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A Petty, Vicious Wall Of Shame
The awful keeps spewing. The latest proof there is truly, repulsively no bottom: The most broken, powerful human being on the planet has added to his crappy, gaudy, reality-show "Presidential Walk of Fame" bronze plaques below the photos denoting a boorish, revisionist "history" of each president. Inevitably, he lobs the crudest insults at his direct predecessors - "divisive" Obama, "crooked" Biden - while praising his own supreme reign. America on the fucking, endless, childish ugly of it: "This is so exhausting."
As always, there are of course more substantive horrors underway. Pam Bondi has told the FBI to create a list of domestic terrorist groups - the non-existent Antifa and anyone else who espouses “radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism or anti-Christianity” - and establish a “cash reward system” to encourage them to snitch on each other. Because what climate change/it still snows doesn't it?, Trump is also dismantling Colorado's National Center for Atmospheric Research, home to the largest federal research lab on climate change and natural disasters.
In addition, because what science?, anti-vax crackpot RFK Jr's Health and Human Services (sic) Department has terminated seven multi-million-dollar grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is now suing said crackpot for his COVID vaccine changes. The initiatives were aimed at reducing sudden infant death, improving adolescent health, preventing fetal alcohol syndrome, identifying autism early and other worthy goals; officials said they were cancelled because the group used "identity-based language," including "racial disparities" and "pregnant people." Really.
Finally, Pee Wee German Stephen Miller issued a fascist mission statement in support of our pointless, upcoming war against Venezulela, arguing the U.S. has long "operated as a 'reverse empire'" that enriched foreign nations and sacrificed our wealth and security while "all we got in return were migrants." "No more," he raves. "America's might will secure America's rights...For Americans, first and always." By which, many clarified, he means, "rich white people. Everyone else to the camps." Other comments: "Sounds like Chap. 15 in Mein Kampf," "Sounds better in the original German," and, "Miller is a grotesque, shrill, squirrel of a thing."
All of these efforts, lest we forget, have been undertaken to please a small, sick, empty shell of a man who Avatar director James Cameron calls "the most narcissistic asshole in history since fucking Nero." Now, in a particularly infuriating (for those of us who cherish facts) and petty move, he's now installed "a tantrum cast in bronze," a wall of grievance-oozing plaques added to the photos along his cheesy, race-to-the-bottom "Presidential Walk of Fame" outside the West Wing "as a tribute to past Presidents, good, bad and somewhere in the middle." And "as a student of history" (sic), Press Barbie hilariously brags, Trump himself authored "many of its eloquently written descriptions" - evidently what he's been doing when not golfing. One patriot: "Well done, dumbass."
They are, of course, crude, juvenile, self-serving garbage. Reagan's plaque boasts he was "a fan" of Trump. Bill Clinton's notes "his wife Hillary" lost to Trump. The plaque for "Barack Hussein Obama" acknowledges him as our first Black President before calling him "one of the most divisive political figures in American history." He allegedly "passed the highly ineffective Unaffordable Care Act," caused the spread of ISIS (no mention of W's contributions), weaponized federal bureaucracies against opponents, spied on Trump's 2016 campaign and created "the Russia Russia Russia hoax, the worst political scandal in American history." Sigh.
Biden, already trolled with the image of an autopen - the eloquent author is 12 - gets worse. "Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History." He "took office (in) the most corrupt Election ever seen" and "oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our nation to the brink of destruction" - pot/kettle - with high inflation, weaponized law enforcement, Green New Scam, "abolishing" the Southern Border, insane asylums, "Afghanistan Disaster." His "devastating weakness" made Russia invade Ukraine and Hamas attack Israel. He issued "blanket pardons to Radical Democrat thugs" and "the Biden crime family." Sigh redux.
But "despite it all" - trumpets please - the manchild king triumphed in a landslide to "SAVE AMERICA!" Now he's "delivered" on his promise to "usher in the Golden Age of America," and "THE BEST IS YET TO COME!" Some beg to differ. They suggest his plaque should read, "Pedophile, Narcissist, Rapist, and Convicted Felon." They marvel, "Damn, his dick really is that tiny." They exclaim, "This is insane," "What the actual fuck," "God I hate this man," "This is embarrassing," and, "I am at my wit's end." In all, notes Canadian pundit Dean Blundell, "The United States of America is going through some things right now."
