LIVE COVERAGE
Fog Of Bullshit: Racist Clowns, Liars and Psycopaths
The surreal and deadly lurches on. In the last, frantic, script-flipping week, MAGA went from threatening to kill Dems who reminded troops to obey the law to scurrying to parse or ignore the news their macho, bungling Secretary of War Crimes evidently blew apart (at least) two guys in the water for no reason - an action universally deemed either murder or war crime, but def against the law. Now see Kegseth et al thrash, bluster, scapegoat the other guy. Trump doctrine: Deport, raze, blame, kill first; think (sic) later.
Most notably, a flailing presidency of "malevolence tempered by incompetence" - Cue the bonkers holiday greeting, "A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at" - is now embroiled in the detritus of a toxic, slapdash revenge tour targeting perceived, if often outlandish, enemies, both here and abroad. Last week's berserk campaign focused on six, mouthy Democratic lawmakers and veterans who had the chutzpah to post a brief video reminding the military of their oaths to follow the law and if needed disobey orders that don't - a bedrock tenet of the military so vital it's engraved on a plaque at West Point: "Should orders and the law ever conflict, our officers obey the law." Pretty radical.
The measured response from the Mob-Boss-in-Chief: Hysterically charging them with "SEDITION," "TREASON," "MILITARY TRIBUNALS," and calling them "traitorous sons of bitches" who should be "EXECUTED." Even as death threats followed, he was swiftly joined by every MAGA lickspittle, especially the lickspittlest - manly Whiskey Pete, the preening, pig-eyed, fragile creator of the War Department famed for strutting on stage to spout inane bullshit about a "warrior ethos" that demands "more lethality, less (sic) lawyers" 'cause who needs rules and laws? Shrieking the Dems' "screed" was "despicable, reckless, and false," he zeroed in on Sen. Mark Kelly - Macho Twit Goes After Actual Mensch - announcing he'd heard "serious allegations of misconduct” by Kelly, he'd "determine further action," and maybe recall Kelly to active duty so he could court-martial him.
It was a brilliant move by a National Guardsman whose drunken, inept, sexual assaulting career peaked in a Civil Affairs job and a weekend TV host gig until his absurd appointment, savaged as "an affront" to anyone who ever served, especially after he leaked war plans - a move just found to have violated Pentagon policy and put at risk military personnel. Veterans eviscerate him as "an absolute jackass," "an imposter," "a coward," "a blowhard" in makeup, "that officer, a total blue falcon" who screws his comrades. Now pols are too. Sen. and former Marine Ruben Gallego: "This is fucking insane." Kelly, in contrast, is a decades-long, much-decorated Navy pilot who saw 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, an astronaut who flew four space shuttle missions including the mission to recover the Columbia crash victims, a husband who retired to nurse his wife back to health after she was shot in the head, and a respected Senator.
Kelly, who's seen much worse, fought back: "(Hegseth) runs around on stage talking about lethality and the warrior ethos (like) a 12-year-old playing army, and it is ridiculous, embarrassing. This is not a serious person." He noted the "wild" irony of Hegseth attacking him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is what the six traitors recited: "You can't make this shit up." He also posted an image of his 20-plus medals to illustrate how he'd served and loved this country. In response, Pete sneered to "Captain" Kelly not only did he do "sedition" but his medals "are out of order," and he'd get to that. Alexander Vindman (and half of America): "Ever heard of a picture being mirrored? Good reminder: You’re out of your depth." Shut down, a pouting Pete went after our real enemy, vowing to cut support for a DEI-infected Boy Scouts who've become "genderless" and failed to "cultivate masculine values." Welcome to the Gulf of Fragile Masculinity.
This is what the "Secretary of War" is busy doing. This is who this petty macho arrogant jerk is. This is the guy who, as the Washington Post reported days later, allegedly ordered a SEAL Team on Sept. 2, in the first of nearly two dozen military strikes on fishing boats in the Caribbean that have killed 83 mostly anonymous "narco-terrorists" in extrajudicial assassinations, to "kill everybody" after the smoke from an initial strike cleared and revealed two wounded survivors in the water, clinging to wreckage of the burning boat. "Kill them all," writes JoJoFromJerz. "That was the order, plain, deliberate, and damnable, issued by the booze and bronzer-brined (Hegseth) as if American power were his personal cudgel and human life his disposable currency. The directive slithered down the chain of command like toxic runoff," and in moments the two helpless men were "blown apart in the water."
