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Staircase to Nowhere: MAGA's Crowning Achievement
In a perhaps unprecedented dark time for America and the world, let us take solace in our indomitable Dear Stable Genius, who remains unwaveringly focused on taking care of shiny business: Gold social security cards like Elvis, a $400 million, lopsided shed/ballroom with gaudy columns but no main entrance, and of course gold toilets - which all keeps him so busy he hardly has time to threaten Iran with war crimes. What a time to be alive, barely.
In actual good news, No Kings Day 3.0 drew between 8 and 12 million people, thus hovering tantalizingly close to the 3.5% of a nation's populace historically required to overthrow an authoritarian regime. So good work, patriots. The over 3,000 protests, aka per Mike Johnson "Hate America rallies," ranged from Alaska's Utqiaġvik, the country's northernmost city (7 people) to Ele'ele, Kaua'i, the westernmost, from over 100,000 in New York City to nine stalwarts on Maine's Monhegan Island. Thousands of Trump's neighbors in Palm Beach turned out, ending with a twilight march to Mar-A-Lago, or as close as they could get.
Their signs were brutal: "Elect A Rapist, Expect To Get Fucked. How Many Deaths For the Epstein War? Worst President Since Trump. Criminals Belong Behind Bars, Free Balls for Members of Congress Who Lost Them, Trump Rapes Kids, Impeach Pedolf Shitler, Putin's Bitch, The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. According to The Borowitz Report, Trump, furious about the large protests, argued they'd be much smaller if you subtract all Elon Musk's kids there because they hate him: "People are saying their number (was) much higher than 400, thousands, maybe millions. You take away Elon’s kids and almost no one was there."
There were also "half-dozens to dozens of Americans" at One King co unter-protests, reports The Fucking News, who put the number at "many-ish...Organizers say there were barely any organizers," with attendees ranging from "a tiny number of young people to a die-hard faction of dying people." In Palm Beach, one man carried a heavy sign that read, "Deport the white liberals"; masked to protect himself "against the vindictive left," he said he left soon after he was "attacked" by a woman who denied touching him; her comrades said the guy just dropped his sign "because he was too weak to carry it."
Their small numbers did face competition from "the incredible shrinking CPAC," also meeting that day in Grapevine, Texas with a turnout of "barely thousands." Once a MAGA "center of political gravity," this year's event drew neither Trumps nor presidential candidates. One possible ick factor: MC was (still) CPAC chair Matt Schlapp, who in 2024 settled a pricey sexual misconduct lawsuit from a guy working on Hershel Walker’s (LOL) Senate campaign, who charged Schlapp groped him. The event did boast Todd Chrisley, a reality TV star doing 12 years in prison for massive fraud till Trump pardoned him. Here’s his welcome.
There was also a big contingent of South Korean “stop the steal” activists and supporters of former president Yoon Suk Yeol, impeached last year and now serving life in prison for insurrection. Still, the whole thing was a bit of a slog. Organizers tried to jazz up session subjects - a panel titled "Fraud" became “Ilhan Omar ‘Family’ Values"; Mercedes Schlapp beseeched factions not to "divide from within," which is how you divide; and when Schlapp asked them, the clueless CPAC "crowdette" mistakenly, hilariously cheered the prospect of impeachment proceedings by what could be a newly-Democratic-controlled House. SAD!
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Poor deplorable MAGA. Maybe they're disheartened by Trump's well-deserved plunging approval rating, now at barely 33%. Maybe it's because their regime is such a half-assed shitshow and their people are such self-serving, hypocritical dickwads. As in: Amidst a government shutdown that's seen TSA agents (starting salary $34,454) compelled to work without pay as Congress takes a two-week recess (pay over $170,000) on the taxpayers' dime, TMZ urged readers to send in photos of vacationing pols, and here comes Lindsey Graham at Disney World, “The Most Magical Place On Earth," gaily twirling a Little Mermaid bubble wand yet. America and Megyn Kelly: WTF.