More came In Wednesday night's "prime time unraveling." His racist, dementetd, drug-addled, "nothingburger" of a meltdown, in which "basically nothing he is saying is true," was brutally summarized as, "Old man yells at country," "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?", his "Pettysburg Address," "a 19-minute nervous breakdown," his "Norma Desmond imitation," "what presidential panic looks like," "Stop talking about Epstein," "lie harder and louder," "the Worst Wing," "Nazis On Drugs,'" "authoritarian fantasy at its finest" - colossal invasion! drug prices down 600% in magic math! the first peace in the Middle East in 3,000 years!", "This wasn't confidence. This was agitation." From MAGA: "Why is he yelling at us?" "He's talking so fast he sounds panicked," "the most pointless presidential address (in) American history." From Newsom: 100 "Me Me Me Me Me's." From us: For God's and our sanity's sake, once and for all, fucking quiet Piggy.
Analysis Shows Electric Bills Have Spiked 13% in Trump’s First Year—And His Own Policies Are to Blame
Americans across the country are struggling to pay higher utility bills, and one clean energy advocacy group is pointing the finger squarely at President Donald Trump.
Climate Power last week released a new report that cited data from the US Energy Information Administration showing that Americans' electricity bills have risen by 13% since Trump took office in January, even though he pledged during the 2024 presidential campaign that he would "cut the price of energy and electricity in half" in his first year.
In reality, Climate Power says, the Trump administration's war on renewable energy projects has helped drive the cost of electricity up by blocking new sources of energy for the US electric grid.
"Trump and Republicans are accelerating their self-inflicted energy crisis with continued project cancellations," argues the report, blaming the administration's policies for hurting "projects that would have produced enough electricity to power the equivalent of 13 million homes."
In total, Climate Power estimates that "companies have canceled, delayed, lost grant funding, or laid off staff" at more than 320 clean energy projects during Trump's second term, resulting in the loss or delay of more than 165,000 new US jobs.
Texas, which has seen 26 clean energy projects negatively impacted this year, has been the biggest loser from Trump's war against renewables, according to the report.
The report also finds that "54% of canceled projects, 40% of delayed projects, and 44.9% of grant cancellations are located in congressional districts represented by Republicans," which means that the GOP is hurting its own constituents with its energy policies.
The cancellation of clean energy products also comes at a time when artificial intelligence data centers are devouring energy, thus putting more upward pressure on electricity prices.
David Spence, a professor of energy law and regulation at the University of Texas, told ABC News on Monday that demand for power is now exceeding supply "by a lot," and he cited factors including data centers, cryptocurrency mining, and electric cars as key factors.
"We're just not able to bring new supply on as quickly as demand is growing, and that's driving prices up," Spence explained.
The Climate Power report builds on findings released by Democratic US senators in October estimating that US electric bills had gone up by 11% since Trump's return to office.
Like Climate Power, the Democratic senators cited Trump's attacks on clean energy as a key factor driving up costs.
"Your administration has no explanations for its failures and no answers for American families that are hit hard by high energy costs, and it continues to actively pursue policies to make this cost crisis worse," wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at the time.
As Wage Growth Slows and Unemployment Rises, Trump Tax Cuts Deliver Big for Mega-Rich Retail CEOs
As workers face slowing wage growth, a worsening cost-of-living crisis, and rising unemployment, the chief executives of top corporate retailers in the United States are reaping huge gains from the tax cuts that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans extended over the summer.
An analysis released Friday by the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) estimates that the CEOs of Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, TJX, and Walmart have collectively saved close to $35 million on their individual tax returns in the seven years the Trump tax cuts have been in effect.
Thanks to the Trump-GOP tax law, which took effect in 2018, the companies examined in the analysis paid a tax rate of just 17.5% between 2018 and 2024—roughly half what they paid prior to the law's enactment.