The murderous "double-tap" strike was needed, the Pentagon argued, to sink the boat and avoid a "navigation hazard” - a claim Rep. and Marine veteran Seth Moulton called "patently absurd," just like Trump's underlying "novel" claim the U.S. is in an "armed conflict" with oil-rich Venezuela' and its drug cartels. Despite American opposition, to date he's threatened ground strikes, hinted at regime change, and unilaterally declared Venezuelan airspace closed along with 83 killings so politically and legally dubious the U.K. has stopped sharing intelligence on traffic in the Caribbean to not be complicit. All this, despite a total lack of evidence the victims are drug traffickers or any accountability for their deaths, and the fact most potentially lethal fentanyl doesn't even come from the Caribbean. One pundit: "So what gave him the idea blowing up small boats in international waters was a thing?" Especially when, per Marcie Wheeler, it took four shots for these killer clowns to do the lawless dirty deed.
Inept Warrior Pete is on it anyway, damn near swooning from blood lust, with his ridiculous renaming stunt - "WAR.GOV/JOINTHEFIGHT - rabid calls for "lethality," firing of military Judge Advocate Generals who act as legal guardrails against possible future illegal commands (hmm), and queasy, chest-thumping zeal for the fight: "Trump ordered action - and the Department of War is delivering! Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR defends our Homeland!" The WaPo story of his verbal command to "kill everybody" shouldn't surprise anyone; it's part of the long, sordid, bellicose narrative arc of a laws-are-bullshit buffoon who only feels big if he makes others small, or per Trump, "like, dead," and can then brag about it. A wildly unqualified, uber-macho cartoon version of a weak man willing to do anything to prove he isn't, he fits right in with all the other flame-throwing hacks and sycophants now inexplicably handed the terrifying reins of power.
Meanwhile, the consensus of virtually every military expert or lawyer asked is that Hegseth is, by his actions, either a war criminal or a murderer. The legal bottom line: "There is no basis in law for the maritime attacks. Period. Full stop." Even if there were, international and US law render the targeting of defenseless persons - showing them "no quarter" - "patently illegal." They add, "Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options." And anyone who issues or follows those orders should be prosecuted. Many cite for reference a "textbook war crime," as in, "If we were at war, Hegseth committed one. If not, it's outright murder." Laurence Tribe, who taught law at Harvard for 50 years, helpfully adds that the DOD Law of War Manual, Sec. 18.3.2.1 includes the "requirement" to refuse illegal orders. Their example? "Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked."
Also, in case anyone ever believed Trump's "war" was about drugs: Last week he pardoned former Honduran president and cocaine kingpin Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year in a US court to 45 years in prison for conspiring to traffic over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.; with his brother, he also helped turn Honduras into a major producing hub and transit point for cocaine heading to the US, and once said he wanted to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos." Trump's brazen flaunting of his "charade" of a drug war may be why even Newsmax (sadly) argues the strikes are war crimes, and Repubs on House and Senate Armed Services Committees say they may even do some oversight of this one crime among so many by their mad king; it remains unclear how many are willing to "fall on their swords" for the grossly incompetent, unsavory Hegseth.
South Park's latest, savage skewering of "fucking douchebag Pete Hegseth" may help them decide, or not. Trump sends him to town to free Peter Thiel; armed with his selfie stick but thrown out by the "woke" police chief, he teargasses the annual, Saudi-sponsored 5K Turkey Trot, mistaking the race for an Antifa mob; then he bickers with ICE Barbie - who shoots another dog livestreaming and yelling, "Like and subscribe, guys! The Department of War will not be intimidated!" Possibly confusing art with life, Hegseth tried Friday to sneeringly meme his way from the outrage by trashing "fake news," doubling down with, "We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists," and posting a grotesque, quickly blasted, parody of kids' icon Franklin the Turtle firing rockets at small boats. Up next: "Franklin Goes to the Hague For War Crimes" and "Franklin On Trial at the ICC."