Or maybe it's because Commander-In-Chief Private Bonespurs started another forever quagmire without legal or political justification, and it turns out wars in the Middle East are hard and complex and above his pay grade - like health care! - to solve, and now with no good options he's spewing up only staggering incoherence for strategy, like hailing "great progress" in imaginary "serious discussions" while pivoting to rabidly threatening to "conclude our lovely 'stay’ in Iran" by "obliterating" their civilian infrastructure, electricity, energy and drinking water, which is a war crime. But talks are going “unbelievably well."
Serious discussions with IranImage from Australia's The Shovel
Anyway, his true passion is turning every crass, stupid thing he or Elvis can think of fake gold like the Oval bordello and even Social Security cards, and slathering his repulsive name on structures, coins, currency, and building trashy, illegal monuments to himself like an obscene, unapproved, un-permitted, $400 million ballroom twice the size of the White House, because, "They’ve always wanted a ballroom," except now it's suddenly, "essentially a shed for what goes under it," a massive military complex, presumably a bunker where, as merciful history would have it, he'll finally free us of him, "and we're doing it very well."
He's so ballroom-enraptured that on Air Force One he just pulled out a swath of drawings to show reporters, explaining, "I thought I’d do this now because it’s easier. I’m so busy...fighting wars and other things." Quick mindless pivot to "hand-carved, beautiful, Corinthian columns" - "Corinthian wut" - he's also reportedly re-imagining for the White House facade, a change deemed "at odds with universally held historic preservation standards." Same, experts say of "barely scrutinized" ballroom plans, "riddled with design flaws" - disproportionate, pillars block windows, grand staircase to nowhere. WH lackey on "the best builder in the world": "The American people can rest well knowing this project is in his hands.” We feel better already.
Trump's "plan" for his oversized shed/ballroomImages from New York Times
And then there's his new gold toilet, mounted on a 10-foot throne near the Lincoln Memorial. The new masterwork of Secret Handshake (Best Friends Forever), it celebrates the renovation of the White House Lincoln Bedroom bathroom, all in gold, and "what this President has actually accomplished." The toilet's plaque reads, “In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict, and economic turmoil, President Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom....This, his crowning achievement, is a bold reminder that (he) isn’t just a businessman, he’s taking care of business. It stands as a tribute to an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem, and painted it gold.”
A Throne Fit For a King. Photo from Secret Handshake
Mar 31, 2026
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'Game Over Zeldin': 160+ Climate and Health Groups Say EPA Chief Must Go
A month after President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced what they celebrated as the "single largest deregulatory action in US history," a coalition of over 160 civil rights, environmental, faith, health, and labor groups came together Tuesday to call for the EPA chief's ouster.
Zeldin was confirmed by Senate Republicans and a trio of Democrats just over a week after Trump returned to power in January 2025. The "Game Over Zeldin" coalition, led by the Climate Action Campaign (CAC) and Moms Clean Air Force, argued in an open letter that no other EPA administrator "in history—Democratic or Republican—has so brazenly betrayed the agency's core mission" to "protect human health and the environment."
"Zeldin has dismantled protections that keep our kids, families, and climate safe, and our air and water clean," the letter notes. "He slashed vital funding, gutted agency staff, and has rigged the system to put corporate polluters first, at the expense of our health. Zeldin's EPA has rejected science and health data—and is refusing to count the value of human lives and health—in order to erode commonsense public health safeguards. He has decimated environmental justice programs and hard-fought progress—entirely eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights."
Dominique Browning, director and co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, pointed out in a Tuesday statement that "in just the past few months, he has supported the Trump administration in using taxpayer money to prop up the coal industry; he has made it easier for polluters to spew mercury—a potent neurotoxin that damages the developing brains of babies—into our air and waterways; and he has rolled back the endangerment finding in an attempt to sabotage EPA's ability to cut climate pollution."
The 2009 endangerment finding underpins all federal climate policy. David Arkush of the watchdog Public Citizen—which is also part of the diverse coalition behind the new letter—warned at the time that if allowed to stand, the repeal "will hamstring the government's ability to combat the most terrible environmental threat in human history, harming Americans and the world for decades to come."
Young Americans and a coalition of environmental and public health organizations swiftly filed a pair of lawsuits over the rollback. Another group of 24 states, joined by various US cities and counties, sued last week. The most recent filing is expected to be consolidated with the first coalition's case, according to The New York Times, "making for one of the largest legal challenges to date against the Trump administration's unraveling of federal climate policy."
