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Ribbital: Democracy As Something We Do, Not Just Have
Most memorable about this week's longest, basest, game-show SOTU, a toxic, lying, us-and-them hate fest: The rowdy multitude of responses from a populace "defying the lie that we are powerless." Bigly upstaging a goalie's Medal of Freedom was "a marathon of truth-telling," from a cogent Dem response to the Portland Frogs leading a restive, joyful, shaggy defense of "this thing we call democracy" by We the People, insisting, "Don't be afraid to call it fascism - we got to meet this fuckin' moment."
The State of the Union speech, already a stale ritual of forced national unity, felt more farcical than ever in these rancorous times, a tawdry, surreal piece of performance art whose only true believers may be those MAGA morons who, when challenged, frantically, mindlessly yell "USA!! USA!!," their version of, "Oh yeah?!" They resorted to it several times Tuesday at a tacky event that over 70 deeply fed up Democrats skipped. "The President has shown no respect for the principles upon which this country is based," argued Maine's Sen. Angus King. "I cannot in good conscience participate in (a) function that would require me to ignore all that has gone before, and to pay him a measure of respect he has not earned." Other apt SOTU responses: Turner Classic Movies showed Gaslight, and Jeff Tiedrich proclaimed, "The State of the Union is - oh, who gives a fuck, really?"
The "18-year-long," "excruciatingly tedious," "most openly racist State of the Union in modern history" came as its perpetrator faces record-low 36% approval ratings, trailing by double digits in swing states and bleeding support among independents as he babbles about "fake polls," "silent support" and "made-up numbers" by "professional cheaters." His deplorable flunkies aren't faring any better. In a civil trial where investors are suing Elon Musk, his lawyers can't find jurors because so many Americans "hate him." They also hate ICE Barbie and her stormtroopers, and Kash Patel for his $75K, not-at-all-personal trip to Milan to chug beer with hockey players that so infuriated his own work force they sent 8 videos of it to media. There's also Rep. Tony Gonzales with another sex scandal MAGA doesn't need (though they need his seat), and perennial losers Kegseth and Pirro.
Still, given he "continues to live in a fantasyland where stuff becomes true just because he says it is," his SOTU was awesome, like his glittering State of Denial. Likely invisible were the Suffragette white outfits of Dem women, the photos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Rep. Al Green's sign, "Black People Aren't Apes" (he was escorted from the chamber), the "Release the Epstein Files" pins, and the stalwart, near-dozen Epstein survivors themselves invited by Dem lawmakers, reminders of ghastly new evidence and allegations and cover-ups lurking behind one key question from survivor Jess Michaels: “Does our government belong to the American people, or to those who prey on them?” There was, of course, no answer. In fact, there was no mention of Epstein. Or of the reviled ICE, stalled DHS, on-the-brink Iran, or long-suffering Ukraine on the 4th anniversary of its invasion.
There was, instead, a hate-lie-and-grievance-filled shit show, a Klan rally of "white-supremacist wolf whistles," a "fascist rally peppered with flop-sweat one-liners," a slurred, venomous, fact-free barrage of boasts, insults, puffery met with faithful Kim Jong Un-esque applause from co-conspirators filling up empty seats for an old man who endlessly burbled, lurched and clung to a podium as he hid a gross bruised hand behind him. It was, wrote Ana Marie Cox, a speech "simultaneously banal and unsettling (by) a greasy fleshhole of hate...rancid and powerful." Her trenchant analysis: "I fucking hate this guy." And no, full disclosure, we did not watch it. We just...couldn't. But sincere thanks to those strong souls who chronicled the debacle, most notably Mehdi Hassan and the folks of Zeteo here and here. Also to Jimmy Kimmel, for his fine, no-diapers introduction.
The musty lies and bombast unspooled. We were a dead country but now we're "the hottest." Dems are "suddenly using the word 'affordability' - somebody gave it to them," but high prices are all their fault. Countries hit by tariffs are "happy." Most foul were lurid tales about the "scourge of illegal immigration," like "Somali pirates who have ransacked Minnesota" and "pillaged $19 billion from the American taxpayer," though it was 80 Somali-Americans, led by a white American woman, who committed some fraud while over 100,000, 95% of them U.S. citizens, pay nearly $70 million in taxes and contribute $8 billion to the community but sure let's go with a collective ethnic smear. The crude, dumb, divisive finale: Stand if you agree your first duty is "to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens" - and don't forget the Seig Heil. Cheap Theatrics 'R Us.