The White House, meanwhile, feverishly tried to quiet the uproar. Press Barbie babbled the second strike was "in self-defense to protect Americans in vital United States interests" (sic) and insisted "presidentially-designated Narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting." Also, they suddenly found a scapegoat, Admiral Frank Bradley: "Bus, meet Admiral Bradley. Admiral Bradley, meet bus." Hegseth "authorized Adm Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. (He) worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated," said Barbie, a renowned scholar of maritime law. Pete's stupid, rank deceit reportedly set off "furious backlash" at the Pentagon. "He is selling out Bradley and sending chills down the spines of his chain of command," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "A case study in how not to lead."
The morning after the Sept. 3 attack, Hegseth told Fox News he tracked the strike in real time: "I watched it live." At Tuesday's Cabinet circle jerk, Trump dozed from his night's hypomanic episode of rage-posting160 times, and Pete's story slimily shifted. As the big boy leader, he said, of course "you want to own that responsibility." So he saw the first strike, but "at the Dept.of War we got alotta things to do," and he had, umm, a thing, so he didn’t stay for "the hour and two hours or whatever where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs" yada yada. Huh. Hours later, he learned "the commander had made the - which he had the complete authority to do" whoosh under the bus and "we have his back." Asked if he saw survivors, he lost it: "The thing was on fire. This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices, plant fake stories, nit pick, kill everybody, not based on anything, American heroes, I wrote a book, yada yada, go war fighters!
Wait. "The fog of war"? You mean the fog of bullshit? You mean the cloud of smoke you see in your own air-conditioned office far away as drones on a screen incinerate small boats and the poor souls in them, also the rare survivor who desperately hangs on in the flames and water until you flick a blithe switch to kill him too? That fog of "war"? Fuck you, you gutless vapid self-serving ghoul, whining and snarling you're all doing "what is necessary, dark and difficult things (on) behalf of the American people." Right. On Tuesday, the Columbian family of one victim filed the first court petition charging their husband and father, Alejandro Carranza Medina, 42, was illegally killed in a 2nd US strike on Sept. 15. They said he was a fisher who often set out for marlin and tuna; they named Trump and Hegseth as his killers. Trump had bragged that day of "a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and terrorists." He said they were "from Venezuela."
Update: Good news from The Borowitz Report for the Manchild King: The Hague has invited him to receive an award. "They said it was in response to things I've done as president," he boasted, before nodding off.
Flooding Kills 1,000+ Across South Asia as Climate Crisis Fuels More Extreme Rain
More than 1,100 people across South Asia have died after torrential rains fueled by warming temperatures caused widespread flooding and landslides in recent days.
Following days of unprecedented cyclone conditions, people across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have been left with their homes destroyed and forced to flee for their lives. A separate cyclone in Sri Lanka has left hundreds more dead.
The worst devastation has been seen in Indonesia, where Cyclone Senyar has claimed over 500 lives as of Sunday. On the island of Sumatra, rescue teams have struggled to reach stranded people as roads have been blocked by mudslides and high floodwaters. Many areas are still reportedly unreachable.
As Reuters reported Monday, more than 28,000 homes have been damaged across the country and 1.4 million people affected, according to government figures. At least 464 were reported missing as of Sunday.
Other countries in the region were also battered. In Thailand, the death toll was reported at 176 as of Monday, and more than 3 million people are reported to be affected. The worst destruction has been in the southern city of Hat Yai, which on November 21 alone experienced 335mm of rain, its single largest recorded rainfall in over 300 years.
At least two more have been killed in Malaysia, where nearly 12,000 people still remain in evacuation centers.
Sri Lanka has witnessed similar devastation in recent days from another storm, Cyclone Ditwah, that formed around the same time as Senyar. Floods and mudslides have similarly killed at least 330 people, and destroyed around 20,000 homes, while leaving around a third of the country without electricity. More than 200 people are missing, and over 108,000 are in state-run shelters, officials say.