The new letter stresses the consequences of that unraveling, stating that "because of Zeldin's directives, we will suffer more health-damaging air pollution and be exposed to more toxic chemicals in our homes, in our food, in our products, and in our water. Zeldin's rollbacks will lead to more carbon dioxide and methane pollution that will contribute to worsening climate disasters."
"Families across the country, whether rural or urban, are already struggling with the consequences of Zeldin's actions," the letter adds. "The damage he is doing will span generations. Zeldin is deepening environmental injustices and will leave a terrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."
We refuse to stay silent while Lee Zeldin treats our lives like a line item to be deleted. The EPA is for the people, not polluters. His time is up; Lee Zeldin must go. #GameOverZeldin www.gameoverzeldin.com
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— Physicians for Social Responsibility - National (@psr.org) March 24, 2026 at 12:12 PM
CAC director Margie Alt declared Tuesday that "the wreckage of Lee Zeldin's EPA will be measured in lives lost, jobs destroyed, the costs of illnesses that could have been prevented, and communities devastated. We will be paying the price for decades to come."
"Zeldin ignored science as well as the legal and moral precedent," she said. "Instead, he looked at the numbers and made a choice: He decided that corporate bottom lines matter more than our lives. He decided you and your family are expendable. After a year on the job, it is clear that Zeldin is either unable or unwilling to uphold his oath of office or the EPA's fundamental mission. So let us be clear: Our lives are not expendable. Our health is not expendable. Our climate is not expendable. Lee Zeldin must go."
Other organizations that signed on to the letter include Beyond Plastics, Cherokee Concerned Citizens, Clean Air Council, Clean Water Action, Climate Hawks Vote, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Environmental Protection Network, GreenLatinos, Indivisible Action Coalition, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Service Employees International Union, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and more.
"Administrator Zeldin's established pattern of placing polluter profits above the health and safety of people across the country cannot stand," said UCS president and CEO Gretchen Goldman. "The science establishing harm to human health and the environment from global warming emissions is undeniable. The unprecedented, climate-fueled heatwave a large swath of the United States has been experiencing is only the latest example."
"The public deserves an EPA administrator who will face the challenge of the climate crisis and fossil fuel and toxics pollution head on with proven policy solutions," she argued, "not actively serve as an agent of destruction beholden to the whims of oil, gas, and chemical industry executives and an authoritarian, anti-science US president."
Mar 24, 2026
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Patient Advocates Warn Trump Pharma Tariffs Could 'Drive Up Costs and Create More Uncertainty'
On Thursday, the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's so-called Liberation Day, US advocacy groups sounded the alarm about his new tariffs targeting "patented pharmaceuticals and their ingredients under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to bolster American national security and public health."
The administration announced a year ago that the US Department of Commerce would conduct a related investigation under that law. The resulting report was recently sent to the president, and although the findings have not been made public, Trump's executive order summarizes key takeaways and Secretary Howard Lutnick's recommended actions.
According to the order, the secretary's recommendations included "continuing to negotiate onshoring agreements related to most favored nation (MFN) pharmaceutical pricing agreements; imposing significant tariffs on pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security of the United States; and granting preferential treatment to those companies that commit to onshore production of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients."
Citing an unnamed Trump administration official, The Washington Post reported Thursday that "the White House has reached agreements with 13 drugmakers and expects to soon conclude an additional four." As part of these deals, companies are planning to invest at least $400 billion in new US plants.
The Post also pointed out that "some imported drugs will face much lower tariffs under trade deals Trump negotiated with five US trading partners. Goods from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland will face 15% levies, while drugs from the United Kingdom, which was the first to sign a deal with Trump, will be hit with a 10% tariff."
Thanks to Trump's new order, brand-name pharmaceuticals made in other countries could be hit with tariffs as high as 100%.
Merith Basey, CEO of Patients for Affordable Drugs, warned in a statement that "while these tariffs aim to pressure pharmaceutical corporations into US manufacturing and most favored nation agreements, the current MFN deals remain opaque and voluntary, and have not delivered meaningful savings for the vast majority of American patients. There's a real risk these tariffs will drive up costs and create more uncertainty for millions of patients already struggling to afford their medications."