Dems sat. Trump raged, "You should be ashamed." Ilhan Omar fought back: "You should be ashamed. You're killing Americans." MAGA yelled "USA!" Goebbels Miller shrieked “0 democrats stood for the (principle) leaders must serve citizens before invaders. Never has there been a more stunning moment in Congress." True, but not how he thinks. In a final, Oprah moment, the "merit vampire" who thrives on stolen glory bragged, "We’re winning so much we don’t know what to do about it" and to prove it here's the carefully choreographed USA Olympic hockey team who jeered with him in the locker room about their women cohorts who won bigger: "Come on in!" The MAGA frat party dregs cheered, hooted, fist-pumped more "USA!" Then he gave out medals, and fed the athletes Big Macs. Press Barbie: "He knows how to celebrate champions. No one does it like him!"
Ugh. The flip side: Kudos to the five hockey players, and the moms who likely largely raised them, who declined the non- invite; four of five came from Minnesota. And kudos to Public Enemy Hall of Fame rapper Flavor Flav, a longtime supporter of women's sports, who invited the women's team to party in Las Vegas and "celebrate for real for real" in July on a She Got Game weekend funded by him and area resorts. And gracious thanks to actor, gourmand and all-round mensch Stanley Tucci, who hosted the women on the patio of his favorite Milan restaurant, the Michelin-starred Ristorante Ratanà, where they happily feasted on pumpkin risotto and just desserts. Meanwhile, in the wake of the mad king's claptrap, Democrats won three local elections in swing states: two in Pennsylvania for a majority in the state house, one in Maine, further cementing Democrats’ hold.
Finally, there were myriad, heartening alternative events where lawmakers, advocates, Epstein survivors and whistleblowers vowed to, "Lean in, stand up and show up" in defense of democracy and fierce resistance - and stark contrast - to the small, mean narcissist down the road making up "facts" and boasting about stripping 2.4 million people of food stamps. The official Democratic response, from Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, was succinct and forceful. Citing the pernicious rhetoric, cruelty, cover-ups, scams, ballrooms, she asked who benefits: "Is the president working for you? We all know the answer is no." Sen. Alex Padilla pointedly gave a follow-up in Spanish. Famously last seen getting tackled by DHS thugs for daring to ask ICE Barbie about her brownshirts' violent abuses, he asserted, "I am still here. Still standing. Still fighting."
His sense of resolve was echoed at a "People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall held by MoveOn and Meidas Touch, where speakers lambasted Trump's imaginary "Golden Age of America" in a country that in fact offers "one reality for everyday people and another for the rich and well-protected." Citing vast unmet needs on healthcare, housing, jobs, Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee of the Working Families Party vowed to "elevate the voices of (those) angry, scared and fed up with an administration that’s done nothing to help and a lot to hurt everyday people." Sen. Chris Murphy decried a speech ignoring ICE "tear-gassing schools, murdering citizens, and disappearing legal immigrants." The Progressive Caucus' Greg Casar reviled a $4-billion grifter "lecturing you, the American people, about how good you have it (when) everyone but Trump’s rich friends knows it’s a disaster,."
Meanwhile, at the National Press Club a few blocks away, a dozen members of the illustrious Portland Frog Brigade headlined a giddy, heartfelt, sold-out State of the Swamp, a SOTU "ribbital" hosted by DEFIANCE.org and advocacy media network Courier where attendees were encouraged to gather, preferably in frog caps, in "peaceful defiance and civic participation." M.C.'ed by Defiance head and former Trump staffer Miles Taylor, the event drew dozens of speakers, and a few frogs, who over several hours gave resolute, kinetic, briskly-3-minute speeches focused on the vital need to remember that, "Democracy is something we do, not just something we have." The most substantial time went to the last three speakers - the combative mayors of Minneapolis and Chicago, and an enraged Robert DeNiro - and they were all electrifying.
The mood was chill, festive, occasionally profane, but the message was consistent: In the face of unprecedented threats to our democracy by "a rapist vulgarian named Donald Trump," we must, "Refuse to shut up, sit down, or even stop ribbiting. Stay LOUD." Between speakers, video clips showed historic figures of defiance: MLK Jr, Muhammad Ali, Black Panthers, James Baldwin, John Lewis, lunch-counter sit-ins, Jesse Jackson rousing Sesame Street kids to say, "I am somebody." Next to the stage, about 20 inflatable frogs, "the jesters of this movement," stood and often danced in a "frog pond" with signs: "Damn Straight," "Amphifa," "Frogs Not Fascists." Earlier, they'd hit the Capitol to hand out pocket Constitutions to members of Congress and toured D.C. for proud green selfies. Taylor: "Who better to help navigate the swamp than a creature born in the swamp?"
