:

In the past two weeks, ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 30-31° Celsius (86-88°F)—about 1 to 2° Celsius above average. The climate crisis made these extraordinarily high ocean temperatures at least 400 to 800 times more likely over the past two weeks, according to a rapid attribution study from Climate Central.

[...]

The science is also extremely clear that heat-trapping pollution causes sea-level rise and heavier rainfall, both of which make hurricanes more dangerous. Rainfall rates for tropical cyclones are expected to rise with the planet's temperature, causing deadly flash floods like those found in Asheville, North Carolina. Sea level rise also means that coastal communities, and communities further inland, are more likely to be flooded during a storm.

That's an objectively scary reality. But we know the primary source of greenhouse gas pollution, scientists note, so we also know how to slow the problem.

The lingering destruction of Helene and the impending landfall of Milton come, noted Fossil Fuel Media director Jamie Henn, weeks after three Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to require fossil fuel companies and oil refiners that do business in the U.S. to pay into a $1 trillion Polluters Pay Climate Fund, with their contributions based on a percentage of their global emissions.

The fund would be used to finance climate adaptation and other efforts to confront the impacts of the climate crisis.


In a press briefing on Wednesday, President Joe Biden noted how the damage done by Helene and the rapidly evolving news about Milton has left overwhelmed Americans vulnerable to misinformation, with some urging them to direct their anger at the White House or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made baseless claims that FEMA funds were spent on funding for immigrant shelters, while U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on social media that an unnamed "they" can control the weather and suggested the federal government is deliberately keeping emergency aid from people in states controlled by Republicans.

As fossil fuel firms and political leaders march "us toward the tipping points," wrote Robinson, "many people won't understand what is happening to them."

"In a chaotic information environment filled with endless falsehoods, they'll conclude that the president is manipulating the weather, or FEMA is trying to kill people," he wrote. "The real story, however, is straightforward: We have a political class that is vastly more committed to sending weapons to war criminals than funding emergency management, and which will not acknowledge the basic facts of the problem (and the known solutions) because some large economic actors benefit in the short run from the destruction of the planet."

"Truly, it's revolting," he added. "What an absolute disgrace our failure to deal with climate change is."

Candice Fortin, U.S. campaigns manager for 350.org, said that fossil fuel executives and the politicians that support them have "blood on their hands" and called on Biden to unequivocally stand on the side of hurricane victims by declaring a climate emergency.

"This is a climate emergency," said Fortin. "Every time we repeat that, countless more lives have been lost or upended by the fossil fuel industry. How many more times will it take? We call on President Biden to use his executive power to declare a climate emergency so we can finally protect frontline communities."

At Newsweek, organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg wrote that oil companies' contributions to the climate emergency have been compounded by their vast efforts to spread misinformation and hide their knowledge that fossil fuel extraction was heating the planet.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods, he wrote, pushed for a surge in the company's extractive activities while "overseeing a substantial portion of the company's climate deception efforts," and received $198.9 million for his "climate crimes" from 2015-23, as well as owning Exxon shares worth $371.1 million.

"Regular people are paying the ultimate price for this sociopathic greed," wrote Regunberg. "The families made homeless, the wives and husbands and parents and children who lost loved ones to Helene—these victims deserve justice no less than victims of street-level crimes, and the companies and corporate executives responsible for their pain and suffering deserve criminal punishment at least as much as, if not far more than, the average street-level offender."

"Climate victims have paid so much for Big Oil's reckless conduct," he added. "It's time to make the polluters pay."

SEE ALL
Dockworkers strike
News

Dockworkers Suspend Strike After Winning Tentative Deal With 62% Wage Boost

The union representing East and Gulf Coast dockworkers suspended its strike on Thursday after reaching a tentative agreement with shipping giants that reportedly includes a 62% wage boost over six years.

The International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) said in a joint statement with the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) that the union would suspend its strike until January 15 so the two sides can "return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues."

"Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume," the statement added.

The tentative deal followed three days on the picket line during which dockworkers—who are essential to the functioning of the U.S. economy—cast their fight as a critical struggle against multinational corporations that raked in huge profits during the Covid-19 pandemic and enriched their investors as wages failed to keep pace with inflation.

“These companies... they don't give a fuck about us," Harold Daggett, the ILA's president, said from a picket line in New Jersey earlier this week. "Well, we're gonna show them they're gonna have to give a fuck about us. Because nothing's gonna move without us."

According to one estimate, the dozens of ports affected by the strike handle a combined 25% of the United States' international trade.

The Associated Pressreported Thursday that the two sides reached a tentative deal after "the ports sweetened their wage offer from about 50% over six years to 62%."

The union originally sought a 77% raise, but in recent days Daggett said the ILA would pursue a 61.5% raise for workers over the course of a new contract. Daggett rejected the shipping industry's previous wage offers as "insulting."