Experts at Public Citizen, another advocacy group that has sued to expose the secretive MFN agreements, were similarly critical.
"By announcing these tariffs without even producing the evidence from the investigation that supposedly justifies them, Trump is continuing his pattern of grabbing headlines by using the word 'tariff' while engaging in secretive ongoing negotiations and opaque exemptions processes that are ripe for corporate corruption," said Public Citizen Global Trade Watch director Melinda St. Louis—who also wrote a broader takedown of Trump's trade policy published Thursday by Common Dreams.
"While strategic tariffs can be used to support domestic manufacturing and good jobs, they must be paired with real public investments and support for workers' rights, which Trump has systematically undermined," she said. "Instead, he's bullying other countries like the UK into paying more for medicines, which will lead to windfall profits for Big Pharma and do nothing to reduce US prices."
Peter Maybarduk, director of Access to Medicines at Public Citizen, stressed that "Trump's tariffs will be either ineffective or harmful for what people need, which is a reliable, plentiful, affordable supply of medicine."
Also taking aim at the "secretive arrangements that allow Trump to claim specious victories on manufacturing and high drug prices," Maybarduk explained that "in reality, many manufacturing commitments claimed under the deals were part of previously planned projects and the drug pricing commitments appear designed to largely spare drug company profits rather than earnestly address affordability concerns."
"Meanwhile the administration has given drugmakers perks like lucrative vouchers to accelerate FDA review of their medicines and a promise from the Trump administration that it will bully other countries into adopting higher prescription drug prices, using tariffs as leverage," he continued, referring to the Food and Drug administration.
"If the administration wants to fix problems like medicines shortages and fragile supply chains," he argued, "it should focus on real solutions to support more transparent and diverse supply sources and make targeted investments for the supply of key medicines."
Apr 02, 2026
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'Good Riddance,' Say Democrats as Trump Fires Attorney General Pam Bondi
US President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday after reportedly growing frustrated by her failure to pursue his political enemies with sufficient zeal and her handling of the Epstein files.
Trump confirmed in a Truth Social post that Bondi is out as attorney general and will be moving to an "important new job in the private sector." The president said Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, will replace Bondi in an interim capacity as the White House considers its options for a permanent replacement. Lee Zeldin, a Trump loyalist who currently heads the Environmental Protection Agency, has been floated as a leading candidate.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement responding to Bondi's ouster that "she will not escape accountability and remains legally obligated to appear before our committee under oath," referring to a subpoena the panel approved last month.
"Bondi has been leading a White House cover-up of the Epstein files. She has weaponized the Department of Justice to protect Donald Trump and put survivors in harm’s way by exposing their identities," said Garcia. "Oversight Democrats have been leading serious investigations into Bondi and Secretary Kristi Noem. If they think we are moving on because they were fired, they are gravely mistaken."
In her response to the news, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) pointed to Bondi's refusal to apologize to Epstein victims whose identities were exposed in the Justice Department's disclosures, which Democrats said were rolled out and redacted in a way that protected the powerful—including Trump himself.
"Bondi called apologizing to the Epstein survivors getting into the 'gutter,'" Jayapal wrote Thursday. "Good riddance."
Politico reported ahead of Bondi's removal that she "has been under pressure since last summer over her ill-fated handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files inquiry, with even close ally Susie Wiles admitting Bondi 'completely whiffed' her response."
Trump also publicly complained late last year that Bondi was not being aggressive enough in trying to prosecute the president's political opponents.
"Pam," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in September. "I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, 'same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.'"
Following Trump's post, the Justice Department pursued charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, but a federal judge tossed the cases in November.
“No one can be loyal enough. No one can punish Trump’s enemies fast enough," Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said Thursday. "Pam Bondi took the DOJ in a lawless, non-independent, shameful direction, and the institution of justice has suffered as a result. Bondi has trivialized the DOJ, the sanctity of law, and the attorney general position."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) noted that under Bondi's leadership, the Justice Department was "handing out merger approvals as political favors."
"Under AG Pam Bondi, the DOJ became a cesspool of corruption," Warren wrote on social media. "Good riddance."