"While at the same time prices have soared for consumers and retail workers remain stuck in low-wage jobs, big-store CEOs and shareholders have reaped higher profits and lower taxes," David Kass, ATF’s executive director, said in a statement. "If we want a system that alleviates economic stress on average Americans instead of exacerbating it during the holiday season, we need to raise taxes on corporations and the rich, invest in workers and families with expanded public services."
Workers at the major retailers haven't fared nearly as well. ATF noted that "the average worker at the eight stores was paid less than $32,000 in 2024."
"Amazon—the world’s largest retailer—refuses to even sit down with its employees who have formed a labor union for better pay, benefits, and working conditions," the group observed. "If Lowe’s had used the nearly $50 billion it spent on stock buybacks over the seven-year period to instead raise employee wages, its workers would have each been paid almost $200,000 more."
Across the US economy, workers are seeing wage growth stagnate amid elevated and still-rising prices, which are forcing many to skip meals and ration their medications to make ends meet.
The Labor Department said earlier this week that wage growth decelerated to 3.5% year over year—the slowest pace since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Unemployment, meanwhile, rose in November to the highest level in four years.
The ATF analysis came days after Trump delivered a lie-filled primetime speech defending his handling of the US economy as his approval ratings tanked, with American voters across party lines increasingly furious over the high costs of housing, groceries, healthcare, and other necessities.
During the speech, Trump vowed that Americans would soon "see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history."
But the richest people in the country are set to reap disproportionate benefits from the tax cuts. As Bloomberg reported earlier this week, "Many filers—particularly those who could most use the financial boost—may soon be disappointed."
"Wealthy taxpayers in high-tax states like California, New York, and New Jersey are the biggest winners," the outlet noted.
'This Is a Desecration!' DC Residents Rage After Trump Slaps His Name Atop Kennedy Center
Residents of Washington, DC reacted with outrage on Friday after construction workers slapped President Donald Trump's name on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
One day after it was announced that Trump's name would be added to the Kennedy Center, which was originally named by the US Congress in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, construction workers were spotted altering the lettering on the outside of the building.
When their work was complete, the building had been unofficially renamed as "The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."
From a legal perspective, the Kennedy Center still retains its original name, as the power to change its name rests with the US Congress and not with the Trump-appointed Kennedy Center board of directors whom the president appointed earlier this year.
Andrew Howard, a Washington, DC resident, reacted with rage during an interview with MS Now when asked about Trump's decision to put his name on the side of the official national cultural center of the US.
"We should be shocked... that a felon, a convicted felon, and a thug, and, by all means, a grift has just stuck his name on top of a national monument," Howard fumed. "This is a desecration!"
DC resident on Trump putting his name on the Kennedy Center:
"We should all be shocked that a convicted felon, a thug, and by all means a grifter has just stuck his name on top of a national monument." pic.twitter.com/hzNcucRha5
— FactPost (@factpostnews) December 19, 2025
Former CNN host Jim Acosta also delivered a report from outside the Kennedy Center, which he described as "the scene of yet another crime committed by Donald Trump."
"He has vandalized the Kennedy Center by putting his name on it," Acosta said.
The former CNN anchor explained that only Congress has the power to make changes to the Kennedy Center's name, before noting that Trump "doesn't care about the law, doesn't care what's appropriate," and concluding that the Kennedy Center stunt was symbolic of "a childish and lawless administration."
Reporting from the scene of the crime. Trump has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center. But we will never call it the Trump Kennedy Center: pic.twitter.com/DFlabMjZPJ
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) December 19, 2025
Former Republican political operative Tara Setmayer wrote in a post on X that Trump's decision to illegally rename the Kennedy Center demonstrated his authoritarian ambitions to rule America by decree.
"This desecration of the Kennedy Center is another grotesque example of Trump’s 'Dear Leader' behavior," she wrote. "This has been a week of one wretched act after another by Trump. It’s got to stop."
Kerry Kennedy, a niece of the late president, vowed to personally tear Trump's name from the building.
"Three years and one month from today, I’m going to grab a pickax and pull those letters off that building," she wrote, before adding, "But I’m going to need help holding the ladder."