Despite the focus on matters of substance - housing, healthcare, climate crisis, ICE abuses, democracy itself - the tone of many speakers was light-hearted and self-deprecating. Delaware Gov. Matt Meyers: "There are more frogs in this room than people in my state." New York Rep. Dan Goldman: "It's great to be here and not in Congress tonight." Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden on his political low profile: "I'm barely a household name in my own household." Oregon Rep. Maxine Dexter: "Thank you to the frogs who hopped across the country." The array of speakers was admirably broad - from a panel of First Amendment legal defenders to former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham - and outspoken on "the weak, dumb, small, sad man" and "pathetic whiny loser who knocked down the East Wing and thinks he can knock down our democracy."
Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, one of the six veterans along with Mark Kelly under attack by Kegseth for re-iterating that the military should follow the law, began with, "Well, President Trump keeps trying to put me in prison. But I've never been very good at sitting in my foxhole and letting them send grenades my way. I fight back." Motormouth Joe Walsh, former "rock-ribbed" conservative and Illinois GOP rep with serious buyer's remorse, and author of the 2020 book Fuck Silence: Calling Trump Out for the Cultish, Moronic, Authoritarian Con Man He Is, was resolute on the "cruel bastard" who gave us Jan. 6 and "don't you for one moment think he's not gonna try" to mess with coming elections: "This moment calls for all of us to be courageous - we ain't never been here before. Our job is to blow him outta the water. Fuck Trump. The mid-terms are happening."
Over hours, their messages aligned: Fascists come after everyone in the end, even fellow fascists. MAGA is waiting its turn in the trashbin of history. Help put it there. Courage is more contagious than cowardice. An old story is dying. The elites have never been the ones to save us - it's always the people. Cruelty isn't strength, nor is defying the rule of law. Strength is the moral courage to say this is not right, to see other people as fully human. When empathy disappears, authoritarianism is next. Gutsy Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: "We are not spectators in this moment. We are stewards of our democracy. Hold strong." DeNiro, on feeling "betrayed" by today's America, "like an abused spouse professing love for their abuser." "You have to lift people up," he said, his voice cracking. "If you've ever loved your country, this is the time to show it."
The aftermath of a grotesque SOTU tells us everything we need to know about the historic moment. Trump raged about "the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people" who declined to stand with his fascism: "We should send them back (on) a boat with Robert DeNiro, another sick and demented person....saying (things) seriously CRIMINAL!" News surfaced that, during the speech, Ilhan Omar guest Aliya Rahman, a disabled Minneapolis woman dragged from her car by ICE who later gave searing testimony to Congress, was forcibly removed by Capitol Police and charged with "Unlawful Conduct" after she silently stood up in the gallery, like many others. On Friday, Trump held a million-dollar-a-plate, "Billionaires first, Americans last" fundraiser. And the day before, NYC Mayor Mamdani, with the help of AOC, released an adorbs video about his new free child care program. Which side are you on? Tough call.
Big Tech's 'AI Climate Hoax': Study Shows 74% of Industry's Claims Unproven
A report released on Tuesday says that the tech industry is blowing hot air with its claims that generative artificial intelligence will be beneficial for the climate.
The report, titled "The AI Climate Hoax," was commissioned by a broad consortium of environmental advocacy organizations and authored by climate and energy analyst Ketan Joshi.
In total, it analyzes more than 150 statements made by both big tech companies and organizations such as the International Energy Agency about the supposed benefits of generative AI.
The report finds that 74% of such claims made by these institutions are unproven, with 36% not bothering to cite any evidence whatsoever.
One key finding in the report is that many claims about the purported benefits of the technology conflate traditional AI systems with more recent generative AI systems, which require massive amounts of energy and are spurring demand for the construction of power-and-water-devouring data centers across the US.
"Even if these benefits are real," the report writes of traditional AI systems, "they are unrelated to—and dwarfed by—the massive expansion of energy use from the generative AI industry," which is projected to to consume 13 times as much energy as traditional AI by the year 2030.
Even the more supportable claims about the benefits of traditional AI deserve serious scrutiny, the report notes, since "they tend to rely on weaker forms of evidence, such as corporate websites, rather than published academic research," which was only cited in 26% of claims made about AI benefits.