Apr 02, 2026
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Univ. of Washington Removes Mideast Center Director Who Criticized US-Israeli War on Iran
The University of Washington has removed a professor from his role as director of its Middle East Center after he criticized the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and condemned Zionism, the settler-colonial movement for Jewish hegemony in Palestine.
Aria Fani, who will remain an associate professor at UW’s Jackson School of International Studies, told The Seattle Times on Friday that new interim widirector Daniel Hoffman told him last week he was fired from his leadership role at the Middle East Center.
Fani, who was born and raised in Iran and came to the US when he was 18 years old, said he was hired for his research on Iran. However, he told the Times that he now feels "profoundly hurt and betrayed" by his removal.
"There’s a chilling effect on not just my academic freedom, but that of my colleagues; anyone who dares to speak out against the war and against aggression," he said.
In a separate interview Friday with My Northwest, Fani said he was removed "for improper use" of the center's listserv, an email application.
"I sent out two memos about this atrocious war on Iran in which I offered historical analysis that’s lacking in the media,” Fani said. “I was told that my email made ‘certain constituents feel attacked.’ By certain constituents, I assume the university means Zionists who would like to keep bombing every Middle Eastern country and continue dehumanizing their people.”
Last July Fani told the The Daily UW, a student newspaper, that President Donald Trump's militaristic foreign policy—he's bombed 10 countries, more than any other US leader—is not making the world safer.
“If you tell the dozens of children that were killed in Israeli bombardment... in Iran, or the families of the nuclear scientists who were just wiped out, I hardly imagine they would say that the world is a more peaceful place," he said amid the first round of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran.
Since then, many more Iranian children have been killed by US and Israeli bombing, including more than 100 students who were among around 175 people massacred in the February 28 US cruise missile strike on a girls' school in Minab.
“The [only] peace this secures is for weapons manufacturers, for oil companies, for drone companies," Fani said in an implicit rebuke of Trump's claim to be the "president of peace."
"It secures peace for them, fills their pockets with money, and makes them fully invincible," he added. "It’s creating a class of people that are living [on] an alternate planet."
Fani was a close friend and defender of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish-American UW grad and International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was fatally shot in 2024 while peacefully protesting the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Witnesses said Israeli occupation forces deliberately shot Eygi in the head.
The professor also called Zionism—some of whose founders acknowledged the colonial nature of their endeavor—a "cancerous" ideology.
Fani noted that his removal from his position at the Middle East Center coincided with a recent town hall-style meeting attended by UW President Robert Jones and right-wing media personality Ari Hoffman. According to Fani, Hoffman "specifically asked Jones" about the professor's leadership at the center.
“All we can do is try to remind people of their responsibilities as members of the university community,” Jones said at meeting. “Not trying to tell them that they can’t have a discussion about Palestine or about Israel, but let’s be clear that those discussions need to be had in a way that doesn’t perpetuate an environment where people feel unsafe.”
According to its website, UW's Middle East Center seeks "to strengthen an understanding of the Middle East in all sectors of American society through training and research at the University of Washington, as well as through delivery of outreach programming across the nation."
Fani is one of dozens of US academics who have been fired, had their contracts terminated, lost job offers, or faced other punitive repercussions for advocating Palestinian rights or opposing Israeli policies and practices.
Earlier this week, Shirin Saeidi, who headed the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was terminated for social media posts deemed supportive of Iran's government, despite the fact that the school's Faculty Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure ruled unanimously in February that she should return to her position.
Late last month, Texas State University philosophy professor Idris Robinson sued school officials after he was fired for what he says was his 2024 off-campus lecture in North Carolina titled “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance."
Israel's conduct in Gaza is the subject of an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The ICJ found in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid.
Apr 03, 2026
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AOC Among Lawmakers Saying US Troops 'Must Disobey' Trump Order to Destroy Iranian Civilization
As US lawmakers and the international community registered President Donald Trump's threat to commit genocide in Iran on Tuesday, rights advocates demanded action from Trump's Cabinet, congressional leaders, and the country's European allies to take action—while US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a reminder that the president can be stopped by a lack of action as well, if those in the US military chain of command refuse to carry out his orders.