Work has begun in Indonesia to restore damaged roads, bridges, and telecommunication services. But after he visited survivors in Sumatra, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said that the work will extend beyond merely recovering from the storm.
“We need to confront climate change effectively,” Prabowo told reporters. “Local governments must take a significant role in safeguarding the environment and preparing for the extreme weather conditions that will arise from future climate change.”
Southeast Asia was top-of-mind for many attendees at last month's COP30 climate summit in Brazil. As Winston Chow, a professor of urban climate at Singapore Management University and part of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Straits Times, this is because the region "is highly vulnerable to climate change."
"As a whole, it faces multiple climate risks and hazards, such as rising temperatures, sea-level rise, increasing droughts and floods, and the intensification of extreme events like typhoons," he continued.
In recent years, the region has been hit by annual devastating heatwaves, resulting in record-shattering temperatures. In Myanmar, where temperatures exceeded 110°F last April, Radio Free Asia reported that 1,473 people died from extreme heat in just one month.
Floods have likewise grown more deadly in recent years. Just this month, floods killed dozens more people in Vietnam, and a pair of typhoons killed hundreds more in the Philippines and forced over a million people to evacuate their homes.
While it's difficult to determine the extent to which any one disaster was caused by climate change, in aggregate, they are growing more intense as the planet warms.
"As the world’s oceans and atmosphere warm at an accelerating rate due to the rise in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, tropical cyclones are expected to become more intense," explained Steve Turton, an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity Australia in The Conversation on Sunday. "This is because cyclones get their energy from warm oceans. The warmer the ocean, the more fuel for the storm."
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October 2025 was the third-warmest October on record globally and had above-average tropical cyclone activity.
"The warming atmosphere is supercharging the global water cycle, and peak rainfall rates are increasing," Turton said. "When more rain falls in a short time, flash flooding becomes more likely."
At COP30, protesters from across Southeast Asia assembled to demand action from global leaders. On November 10, shortly after her home in Manila was battered by a pair of typhoons, 25-year-old activist Ellenor Bartolome savaged corporations and world leaders who have continued to block global action to reduce fossil fuel usage.
“It gets worse every year, and for every disaster, it is utterly enraging that we are counting hundreds of bodies, hundreds of missing people... while the elite and the corporations are counting money from fossil fuels," she told attendees as they entered the conference.
Ultimately, many climate activists and scientists left the conference enraged yet again, as the final agreement stripped out all language related to fossil fuels.
‘Yikes’: New Jobs Data Further Undermines Trump Fiction of Thriving Economy
Economists on Wednesday expressed significant concerns after new data from global payroll processing firm ADP estimated that the US economy lost 32,000 jobs last month.
As reported by CNBC, small businesses bore the brunt of the job losses, as firms with fewer than 50 employees shed a total of 120,000 jobs, more than offsetting the 90,000 in job gains reported by firms with 50 or more employees.
The loss of 32,000 jobs in November marked a major miss for economists' consensus estimate of 40,000 jobs added on the month, and CNBC noted that the total number of jobs lost according to ADP data "was the biggest drop since March 2023."
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, noted in a post on X that the job losses recorded by ADP were widespread across the US economy.
"Yikes," she wrote in reaction to the report. "Most industries were doing layoffs. The only ones still are hiring are hospitality and healthcare."
Long also said the disparity between small and large businesses in terms of job growth was more evidence that the US is experiencing a "K-shaped" economy in which those at the top of the economic ladder thrive, even as everyone else struggles.
"Larger companies are still hiring," she explained. "Smaller firms (under 50 workers) are doing the layoffs. It's been a very tough year for small biz due to tariffs and more selective spending from lower and middle-class consumers."
Kevin Gordon, head of macro research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, observed that ADP hasn't reported such a big drop in small-business employment since October 2020, when the US economy was suffering through the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, cautioned against reading too much into ADP data, although he added that "in the absence of up to date government payrolls, all other signs point to a further deteriorating labor market."
Charlie Bilello, chief market strategist at financial planner Creative Planning, argued that the ADP jobs numbers were part of a negative three-month trend in which the US economy lost an estimated 4,000 jobs per month, which he said was "the first three-month decline since the 2020 recession."