The report also knocks big tech companies for using assorted strategies to conceal the true extent of their energy use, including buying renewable energy certificates even while relying on fossil fuels to power their operations, and vowing to implement highly implausible solutions to mitigate the climate impact of data centers, including carbon capture technologies and even building orbital data centers in space.
Commenting on the report, study author Joshi said its findings seem to show "tech companies are using vagueness about what happens within energy-hogging data centers to greenwash a planet-wrecking expansion."
"The promises of planet-saving tech remain hollow, while AI data centers breathe life into coal and gas every day," Joshi added. "These claims of climate benefit are unjustified and overhyped, and could cover up irreversible damage being done to communities and society."
Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner at study sponsor Beyond Fossil Fuels, said the study shows "there is simply no evidence that AI will help the climate more than it will harm it," and accused Big Tech companies of "writing themselves a blank cheque to pollute on the empty promise of future salvation."
AI data centers have become a major controversy throughout the US in recent months, as their massive energy needs have pushed up utility bills and put a strain on communities’ water supplies.
A study published in the journal Nature Sustainability last year found that data centers could soon consume as much water as 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 10 million cars, or roughly the same amount of consumption as the entire state of New York.
Trump Administration's New Healthcare Plans Could Slap Families With $31,000 Deductibles
The Trump administration is proposing new regulations for healthcare plans purchased through Affordable Care Act exchanges that, on the surface, could offer patients lower monthly premiums.
However, the New York Times reported on Thursday that these plans would make up for the lower premiums by charging deductibles as high as $15,000 for individuals and $31,000 for families, meaning that people on these plans would have to pay significant up-front costs should they get sick before getting any benefit from having insurance.
For perspective, the Times noted that these deductibles would be "eight times the average for someone with job-based insurance."
Health experts who spoke with the Times were blunt about these plans' prospects for success.
"Nobody wants that product," Harvard health economist Amitabh Chandra said. "It’s going to be a really cheap product that nobody wants."
Dr. Joseph Betancourt, president of the Commonwealth Fund, told the Times that the plans being mulled by the administration would push greater assumption of risk onto patients and away from insurers.
"There's no doubt that we have an affordability crisis," he said. "As we move forward to shifting more of the burden to patients, there’s a chance to really exacerbate the crisis."
Katherine Hempstead, senior policy adviser for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told the Times that the cheaper Trump plans are "normalizing hardship, and... normalizing catastrophe" by creating a form of health insurance that offers even less coverage than the cheapest plans available on the exchanges.
The high-deductible plans are being pushed by Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Mehmet Oz, who made headlines earlier this year by saying the goal of the Trump administration's healthcare policy was to have Americans be healthy enough so they could stay at work for at least an extra year before retiring.
"If we can get the average person... to work one more year in their whole lifetime, just stay in your workplace for one more year," Oz said during an interview on Fox Business, "that is worth about $3 trillion to the US GDP."
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely expected to seek the presidency in 2028, pounced on the report about the high-deductible plans.
"[Trump's] economic agenda is simple," Newsom wrote in a social media post, "force hard working families to pay more and give billionaires a tax break."
Johanna Maska, a former aide to President Barack Obama, expressed disbelief that this was Republicans' long-promised replacement plan for the ACA.
"A $31,000 deductible is unacceptable," she wrote. "This is the Republican long awaited plan? This is not healthcare that helps Americans."
'One Year of Failure': The Lancet Warns RFK Jr.'s Assault on Science May 'Take Generations to Repair'
A scathing editorial published Friday in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals took US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to task for what it described as "one year of failure."
In its editorial, the Lancet began by listing off several of the broken promises Kennedy made during his first speech after being confirmed to lead the US Health and Human Services Department (HHS), such as his vow to have "open and honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again" and usher in "a new era of unbiased science without hidden conflicts of interest, secrecy, or profiteering."
In fact, the Lancet found that it took Kennedy less than two weeks to break a key promise.
"Ten days after his speech about trust and openness," the journal noted, "HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments for new rules and regulations, silencing the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged to serve."
Things have only gotten worse since then, the editorial continued, as Kennedy has shelved research into mRNA vaccines and "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
The editorial concluded by warning "the destruction that Kennedy has wrought in one year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm." The journal urged the US Congress to "hold Kennedy accountable for his record, or else accept responsibility for endorsing President Trump's decision to let him 'run wild on health.'"
The Lancet editorial drew a range of reactions from medical experts and academics.
Scott Forbes, an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg, explained the significance of a journal such as the Lancet publishing such an overtly political editorial.