"Congratulations to ILA members for making huge strides and thank you to the millions of union members who stood in solidarity with them."

Under the contract that expired earlier this week, starting pay for dockworkers was $20 an hour.

Any final agreement must be ratified by union members, who also demanded protections from automation and other benefit improvements. Reutersreported that automation is among the "key issues that remain unresolved."

"When we STRIKE, we WIN!" the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest federation of unions, wrote on social media late Thursday. "Congratulations to ILA members for making huge strides and thank you to the millions of union members who stood in solidarity with them."

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also congratulated "the 50,000 port workers who went on strike against the outrageous corporate greed of the shipping industry and won a historic increase in wages."

"Billionaires in the shipping industry must not be allowed to get even richer by replacing port workers with robots," the senator wrote.

Sanders added that Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su "did a great job negotiating a tentative agreement to increase the wages of port workers by 62% over six years."

The Biden administration declined to intervene on the side of industry to halt the strike, and President Joe Biden issued a statement earlier this week noting that "ocean carriers have made record profits since the pandemic and in some cases profits grew in excess of 800% compared to their profits prior to the pandemic."

"Executive compensation has grown in line with those profits and profits have been returned to shareholders at record rates," said Biden. "It's only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages as well."

In a statement following news of the tentative deal, Biden said that "today's tentative agreement on a record wage and an extension of the collective bargaining process represents critical progress towards a strong contract."

"I congratulate the dockworkers from the ILA, who deserve a strong contract after sacrificing so much to keep our ports open during the pandemic," the president said. "And I applaud the port operators and carriers who are members of the U.S. Maritime Alliance for working hard and putting a strong offer on the table."

SEE ALL
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh
News

Trump White House Limited 'Sham' FBI Kavanaugh Probe, Senate Report Confirms

"Our suspicions are confirmed," said one veteran women's rights advocate on Tuesday after a U.S. Senate report was released on former Republican President Donald Trump's suppression of a federal probe into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) released a report after an investigation that he said took six years to complete due to a lack of access to Federal Bureau of Investigation correspondence and officials, but that ultimately revealed the Trump White House "exercised total control over the scope" of the FBI's investigation into allegations that Kavanaugh had committed sexual assault.

The report was released as U.S. voters in some states have already begun heading to the polls to vote in the 2024 election, in which Trump is running for a second term.

Whitehouse launched his investigation in 2018 after Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court—a major victory for the far right as it sought to gut federal abortion rights, which the justices did in 2022. Kavanaugh's confirmation followed allegations of sexual assault made by Christine Blasey Ford, who testified at an explosive hearing, and Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of the judge.

A supplemental background investigation into Blasey Ford's allegations was begun by the FBI in response to the allegations, but the probe failed to uncover corroborating evidence for Blasey Ford's claims—a fact that several senators cited when explaining why they voted to confirm Kavanaugh despite the accusations against him.

Whitehouse's report found that the supplemental background investigation was "flawed and incomplete"—criticisms that were shared by Democratic senators and rights advocates at the time—and furthermore, that Trump's claim that the FBI would have "free rein" over the probe was a "sham."

"The Trump White House exercised total control over the scope of the investigation, preventing the FBI from interviewing relevant witnesses and following up on tips. The White House refused to authorize basic investigatory steps that might have uncovered information corroborating the allegations," reads the report, titled Unworthy of Reliance.

The report confirms that the FBI received more than 4,500 calls and electronic messages about Kavanaugh, but on instructions from the White House, officials forwarded the tips to the Trump administration "without investigation."

"If anything, the White House may have used the tip line to steer FBI investigators away from derogatory or damaging information," said Whitehouse.

The report found that the FBI interviewed only 10 people before concluding the supplemental background investigation on October 4, 2018, two days before Kavanaugh was confirmed by an historically narrow margin.

The people interviewed by the FBI had "firsthand knowledge of the allegations," but agents did not speak to "the witnesses potentially with the most firsthand knowledge"—Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh.

"Sometimes having what you know confirmed doesn't make it better," said Ilyse Hogue, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, now called Reproductive Freedom for All. Hogue and other reproductive justice advocates sounded the alarm in 2018 that the FBI's probe was "a total joke" that "disregarded women."

With the Trump administration circumscribing the FBI investigation and prohibiting officials from following up on leads, said Whitehouse, "senators cast their vote on the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee credibly accused of sexual assault by multiple women on the basis of a truncated and incomplete investigation about whose scope the senators had been misled."

Debra Katz, a lawyer for Blasey Ford, applauded Whitehouse's probe and called for the Office of the Inspector General at the FBI to investigate the "sham" that took place in 2018.

"The congressional report published today confirms what we long suspected: The FBI supplemental investigation of then-nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh was, in fact, a sham effort directed by the Trump White House to silence brave victims and other witnesses who came forward and to hide the truth," said Katz and Lisa Banks, another attorney who represented Blasey Ford.