Other members of the Kennedy family condemned the renaming of the center on Thursday when it was first announced.
Former US Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) wrote on Bluesky that “the Kennedy Center is a living memorial to a fallen president and named for President Kennedy by federal law,” and “can no sooner be renamed than can someone rename the Lincoln Memorial, no matter what anyone says.”
Journalist Maria Shriver, a niece of the late president, also expressed her disbelief at the decision.
“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” she said. “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not. Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”
Rights Group Condemns 'Terror' and 'Lawlessness' Spread by Trump's Masked Thugs
As masked government agents—an oft-employed terror tool of authoritarian regimes—run roughshod amid the Trump administration's mass deportation effort, a leading human rights group on Thursday called on Congress to investigate abuses perpetrated by federal officers against immigrants and US citizens alike.
Federal immigration enforcement agents "now commonly operate masked and without visible identification, compounding the abusive and unaccountable nature of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign," Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. "The indefinite and widespread nature of these practices is fundamentally inconsistent with the United States’ obligations to ensure that law enforcement abuses are investigated and met with accountability."
HRW continued:
Since President Donald Trump’s return to office in January 2025, his administration has carried out an abusive campaign of immigration raids and arrests, primarily of people of color, across the country. Many of the raids target places where Latino people work, shop, eat, and live. The agents have seized people in courthouses and at regularly scheduled appointments with immigration officials, as well as in places of worship, schools, and other sensitive locations. Many raids have been marked by the sudden and unprovoked use of force without any justification, creating a climate of fear in many immigrant communities.
Drawing upon interviews with 18 people who were arrested or witnessed arrests by unidentified federal agents, HRW highlighted the "terror" and helplessness felt by victims of such "lawlessness."
“It was a horrible feeling,” said Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University who was illegally snatched off a Massachusetts street in March and whisked off to an US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lockup in Louisiana after she published an opinion piece in a student newspaper advocating divestment from apartheid Israel as it waged a genocidal war on Gaza. With Öztürk having committed no crime, a federal judge ordered her release 45 days later.
“I didn’t think that they were the police because I had never seen police approach and take someone away like this," Öztürk said of her arrest—which bystanders likened to a kidnapping. "I thought they were people who were doxing me, and I was genuinely very afraid for my safety... As a woman who’s traveled and lived alone in various countries for my studies, I’ve never experienced intense fear for my safety—until that moment.”
Operatives with ICE—part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—and other agencies have violently attacked not only unauthorized immigrants but also members of their communities including US citizens, activists, journalists, and others. The agents are often wearing masks but not badges or other identifiers, making it very difficult to hold abusers accountable.
While ICE tries to justify its widespread practice of masking agents “to prevent doxing,” HRW stressed that "this kind of generalized, blanket justification for concealing officers’ identity is not compatible with US human rights obligations, except when necessary and proportionate to address particular safety concerns."
"Anonymity also weakens deterrence, fosters conditions for impunity, and chills the exercise of rights," the group added.
It also sows terror, as Republican-appointed US District Judge William Young noted in a ruling earlier this year: "ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor—and honor still matters."
HRW also noted that "in recent months, media outlets have reported on people posing as federal agents kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and extorting victims, exploiting fears of immigration enforcement."
“Allowing masked, unidentified agents to roam communities and apprehend people without identifying themselves erodes trusts in the rule of law and creates a dangerous vacuum where abuses can flourish, exacerbating the unnecessary violence and brutality of the arrests,” HRW associate crisis and conflict director Belkis Wille said in a statement Thursday.
HRW called on Congress to "investigate the brutality of the ongoing immigration enforcement activities, including the specific impacts of unidentifiable agents carrying out stops and arrests on impeding investigations and accountability efforts."
In addition to efforts by state legislatures to unmask federal agents, congressional Democrats have demanded ICE and other officers identify themselves, and have introduced legislation—the No Secret Police Act and No Masks for ICE Act in the House and VISIBLE Act in the Senate—that would compel them to do so.