Bilello added that "a year ago, we were adding over 200,000 jobs per month."
Diane Swonk, chief economist at accounting firm KPMG, argued that the ADP report showed job losses in the US economy were "broad based" and "were accompanied by a cooling of wage gains" for workers who still have jobs or are switching from one job to another.
"Those with a job are clinging on, while those without are left wanting," she explained.
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argued that the ADP report blows up President Donald Trump's spin about the health of the US economy.
"The booming job market exists only in Donald Trump's demented head," he wrote.
Medicare for All Sees Key Polling Shift as Americans Fume Over Surging For-Profit Insurance Premiums
With Affordable Care Act premiums surging and lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle scrambling to cobble together a last-minute fix, recent polling data shows that a strong majority of the American public supports a transformative proposal that few members of Congress are vocally advocating.
Data for Progress released survey results late last month showing that 65% of likely US voters—including 78% of Democrats, 71% of Independents, and 49% of Republicans—either strongly or somewhat support "creating a national health insurance program, sometimes called 'Medicare for All,' that would cover all Americans and replace most private health insurance plans."
Overall support for such a system dropped just two percentage points when survey respondents were informed that Medicare for All would replace insurance premiums with higher taxes, abolish most private insurance, and eliminate copays and deductibles. In an analysis posted last week, The Lever's David Sirota observed that those results are a shift from earlier polling showing a sharp decline in support for Medicare for All once respondents were told the proposal would wipe out private insurance.
"That might have been the end of Medicare for All for another generation—except now the ACA is epically and undeniably failing to guarantee 'affordable' healthcare," Sirota wrote. "As private health insurers are now jacking up premiums for tens of millions of Americans, a new poll shows a huge majority of Americans now want Medicare for All—even if it entails eliminating private insurers and raising taxes."
The Data for Progress survey came as Republican and Democratic lawmakers continued floating temporary, Band-Aid solutions to avert catastrophic premium increases stemming in large part from the looming expiration of enhanced ACA tax credits, which lapse at the end of the year.
A new poll released Thursday by KFF found that "six in ten adults (61%) who buy their health coverage on the ACA marketplace say it is very or somewhat difficult to afford their deductibles and out-of-pocket costs for medical care."
"When asked what they would do if the amount they pay for health insurance each month doubled, one in three enrollees (32%) say they are very likely to shop for a lower-premium plan (with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs), and one in four (25%) say they would be very likely to go uninsured," KFF noted.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday pitched a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies ahead of a planned vote next week—a proposal that Republicans are certain to oppose.
On the Republican side, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)—who is linked to the largest Medicare fraud case in US history—is convening a group of Republican lawmakers to craft a likely dead-on-arrival ACA alternative that would implement some proposals floated by President Donald Trump, including new savings accounts that critics say would further enrich banks and insurance giants.
Scott warned in a statement to Axios earlier this week that "the more Republicans refuse to engage on this issue, the more we allow radical Democrats to lead our country on a slow creep towards the Socialist single-payer healthcare system they've always wanted."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, is reportedly planning to finalize a healthcare bill early next week, though no details were immediately available.
There's also a bipartisan framework led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), which calls for a one-year extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits "with targeted modifications," including intensified means-testing that would phase out the subsidies for those with incomes between 600% and 1,000% of the federal poverty level.
The Medicare for All Act, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) in the House, would have no such means-testing, guaranteeing comprehensive coverage to all for free at the point of service.
"Everybody recognizes that our current healthcare system is broken. That’s why over 60% of the American people support Medicare for All," Sanders said at a rally with nurses in the nation's capital on Wednesday. "The day will come when working-class Americans will be able to go to the doctor, dentist, or a nursing home without having to worry about the cost. We’re going to win this fight."
'A Human Rights Disaster': Report Details Torture and Chaos at 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Two immigration detention centers in Florida have gained notoriety for inhumane conditions since Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, in close alignment with President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant agenda, has rapidly scaled up mass detention in the state, and a report released Thursday detailed how human rights violations at the two facilities amount to torture in some cases.