Trump's threat to wipe out Iran's civilization of 93 million people "merits removal from office," said Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). "To every individual in the president’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) also addressed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman, Dan Caine, has been joining Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in briefings recently as Hegseth has made bellicose threats against Iran and portrayed the unprovoked US-Israeli assault as a holy war.
Lieu reminded the top military leaders that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and federal law prohibit war crimes.
"Obviously eradicating a whole civilization constitutes a war crime. You must disobey that order," said the congressman. "If you commit war crimes, the next administration will prosecute you."
Erik Sperling, executive director of think tank Just Foreign Policy, called on Senate and House Democrats, including those on committees that oversee the armed services and foreign relations, to make Lieu's threat "absolutely clear."
"We can still stop this," said Just Foreign Policy on social media.
Journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News added that federal laws prohibiting war crimes "will apply in January 2029," after Trump is out of office.
Since Trump took office for his second term in January 2025, Democratic lawmakers have previously issued reminders to the US military that the UCMJ prohibits service members from carrying out illegal orders, with six House members and senators releasing a video in November—as the Pentagon was continuing its bombings of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean and threatening to attack Venezuela—to remind them, "You must refuse illegal orders."
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) was among the lawmakers who participated in the video. On Tuesday the former CIA analyst addressed service members across the military once again, warning that "targeting civilians en masse would be a clear violation of the law of armed conflict as laid out in the Geneva Conventions, as well as the Pentagon's Law of War Manual."
"If [service members] are today or have been asked to do things that violate the law and their training, it puts them in very real legal jeopardy. I know that our service members up and down the chain of command know their duty and the law to refuse illegal orders," said Slotkin. "It’s moments like these that are why we made the video to service members last year. And I hope and believe our troops—especially those in command—will have the moral clarity to push back if they are given clearly illegal orders.
Apr 07, 2026
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US, Israel, and Iran Agree to 2-Week Ceasefire Hours After Trump's Genocidal Threat
"A ceasefire is welcome, but if the terms Iran announced tonight are accurate, the United States and Israel are facing a truly humiliating defeat," one expert told Common Dreams.
Apr 07, 2026
Just hours after President Donald Trump issued a genocidal threat against the Iranian people, declaring that "a whole civilization will die tonight," the US leader announced that he's agreed to suspend his unconstitutional war for two weeks if Iran ends its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Citing an unnamed senior White House official, CNN reported that Israel—which has joined the United States in bombing Iran, including civilian infrastructure, since February 28—"is part of the two-week ceasefire" and "has agreed to also suspend its bombing campaign while negotiations continue."
According to The Associated Press, Iran's Supreme National Security Council said in a statement that it accepted the ceasefire, which New York Times correspondent Farnaz Fassihi reported followed "frantic diplomatic efforts by Pakistan and last-minute intervention by China," a key Iranian ally.
"It is emphasized that this does not signify the termination of the war," the Iranian council said. "Our hands remain upon the trigger, and should the slightest error be committed by the enemy, it shall be met with full force."
Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform as he faced mounting global outrage over his "apocalyptic" morning comments—including calls for his removal from office—and as his 8:00 pm Eastern time deadline for Iran to reopen the crucial waterway to all ship traffic approached.
Specifically, Trump said:
Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE! The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran, and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President, and also representing the Countries of the Middle East, it is an Honor to have this Longterm problem close to resolution.
According to reports, Iran's 10-point peace plan could face stiff resistance from Israel and the Gulf monarchies that Iran has been attacking in retaliation for the US-Israeli onslaught.
The ten-point plan that is the basis of the ceasefire is literally just “Iran gets everything it could ever want, total US surrender, Iran now dominates the Middle East unopposed and controls Hormuz for its own enrichment” so uhh
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— Will Stancil (@whstancil.bsky.social) April 7, 2026 at 4:08 PM
"It’s hard to see how anyone else in the region could possibly agree to this," US lawyer and political commentator Will Stancil said on Bluesky.
Stancil added that it would be "extremely funny if the Gulf states that have funneled billions of dollars to Trump meet their ruin at his hand when he switches sides literally at the culmination of a war so he can pretend to have won, though. Maybe they’ll bonesaw him in retaliation."