“If you uphold the peace of a democratic society, you should not be anonymous,” No Secret Police Act lead co-sponsor Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) said at the time of the bill's introduction in June. “DHS and ICE agents wearing masks and hiding identification echoes the tactics of secret police authoritarian regimes—and deviates from the practices of local law enforcement, which contributes to confusion in communities.”
ICC Slams New US Sanctions on Judges as 'Flagrant Attack' on Rule of Law
The International Criminal Court and human rights groups on Thursday condemned new US sanctions on two more of the tribunal's judges, which brought the total number of sanctioned ICC jurists to 11 amid the Trump administration's escalating campaign of retaliation against people and institutions seeking to hold Israel and the United States accountable for their alleged crimes.
"Today, I am designating two International Criminal Court (ICC) judges, Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia, pursuant to Executive Order 14203, 'Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,'" US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, referring to President Donald Trump's February edict.
"These individuals have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent, including voting with the majority in favor of the ICC’s ruling against Israel’s appeal on December 15," Rubio added, referencing Monday's rejection of an Israeli bid to block a probe into alleged war crimes committed during the genocidal two-year war on Gaza.
Although Israel and the US are not ICC members and do not recognize the Hague-based tribunal's jurisdiction, Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute governing the court. The treaty says that individuals from nonsignatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.
Last year, the ICC issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation in a war that has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing.
The Trump administration had previously sanctioned nine other ICC jurists: Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan (United Kingdom), Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji), Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang (Senegal), Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru), Judge Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Judge Beti Hohler (Slovenia), Judge Nicolas Yann Guillou (France), and Judge Kimberly Prost (Canada).
The affected judges have recently described how the US sanctions have left them and their families—who are also blacklisted—"wiped out economically and socially."
Responding to the new US punitive measures, the ICC said Thursday that "these sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its states parties from across regions."
"Such measures targeting judges and prosecutors who were elected by the states parties undermine the rule of law," the court continued. "When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk."
"As previously stated, the court stands firmly behind its personnel and behind victims of unimaginable atrocities," the ICC added. "It will continue to carry out its mandate with independence and impartiality, in full accordance with the Rome Statute and in the interest of victims of international crimes."
Human Rights Watch also slammed the new US sanctions, which the group called "the latest attempt by the Trump administration to blatantly interfere with independent justice."
The US government has imposed sanctions on two additional ICC judges in order to shield Israeli officials from charges of grave international crimes.These sanctions are the latest attempt by the Trump administration to blatantly interfere with independent justice.
[image or embed]
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw.org) December 18, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Amnesty International's Center for International Justice lamented that "once again, the US administration is attacking international justice—sanctioning two ICC judges. This cannot be normalized."
"States must firmly oppose US threats and sanctions and uphold the court’s ability to pursue accountability," the group added, "even against the most powerful perpetrators."
‘No More Military Aid for Netanyahu,’ Says Sanders as Israel Ramps Up West Bank Takeover
"It’s not just Gaza," the senator said. "Netanyahu’s extremist government is supporting the violent annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank."
As Israeli settlers escalate attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank as part of a furious state-backed annexation push, US Sen. Bernie Sanders said it was yet another reason to suspend military aid to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"It’s not just Gaza," the independent Vermont senator wrote on social media Sunday. "Netanyahu’s extremist government is supporting the violent annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank. This is illegal and immoral, and decades of American silence have enabled it."
"NO MORE MILITARY AID FOR NETANYAHU," he concluded.
Sanders was responding to a feature published in the New York Times that same day, which examined the rapid expansion of illegal settler outposts over the past two decades, and the further acceleration after October 7, 2023, when Israel’s more than two-year genocidal assault began in Gaza following a Hamas-led attack.
The report provides data from the Israeli activist group Peace Now, which found that in 2024 and 2025, Israelis built more than 130 new outposts in the West Bank.
Despite the fact that they are illegal under both Israeli and international law, the settlers constructing these outposts operate with the support of the Israeli military and government.
As the Times reports:
The unrelenting violent campaign by these settlers, that critics say is largely tolerated by the Israeli military, consists of brutal harassment, beatings, even killings, as well as high-impact roadblocks and village closures. These are coupled with a drastic increase in land seizures by the state and the demolition of villages to force Palestinians to abandon their land.