Whitehouse said his investigation showed how the FBI's supplemental background investigation process "can be easily manipulated," and "would benefit from greater transparency."

"The FBI and White House should implement clear, written procedures that apply uniformly to the conduct of supplemental
background investigations—or at least to situations like the Kavanaugh nomination, where major allegations of misconduct surface after a nominee's initial background investigation is complete," reads the report. "Only then can the Senate be assured that a supplemental background investigation is used to gather rather than suppress information."

SEE ALL
An Amazon delivery driver carries boxes
News

With NLRB Complaint, Amazon Drivers 'One Step Closer' to Conditions They Deserve

Weeks after the National Labor Relations Board ruled that retail giant Amazon is a joint employer of its delivery drivers and is legally obligated to bargain with their union, the board on Wednesday issued a formal complaint, saying the company "failed and refused" to negotiate with the Teamsters to secure a contract for the workers.

The company acted illegally, says the complaint, when it terminated its contract with Battle-Tested Strategies, a contractor that employs the drivers, after they unionized.

The complaint also accuses Amazon of making "unlawful threats and promises," holding anti-union captive audience meetings, discouraging union activities by delaying employee start times and increasing workplace inspections, and refusing to share information with the union.

Amazon has until October 15 to respond to the complaint, or the NLRB will prosecute the company before an administrative law judge in March 2025.

"Amazon wants to reap the benefits of drivers' labor without having to take on any of the responsibility for their well-being—and those days are over," said Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien. "This decision brings us one step closer to getting Amazon workers the pay, working conditions, and contracts they deserve. Amazon has no choice but to meet us at the negotiating table."

In August the NLRB concluded an investigation and found that although Amazon employs the drivers through a contractor, it exerts sufficient control over the workers to be considered their employer under federal labor law.

"Amazon can no longer hide behind its DSP [Delivery Service Partner] program to skirt responsibility for its driver workforce," said Bryant Cline, an Amazon driver and member of the Teamsters Local 396 union in Palmdale, California, which 84 drivers voted to join last year. "Today's decision by the labor board makes official what we've long known to be true—DSP drivers are Amazon employees, and we have a fundamental right to organize, unionize, and demand fair treatment and a contract from our multibillion-dollar employer."

Also on Wednesday, more than 100 delivery workers at a warehouse in San Francisco voted to join their local Teamsters union.

"The Amazon Teamsters movement grows bigger and stronger every day and will not be stopped," said the union. "Amazon workers: this is our moment."

SEE ALL
A European boy in a video set in 2040 asks, "What were you doing during this genocide, grandpa?"
News

Video From 2040 Begs This Question of Gaza Genocide in 2024: 'What Did You Do to Stop It?'

To mark this week's anniversary of Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza—which has killed, maimed, displaced, starved, and sickened millions of Palestinians with no end in sight—Palestine defenders shared a video set in the year 2040 in which children around the world ask their elders, "What were you doing during this genocide?"

The video—which is reportedly linked to the Turkish government—was reposted by prominent international figures including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, and U.S. peace activist Medea Benjamin.

The clip shows the world commemorating Gaza in ceremonies, museums, and films, with kids asking their grandparents questions like, "What were you doing during this genocide?" and "Did you just watch it?" as the elders hang their heads in shame at images of slain and suffering Palestinian children.


The video ends with a message that fades from, "The genocide committed by Israel is killing Palestinians" to, "The genocide committed by Israel is killing humanity."

Benjamin called the video "haunting." Husam Zomlot, Palestine's ambassador to the United Kingdom, hailed it as "powerful." British author Jonathan Cook lamented that "yes, we watched hundreds of thousands of children being killed, maimed, and starved—and we just kept watching."

Varoufakis posted: "'Where were you,' they will be asking us, 'when this was happening? What did you do to stop it?'"

Erdoğan included a lengthy message with the video as he shared it on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

"Israel's long-standing policy of genocide, occupation, and invasion must now come to an end," he wrote. "It should not be forgotten that Israel will sooner or later pay the price for this genocide that it has been carrying out for a year and is still continuing."

"Just as [Nazi leader Adolf] Hitler was stopped by the common alliance of humanity, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his murder network will be stopped in the same way," Erdoğan continued. "A world in which no account is held for the Gaza genocide will ever find peace."

He added that Turkey "will continue to stand against the Israeli government, no matter what the cost, and call on the world to take this honorable stance."

Turkey has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel's Gaza onslaught. The country officially supports the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. In 2024, the Turkish government halted direct trade with Israel over its invasion of Rafah, although commerce continued via third countries including Greece.

However, the Turkish government has also been criticized for not doing enough to support Palestine despite its scathing anti-Israel rhetoric. Some critics also noted the hypocrisy of Turkey vocally condemning Israel's genocide in Gaza while denying the 1915-17 Turkish genocide against Armenians in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire.

SEE ALL