"For context, the Lancet is one of the two most important medical journals on the planet," he wrote in a social media post. "When they put this on their front cover, it is only because there is something seriously wrong. That something is RFK Jr. He is a notorious crank and charlatan. But that's par for the course in the Trump regime."
Forbes' point was echoed by Krutika Kuppalli, associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Department of Internal Medicine.
"When a leading medical journal uses language like this, it’s not rhetoric," she wrote. "It’s a warning the world should take seriously."
Pediatrician Vincent Iannelli took the Lancet to task for publishing a since-retracted study in 1998 that falsely linked vaccination with the development of autism, which subsequently helped the anti-vaccination movement gain currency.
"Let's not forget that Wakefield's fraudulent paper that was published in the Lancet helped get us on this road," Iannelli said. "RFK Jr. was influenced by mothers who blamed vaccines for their child's autism."
Anthropic CEO 'Cannot in Good Conscience Accede' to Pentagon's AI Demand
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic until Friday evening to agree to let the Pentagon use the company's artificial intelligence technology however it wants, or else. Roughly 24 hours ahead of the deadline, CEO Dario Amodei announced that "we cannot in good conscience accede to their request," and reiterated opposition to enabling autonomous weapons or surveillance of US citizens.
Anthropic's Claude was the first AI model allowed to handle classified US military data. While the Department of Defense (DOD) has now signed an agreement with Elon Musk's xAI and "is getting close to making a deal with Google," as the New York Times reported Monday, Hegseth demanded "unfettered" access to Claude during a Tuesday meeting with Amodei.
Hegseth threatened to declare the Anthropic a "supply chain risk," effectively blacklisting it for military use and ending its current contract, or invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force Anthropic to tailor the product to the DOD’s needs, if Amodei refused to drop the company's guardrails.
The CEO responded publicly with a Thursday blog post. Using President Donald Trump's preferred name for the Pentagon, he wrote that "Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner."
"However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today's technology can safely and reliably do," Amodei continued. He explained the company's position that "using these systems for mass domestic surveillance is incompatible with democratic values."
"AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious, novel risks to our fundamental liberties. To the extent that such surveillance is currently legal, this is only because the law has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities of AI," he wrote. "For example, under current law, the government can purchase detailed records of Americans' movements, web browsing, and associations from public sources without obtaining a warrant, a practice the Intelligence Community has acknowledged raises privacy concerns, and that has generated bipartisan opposition in Congress. Powerful AI makes it possible to assemble this scattered, individually innocuous data into a comprehensive picture of any person's life—automatically and at massive scale."
The CEO also argued that "frontier AI systems are simply not reliable enough to power fully autonomous weapons. We will not knowingly provide a product that puts America's warfighters and civilians at risk." He noted that Anthropic offered to work directly with the department on research and development to "improve the reliability of these systems, but they have not accepted this offer."
Amodei concluded by expressing hope that the Pentagon revises its position, writing that "our strong preference is to continue to serve the department and our warfighters—with our two requested safeguards in place. Should the department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions."
Amodei's blog post followed CBS News reporting earlier Thursday that "Pentagon officials on Wednesday night sent Anthropic their best and final offer in negotiations for use of the company's artificial intelligence technology."
It also came just hours after Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell responded to a related post from a Google scientist on Musk's social media platform X. The DOD official claimed that "the Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement. This narrative is fake and being peddled by leftists in the media."
"Here's what we're asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic's model for all lawful purposes. This is a simple, commonsense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk. We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions," Parnell added, noting the Friday deadline and the threat to "terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk."
While Amodei and observers await the Pentagon's next move, several Anthropic employees, other tech experts, and critics of the Trump administration praised the CEO for "standing on principle" and choosing "war with the Department of War."
"Anthropic and Dario deserve credit for standing up for two very basic and obvious principles: no mass surveillance and no autonomous killer robots," said progressive commentator Krystal Ball. "Perhaps this is a low bar but it isn’t clear any of the other leading AI companies would put principle above profits in ANY scenario. The Pentagon is sure to make Anthropic pay for daring to defy them."
Corbyn Accuses Starmer Government of ‘Echoing Tony Blair’s Obedience to Washington’
As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allows British bases to be used as part of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the former leader of his Labour Party says he's making the same mistake that another Labour PM made 23 years ago.
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist member of Parliament who led Labour from 2015 to 2020, said on Tuesday that Starmer was "echoing Tony Blair’s obedience to Washington", referring to the then-prime minister's decision in 2003 to join US President George W. Bush's war in Iraq.