Many of the settlers are young extremists whose views go beyond even the far-right ideology of the government. They are not generally operating on direct orders from Israel’s military leadership. But they know the military frequently looks the other way and facilitates their actions.
In many cases, it is the military that forces Palestinians to evacuate or orders the destruction of their homes once settlers drive them to flee.
Just in 2025, the report says, settlers and the military have razed more than 1,500 Palestinian structures, double the annual average from before 2023. Since the war began, more than 4,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has also declared a record number of areas in the West Bank to be "state land," meaning that they are off limits to Palestinians and that Israelis can use them to build more settlements.
Far-right forces in the Israeli government have been overt about the intention of these settlements: to carve up the West Bank so thoroughly that a contiguous Palestinian state becomes effectively impossible. Netanyahu has often reiterated his position that under his watch, a Palestinian state will never be created.
In August, as the Israeli government approved a massive 3,400-home settlement project in the heart of the occupied West Bank, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—himself a settler and one of the leading representatives of the far-right settler movement in Netanyahu’s cabinet—boasted that the project “buries the idea of a Palestinian state,” adding that “Every town, every neighborhood, every housing unit... is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”
On Sunday, Israel’s cabinet approved another 19 Jewish-only settlements across the West Bank, raising the total number to more than 200 in the territory, up from around 140 three years ago. Smotrich said with the new construction, Israel was “putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state.”Until recently, the official policy of the US government has been one of opposition to settlements, even as their construction continued largely unimpeded.
During his second term, President Donald Trump has talked out of both sides of his mouth. While promising Arab leaders that Israel would not annex the West Bank as he sought to broker a ceasefire, his administration has often expressed tacit, and occasionally overt, support for settlement expansion.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres denounced the rapid expansion of settlements, saying it “continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state.”
In July, as reports of famine out of Gaza grew increasingly dire due to Israel's blockade of humanitarian aid, Sanders sponsored a Senate resolution to block $675 million in US weapons sales to Israel.
Though the vote was far from passing, 27 members of the Democratic caucus—a majority, for the first time—voted in favor. Sanders said it suggested that "the tide is turning" with respect to attitudes towards Israel's actions within the party.
In an AtlasIntel poll published on Friday, 62% of respondents said they opposed US financial support for Israel, compared with 20% who supported it. 50% of respondents said they "totally oppose" weapons to Israel, while just 9% said they "totally support" it.
Despite this, the most recent military spending bill, passed last week, provides another $650 million in military aid for Israel, up $45 million from the previous package, despite the implementation of a ceasefire in Gaza.
The bill also included an unprecedented measure requiring the executive branch to assess how the US can supply additional weapons to Israel to fill in "gaps" from embargoes imposed by other nations over the country's human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.
'Threat to Media and Democracy': Trump Ally Larry Ellison Puts Up $40 Billion to Help Son Buy CNN Owner
"Yesterday we saw the Ellison-owned CBS kill an important news story for being too critical of Trump," wrote one journalist. "Now Ellison is making another move to try to win control of CNN."
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, an ally of US President Donald Trump and one of the richest men in the world, pledged on Monday to provide $40.4 billion to help finance his son's hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the owner of CNN, HBO Max, and other major media assets.
The billionaire's personal financing guarantee was announced in a press release issued by Paramount Skydance, a company headed by David Ellison, Larry Ellison's son.
"Paramount has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to acquiring WBD," David Ellison said in a statement. "Our $30 per share, fully financed all-cash offer was on December 4th, and continues to be, the superior option to maximize value for WBD shareholders."
Paramount launched its $108 billion effort to take over Warner Bros. earlier this month, days after Netflix and Warner Bros. leadership announced a proposed merger deal. Antitrust advocates have warned that either merger would be destructive for journalism, television writers, media industry competition, and consumers.
Paramount added Larry Ellison's personal funding pledge to its offer after Warner Bros. board members raised concerns about the initial proposal, pointing specifically to the absence of a concrete guarantee of the billionaire executive's backing. Larry Ellison's net worth is estimated to be around $243 billion.