Commenting on paying to use the Strait of Hormuz, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla said on Bluesky, "$2 million per ship—to cross a strait that was free six weeks ago."
In response to Trump's threats to take out Iran's bridges and power plants—clear war crimes—and more recent threat to wipe out the Middle Eastern country's "whole civilization," human rights advocates and political leaders across the globe had called on governments and world bodies, including the United Nations, to "urgently intervene."
While welcoming the ceasefire, some observers said Iran's repressive government—which Trump initially said was being targeted for regime change—will not only survive, but be able to claim victory, as Iranian state media was already doing after the truce was announced.
"A ceasefire is welcome, but if the terms Iran announced tonight are accurate, the United States and Israel are facing a truly humiliating defeat," Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told Common Dreams.
"They launched a catastrophic war of aggression that killed thousands of civilians, wasted tens of billions of dollars, and triggered the worst global energy crisis in half a century," he said. "Iran kept its enrichment. Iran took over the Strait [of Hormuz]. The United States agreed to lift sanctions."
While oil prices plunged by more than 15% and US stock futures edged up on news of the ceasefire, Iranians continued clearing rubble and burying their dead. Iranian officials said around 2,000 people—including hundreds of women and children—have been killed by US and Israeli strikes since February 28, including around 175 children and staff massacred in a US cruise missile strike on a girls' elementary school in the southern city of Minab on the first day of the war.
"Congress should open an immediate investigation into how this war started, who authorized it, and who will be held accountable for every civilian killed," Jarrar told Common Dreams. "War criminals should be held accountable now."
While Republican politicians and pundits portrayed the truce as a major victory for Trump, some Democratic US lawmakers expressed skepticism over the deal, with Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut telling CNN that he doubts there is even any actual ceasefire in place amid reports of continued Iranian missile attacks on Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
“Who knows what’s going on," said Murphy. "Donald Trump lies every single day.”
Murphy pointed to Tehran's claim “that Trump has also agreed to Iran’s right to enrichment, to suspend all sanctions against Iran, and to allow Iran to keep their missile program, their drone program, and their nuclear program," saying "if, at the very least, this agreement gives Iran the right to control the strait, that is cataclysmic for the world, and it is just stunning that that’s where we have gotten to that Donald Trump took a military action that has apparently, at least for the time being, given Iran control over a critical waterway that they did not have control over, before the war began.”
As a sovereign nation, Iran has the right to enrich uranium and have nuclear, missile, and drone programs, and it is unclear how Iranian control of the strait would be "cataclysmic" for anyone.
After the genocidal threats on Tuesday, Trump critics, including members of Congress, urged the president's Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and remove him from office, and reminded American service members of their duty to disobey any ordered war crimes.
Just because a President announces he’s agreed to a two week ceasefire moments before he threatened to commit war crimes, does not mean he is suddenly fit to serve. #25thAmendment
— Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01) (@repstansbury.bsky.social) April 7, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Axios reported Tuesday that more than 80 congressional Democrats are supporting 25th Amendment action against Trump over his conduct in the war.
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Western Media Called Out for 'Misleading' Portrayal of Iranians Defending Infrastructure as 'Human Shields'
"The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all," said one expert.
Apr 07, 2026
After US President Donald Trump made his genocidal declaration on Tuesday that the "whole civilization" of Iran "will die tonight," reports began to roll in of people across the country standing outside the power plants, bridges, and other civilian infrastructure the president promised to bomb.
Photos shared to social media by the government-affiliated Mehr news agency showed scene after scene of Iranians forming human chains outside power plants in Tabriz and Kermanshah.
A video showed dozens of students assembled on the Dezful bridge in southwestern Iran, which is more than 1,700 years old and is believed to be one of the oldest functioning bridges in the world.
Over the weekend, Trump said that unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that it has used as a chokepoint against the Western economy, by Tuesday, he would bomb infrastructure relied upon by tens of millions of Iranians, which Amnesty International said could amount to a "war crime."
"We’re giving them till tomorrow, eight o’clock eastern time, and after that, they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants," Trump said on Monday, reiterating his plans to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages."