"Ignoring the wisdom of ordinary people who could see the catastrophe ahead, Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery. More than a million Iraqi men, women, and children paid the price." Corbyn wrote in a Tuesday piece for the democratic socialist publicationTribune.
Infamously pledging to Bush, "I will be with you, whatever," Blair helped to promote the false claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And despite a lack of support from the United Nations, he joined Bush's "coalition of the willing," committing 46,000 British troops to the war.
"This was the last time a Labour prime minister blindly backed the wishes of the US and its warmongering president," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps and drag us into a catastrophic, illegal war."
Unlike Bush, US President Donald Trump has not yet put boots on the ground in Iran, instead waging a destructive campaign of aerial bombings and missile strikes that have taken out the nation's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials.
As of Monday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based monitor of human rights in Iran, reported that at least 742 civilians had been killed since Saturday by US and Israeli attacks, with nearly 1,000 injured and more than 600 deaths still under review.
While Starmer has stressed that the UK "had no role" in launching the war, he has lent credence to the questionable case the US and Israel have made to justify it, including emphasizing that Iran "must never have nuclear weapons."
Iran has always contended its nuclear program was not for military purposes, and it had no desire to produce a nuclear weapon. Prior to Saturday’s strikes, reports indicated that Iranian negotiators had offered to give up the nation's entire stockpile of enriched uranium.
And though he has accused Iran of launching "indiscriminate strikes" across the Gulf, Starmer has been reticent to criticize similar actions by the US and Israel, which have had vastly larger death tolls, including the bombing of a girls' school that reportedly killed 165 people, most of them girls between ages 7 and 12, and attacks on several hospitals.
One day after the first strikes were conducted, and following mounting pressure from Trump, Starmer announced that he'd given the US approval for "specific, limited defensive" use of three Royal Air Force (RAF) bases—Fairford in England, Akrotiri in Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—in order to destroy Iran's missiles "at source" after a drone hit Akrotiri, causing minimal damage.
However, Starmer continued to claim that the UK had learned the "mistakes of Iraq," and "will not join offensive action now."
Corbyn said that Starmer's insistence that bases would only be used "defensively" was merely "meaningless vocabulary that reveals Starmer’s contempt for the intelligence of the British people."
In Parliament on Monday, Starmer said that "the use of the bases is to allow the US to use its ability to take out the ability of Iran to launch the attacks in the first place."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday used similar reasoning to justify launching the war, explaining that Iran was likely to retaliate against a planned Israeli attack and that it therefore posed an "imminent threat" to US personnel even though that threat was contingent on Israel attacking first.
Corbyn described the idea of a "preemptive strike" as a contradiction in terms. "Under this convoluted reasoning," he said, "almost any attack on anybody can be classified as a defensive measure. Starmer’s words are Newspeak—and cannot shield his government from complicity in the devastation ahead."
Like in the United States, the British public has expressed low support for American and Israeli actions against Iran. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 49% disapprove of US military action, compared to 28% who support it. Fewer than 1 in 5 Labour voters said they supported it.
Voters also said they oppose their government's involvement. Compared with just 32% of Brits who said they supported letting the US use British bases, 50% said they opposed it.
"For too long, Britain has blindly followed the US as it indulges in disastrous imperial fantasies," Corbyn said, noting the UK's continued support for Israel over two years of US-sponsored genocide in Gaza.
Corbyn is now an independent MP who co-founded a new political party after being thrown out of Labour in 2020 over dubious accusations of antisemitism, which he has alleged stem from his strong criticism of Israel.
"It’s time to forge a different path. Now is not the time to try to rescue a ‘special relationship’ characterised by impunity, genocide, and war," he said. "Now is the time to forge an independent foreign policy based on international law and peace."
Democratic Lawmakers Demand Probe Into DHS Warrantless Location Tracking
“Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time."
Over 70 Democratic US lawmakers on Tuesday demanded a new investigation into warrantless purchases of Americans' location data by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement—which critics say violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unwarranted search and seizure.
In a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, 72 congressional Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) wrote, "Public contracting documents indicate that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently resumed buying Americans’ location data from a shady data broker" after the agency "ended a previous program to purchase Americans’ cellphone location data in 2023, following an investigation by your office and scrutiny from Congress."
"Location data is extremely sensitive, and can reveal someone’s religion, their political views, medical conditions, addictions, and with whom they spend time," the lawmakers' letter states. "It is for that reason that ordinarily, the government must obtain a warrant from a judge in order to demand such data from phone or technology companies."