"The ability to deal directly with Larry if there was an issue to close would be critical," Warner Bros. board chair Samuel Di Piazza Jr. told CNBC last week. "Otherwise closing might not happen."
News of Larry Ellison's direct intervention in Paramount's bid for Warner Bros. came amid mounting concerns over media consolidation into the hands of a few right-wing billionaires and the Trump administration's growing political influence at the nation's news networks.
Last week, TikTok’s Chinese owner signed a deal giving Larry Ellison's company and other investors an 80% stake in a newly formed US TikTok entity.
On Sunday, chaos and outrage erupted at CBS News after editor-in-chief Bari Weiss spiked a "60 Minutes" segment on El Salvador's CECOT prison shortly before it was set to air. Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent who led the segment, accused Weiss of making a "political" decision to prevent the airing of a report that would have reflected badly on the Trump administration. Paramount Skydance is the owner of CBS News.
"It's hard to ignore that this happened just as Paramount's hostile bid for Warner Bros. was slipping away," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote late Sunday. "Time to please the king again."
Journalist and media critic Jennifer Schulze warned Monday that "Larry Ellison is a threat to journalism and democracy."
"Yesterday we saw the Ellison-owned CBS kill an important news story for being too critical of Trump," Schulze wrote. "Now Ellison is making another move to try to win control of CNN."
'An Abject Failure': Economists Trash Trump's Disastrous Job Creation Record in Year-End Reviews
"The jobs aren’t coming back, the wages aren’t rising," one economist said.
President Donald Trump has justified his historically high tariffs on foreign goods by promising that they would lead to a boom in domestic manufacturing jobs in the US.
However, in year-end reviews of the US job market, three economists make the case that Trump's record on creating manufacturing jobs has been a massive bust.
Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project and a former member of President Joe Biden’s National Economic Council, argued in his personal newsletter on Friday that the Trump administration's efforts to reorganize the US labor market away from service sector jobs have completely failed.
In particular, he found that jobs in manufacturing, mining, and logging have all declined throughout the first year of Trump's second term, while jobs in construction have remained mostly flat after years of steady growth during former President Joe Biden's administration.
What's more, the administration's stated goal of opening up more jobs for native-born US workers by conducting mass deportations of immigrant workers has also flopped, as native-born unemployment has been higher in 2025 than in either of the last two years.
"The bleak irony is that even after sacrificing real prosperity to chase this 4chan-level political economy, they still won’t achieve their goal," Konczal concluded. "The jobs aren’t coming back, the wages aren’t rising, and family formation won’t be rescued by trying to rewind the labor market to a world that never existed in the first place."
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman concurred with Konczal's assessment of the US labor market in an analysis published Monday in which he described Trump's record on jobs as "an abject failure."
Krugman argued that Trump's war on clean energy projects is almost certainly making the situation even worse by killing blue-collar manufacturing and construction jobs in the wind and solar industries.
"Trump has scrapped Biden’s green energy policies in favor of tariffs and fossil fuels," Krugman noted. "But it isn’t working. Instead, employment in 'manly' sectors has fallen since Trump took office."
Additionally, said Krugman, Trump's plan to use tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs to the US was always destined to fail given the realities of how modern economies work.
"In the modern world nations mostly don’t sell each other completed consumer goods," he explained. "Instead, the majority of trade involves sales of goods that are used to produce other goods... What this means in practice is that tariffs, which raise the prices of those capital goods and inputs, raise the production costs of US manufacturers, in many cases making them less competitive with foreign producers."
Ball State University economist Michael J. Hicks, in a column published Monday by the Indianapolis Star, also pointed the finger at Trump's tariffs when explaining his failure to revive US manufacturing.
Hicks argued that the damage the president's policies have done to manufacturing won't be undone any time soon.
"The US is in the early days of a manufacturing contraction that will run through most of 2026, even if the tariffs are lifted today," he warned. "We should call it the deindustrialization of America. All of this flies in the face of the nonsensical claims of a manufacturing renaissance or onshoring that would bring factory jobs back to the US."