According to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, more than 14 million people in the country responded to the threat by volunteering to put their bodies on the line and defend the infrastructure at risk. He said they'd "declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran.”
The government has encouraged Iranians, including children and young students, to take to the streets to form human chains around infrastructure that may come under threat, leading some Western media outlets to raise the fear that people were being used as "human shields."
Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, however, said this "is a deeply misleading framing."
"Iranians are not being placed in front of targets," he said, referencing several videos of the demonstrations. "Many are voluntarily showing up to defend the infrastructure that keeps their society alive."
He noted the participation of Iranian celebrities in the human chains, including the composer and Tar player Ali Ghamsari, who stationed himself outside a power plant, and the pop singer Benyamin Bahadori, who filmed a video of himself walking along a bridge that had come under threat.
"This is about people trying to safeguard electricity, water, and basic civilization under open threat," Toossi said. "The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all."
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday that Trump's threats could prove "apocalyptic" to millions of Iranians, plunging the "entire country into darkness and depriv[ing] millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living."
"Power plants, water systems, and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods," she added. "Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.”
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Watchdog Warns Trump Threat Against Iran Could Unleash 'Fatal Nuclear Disaster'
“To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” said the head of Beyond Nuclear.
Apr 07, 2026
Sustainable energy watchdog Beyond Nuclear on Tuesday issued a dire warning about President Donald Trump potentially creating a "fatal nuclear disaster" by ordering military strikes on Iran's nuclear power plant in the port city of Bushehr.
The group noted that the 1,000-megawatt Russian-built water-water energetic reactor (VVER) at the Bushehr facility is the same design as nuclear reactors in Ukraine that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned could spark a humanitarian catastrophe if struck by Russian missiles.
Beyond Nuclear commented that there hasn't been nearly as much attention paid by the international community to the risks posed by a US or Israeli strike on the Bushehr plant, which it cautioned has "highly radioactive uranium fuel inside the reactor" that is "stored in cooling pools and on-site casks."
"Any extended loss of power caused by an attack or a direct hit could see the fuel overheat and ignite, potentially leading to explosions," the group explained. "The resulting radiological releases would result in long-lasting radioactive fallout affecting vast areas in Iran, neighboring countries, and beyond, contaminating agricultural land as well as sea water, an essential drinking water source for a region that relies on desalination."
Beyond Nuclear's warning came days after the IAEA issued an assessment of military strikes that took place near the Bushehr reactor. Although the agency found that the facility itself so far has suffered no damage from US-Israeli strikes, it warned that any attack that even comes close to striking the nuclear reactor risks calamity.
Trump for the last several days has been threatening to attack Iran's energy infrastructure, which Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear, said "would be a war crime."
“The Geneva Convention specifically defines a war crime to include hitting facilities that, if damaged or destroyed, would result in extensive loss of noncombatant life,” Pentz Gunter said. “A commercial nuclear power plant certainly falls into this category.”
On Tuesday morning, the president delivered his most bloodthirsty threat to Iran yet, declaring that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” unless Iran met his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which has been closed to most ship traffic for the last several weeks after Trump and Israel launched an unprovoked war.
Ryan Goodman, professor at New York University School of Law, noted in a social media post that Trump's mere threat violates the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit "acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population."
Pentz Gunter also took a shot at Trump's brazen threats against Iran's energy infrastructure.
"To set up the possibility of another Chernobyl or Fukushima in the Middle East is criminally irresponsible,” she said. “And even though we know Iran’s nuclear facilities were merely the pretext for the US-Israeli attack, we must remember that it was President Trump during his first term who effectively tore up a perfectly effective nuclear inspection and verification agreement—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—that ensured Iran stayed within the boundaries of a civil nuclear program."
Three physicians organizations on Tuesday—Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians for Human Rights, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—issued a joint declaration condemning Trump's threats to bomb Iranian power plants, highlighting the particular dangers of any attack on nuclear facilities.
"The bombings of nuclear power plants are illegal under international law and risk harmful radioactive contamination of the environment, posing long-term danger to the health of surrounding communities and ecosystems," the groups said. "We unequivocally condemn this pattern of strikes near and on nuclear facilities, including attacks by Israel and Iran in late March and another deadly attack near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant this weekend."
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