While the Fourth Amendment generally prohibits the government from searching or obtaining Americans' private information without a warrant, federal agencies have circumvented the proscription by buying sensitive personal data from private brokers.
"Public reports indicate that ICE has resumed its location data purchases, even though DHS has yet to adopt all of the recommendations from your prior review," the lawmakers noted in their letter.
The letter continues:
ICE issued a no-bid contract to the surveillance company PenLink in 2025, which included licenses for its location tracking product, Webloc, according to press reports. Webloc was developed by the controversial surveillance company Cobwebs Technologies, which was combined with Nebraska-based PenLink as part of a $200 million private equity deal in 2023. Cobwebs gained notoriety when Meta banned the company in 2021, as part of a crackdown on surveillance mercenaries after detecting the company’s customers targeting activists, opposition politicians, and government officials in Hong Kong and Mexico.
ICE is now stonewalling congressional oversight into its purchase of location data. Sen. Wyden’s office requested a briefing from ICE soon after this contract was revealed in the press, in October, which was scheduled in December, for February 10, 2026. One day before that briefing was to take place, ICE canceled it with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule.
"Given DHS’ failure to adopt a policy for the use of commercial data, coupled with ICE awarding a no-bid contract to a shady data broker that is likely violating federal law, we urge you to open another investigation into the purchase," the lawmakers wrote.
The letter asks:
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are purchasing illegally obtained location data about Americans;
- If so, why does DHS not have policies in place to prevent taxpayer dollars from going to contractors that have invaded Americans’ privacy in violation of federal law;
- How ICE and other DHS components have used location data and whether they have used it to investigate Americans for engaging in constitutionally protected activities, including protesting or monitoring ICE operations;
- Whether ICE and other DHS components are auditing employee access to commercial location data to identify likely patterns of abuse; and
- Why has DHS still not adopted a policy for the use of commercial location data, as you recommended in 2023?
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently explained, ICE has spent $5 million on Webloc and Tangles, another location and social media surveillance product made by PenLink.
According to EFF:
Webloc gathers the locations of millions of phones by gathering data from mobile data brokers and linking it together with other information about users. Tangles is a social media surveillance tool which combines web scraping with access to social media application programming interfaces. These tools are able to build a dossier on anyone who has a public social media account. Tangles is able to link together a person’s posting history, posts, and comments containing keywords, location history, tags, social graph, and photos with those of their friends and family. PenLink then sells this information to law enforcement, allowing law enforcement to avoid the need for a warrant. This means ICE can look up historic and current locations of many people all across the US without ever having to get a warrant.
There have been several attempts to solidify restrictions on government purchase of Americans' personal data in recent years, most notably the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act (FANFSA), which failed to pass.
Last month, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, which would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act but is also intended to protect Americans from warrantless spying, including by closing the data broker loophole that lets law enforcement buy their way around the Fourth Amendment.
Also last month, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) led 13 Democratic lawmakers who sent a separate letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem seeking answers about ICE's use of PenLink surveillance technology "designed to collect and analyze cellphone location data across entire neighborhoods."
"Mass surveillance of entire communities or city blocks raises serious questions about data privacy and potential violations of civil liberties," Brown wrote.
"Americans should be able to trust their government to uphold the Constitution and respect fundamental rights," she added. "Instead, DHS appears to be engaging in broad surveillance practices to monitor entire communities, violating Americans’ fundamental civil rights and civil liberties to punish dissent and advance the president's cruel and unconstitutional mass deportation agenda."
Competing Dem War Powers Resolution Would Give Trump a Monthlong Free Pass in Iran
"The American people are firmly against this war and will see straight through this ruse," said one campaigner.
As the House of Representatives faces mounting pressure to pass Congressmen Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie's war powers resolution to end the US-Israeli assault on Iran, six right-wing Democrats on Tuesday introduced a competing bill that would give President Donald Trump a green light to keep waging war in the Middle East for the next month.
Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have been pushing for their H.Con.Res.38 since shortly before Trump bombed Iranian nuclear facilities last June. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Saturday attack has ramped up demands for Congress to pass that resolution, along with S.J.Res.59, introduced last year by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
Those resolutions, expected to receive votes this week, were already facing uphill battles in both Republican-controlled chambers, and all-but-certain vetoes if they ever made it to Trump, whose administration claims "Operation Epic Fury" is about preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, while critics around the world accuse him and Netanyahu of engaging in an illegal regime change war.
At least six US service members and hundreds of Iranians are now dead. Despite the rising death toll, the Democrats behind the new proposal—Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Greg Landsman (Ohio), and Jimmy Panetta (Calif.)—made clear that they oppose a swift end to the conflict.
"There is a concern that the Khanna-Massie war powers resolution currently requires the immediate withdrawal of US forces, even while Iran is actively targeting American troops, assets, embassies, and our allies across the region," they said in a statement. "It is vital that we allow for a safe transition, that protects our service members, embassies, and allies, not a potentially precarious withdrawal."
While proposing a 30-day window for ending the conflict—absent an authorization for the use of military force or a formal declaration of war from Congress—the six Democrats also said that "an open-ended commitment by the administration and the recent implication from the secretary of defense that ground troops may be engaged are both unacceptable."
Politico called the new measure "a sign of how some Democrats are struggling to reconcile their opposition to the Trump administration's military action with a desire to appear hawkish on national security—even in a largely symbolic capacity."
The outlet also noted that when asked about the latest proposal during a Tuesday news conference, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that "our focus is on the resolution that will be on the floor this week."
"We'll continue to make the strongest possible case," Jeffries added. "There is going to be very strong Democratic support for the war powers resolution across the ideological spectrum."
Cavan Kharrazian, a senior policy adviser at the grassroots group Demand Progress, was far more critical, declaring that "of course Democrats who raced to applaud Trump's illegal war in Iran, and in one case was pardoned by him, would draft a pro-war war powers resolution meant to sabotage the real war powers resolution receiving a vote this week."
"This Trojan horse resolution attempts to give Trump a free pass to continue waging an unauthorized war in Iran for a whole month—exactly the amount of time that Trump has said he expects the war to last," he warned. "The American people are firmly against this war and will see straight through this ruse."
"Representatives need to ignore this bad-faith distraction," Kharrazian argued, "and vote for the bipartisan Khanna-Massie resolution that will actually stop this illegal war and bring our troops home."
‘These Guys Can’t Help Themselves’: Cruz Pushes $200 Billion Capital Gains Tax Cut Without OK From Congress
Republican senators said they were seeking to end an "unfair inflation tax on everyday Americans." But nearly all the benefits of their proposal would go to the wealthiest 1%.
Two leading Republicans are pushing for the Trump administration to issue another $200 billion tax cut, primarily to the wealthiest Americans, without congressional approval.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tim Scott (R-SC) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging him to use executive authority to lower the federal tax on capital gains—the profits from selling stocks, bonds, real estate, and other investments.
The senators have proposed that capital gains taxes should be “indexed for inflation." As the Post explained:
The plan pushed by Cruz and Scott has been sought by conservatives for many years. Under current law, an investor who bought $100 worth of stock in 1990 and sold it today for $300 would currently owe capital gains taxes on the full $200 in profit. But the $100 investment in 1990 would be worth roughly $230 in today’s dollars after accounting for inflation. Under the Cruz-Scott proposal, the investor would only owe taxes on that $70, rather than the full $200.
The senators called on Bessent to "eliminate" this "unfair inflation tax on everyday Americans."
According to Federal Reserve data from 2025, the richest 1% of Americans owned about half of all stocks, while the poorest 50% owned only 1%.
Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which enacted massive cuts to social programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) last summer, is already estimated to funnel more than $1 trillion to the top 1% of earners over the next 10 years, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
It is unclear whether Bessent would even have the power to change how gains are taxed without an act of Congress, or if Bessent has any interest in doing so. But the vast majority of the benefits from Cruz and Scott's proposal, if enacted, would likely go to the rich as well.
When the Trump administration first considered indexing capital gains taxes to inflation back in 2018, the Penn Wharton Budget Model projected that 63% of the benefits would flow to the richest 0.1%—those making tens of millions per year—while 86% would go to the top 1%.
Those in the bottom 90% of earners would see just over 2% of the overall benefits, with those in the bottom half receiving basically nothing.
According to the Post, the senators view lowering capital gains taxes as part of a GOP bid to "improve its economic approval rating with voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections," in which the party is expected to take a walloping, according to current polls.
Voters have not responded kindly to previous bills that handed lavish tax breaks to the rich. At the time of its passage, the OBBBA was one of the least popular pieces of legislation in modern history, with several polls showing nearly a 2-to-1 disapproval rating.
But Cruz and Scott are pushing for this policy change despite the public revulsion and the fact that the Department of Justice has previously ruled that the Treasury Department can't make policy without Congress' approval.
"Ted Cruz is asking the Treasury Department to break the law to give another round of tax breaks to the ultrarich," remarked Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. "These guys can't help themselves."