Amnesty International published the report, Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State, with a focus on Krome North Service Processing Center and the Everglades Detention Facility, also known by its nickname, "Alligator Alcatraz."
As Common Dreams has reported, many of the people detained at the facilities have been arbitrarily rounded up by immigration agents, with a majority of the roughly 1,000 people being held at Alligator Alcatraz having been convicted of no criminal offense as of July.
Amnesty's report described unsanitary conditions, with fecal matter overflowing from toilets in detainees' sleeping areas, authorities granting only limited access to showers, and poor quality food and water.
Some of the treatment amounts to torture, the report says, including Alligator Alcatraz's use of "the box"—a 2x2 foot "cage-like structure people are put in as punishment—which inmates have been placed in for hours at a time with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International USA. “This is unreal—where’s the oversight?”
At Krome, detainees have been arbitrarily placed in prolonged solitary confinement—defined as lasting longer than 15 days—which is prohibited under international law.
"The use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the ‘box’ at 'Alligator Alcatraz' amount to torture or other ill-treatment," said Amnesty.
The report elevates concerns raised in September by immigrant rights advocates regarding the lack of federal oversight at Alligator Alcatraz, with nearly 1,000 men detained at the prison having been "administratively disappeared"—their names absent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detainee locator system.
"The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer," said Amnesty.
The state of Florida has not publicly confirmed the number of people detained at Alligator Alcatraz.
One man told Amnesty, "My lawyers tried to visit me, but they weren’t let in. They were told that they had to fill out a form, which they did, but nothing happened. I was never able to speak with them confidentially.”
At Krome, detainees described overcrowding, medical neglect, and abuse by guards when Amnesty researchers visited in September. ICE has constructed tents and other semi-permanent structures to hold more people than the facility is designed to detain.
The Amnesty researchers were given a tour of relatively extensive medical facilities at Krome, including a dialysis clinic, dental clinic, and a "state-of-the-art" mental health facility—but despite these resources, detainees described officials' failure to provide medical treatment and delays in health assessments. Four people—Ramesh Amechand, Genry Ruiz Guillen, Maksym Chernyak, and Isidro Pérez—have died this year while detained at Krome.
"It’s a disaster if you want to see the doctor," one man told Amnesty. "I once asked to see the doctor, and it took two weeks for me to finally see him. It’s very slow.”
Researchers with the organization witnessed "a guard violently slam a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man’s injured hand," and people reported being "hit and punched" by officials at Krome.
In line with the Trump administration, DeSantis and Republican state lawmakers have sought to make Florida "a testing ground for abusive immigration enforcement policies," said Amnesty, with the state deputizing local law enforcement to make immigration arrests and issuing 34 no-bid contracts totaling more than $360 million for the operation of Alligator Alcatraz—while slashing spending on healthcare, food assistance, and disaster relief. Florida has increased the number of people in immigration detention by more than 50% since Trump took office in January.
The organization called on Florida to redirect detention funding toward healthcare, housing, and other public spending, and to ban "shackling, solitary confinement, and punitive outdoor confinement" in line with international standards.
"At the federal level, the US government must end its cruel mass immigration detention machine, stop the criminalization of migration, and bar the use of state-owned facilities for federal immigration custody," said Amnesty.
Fischer emphasized that the chaotic and abusive conditions Amnesty observed at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome "are not isolated."
"They represent a deliberate system of cruelty designed to punish people seeking to build a new life in the US,” said Fischer. “We must stop detaining our immigrant community members and people seeking safety and instead work toward humane, rights-respecting migration policies.”
Human Rights Group Warns US Gaza Plan Will Impose 'Unlawful Collective Imprisonment' of Palestinians as New Details Emerge
A prominent international human rights organization is warning that the United States' plan for postwar Gaza will impose "unlawful collective imprisonment" on the Palestinian civilians who have survived two years of genocide.
In November, several news outlets reported on the Trump administration's plan to carve Gaza in two: a so-called “green zone” controlled by Israel and a “red zone” controlled by the militant group Hamas.
The US would construct what it called “Alternative Safe Communities” for Palestinians to live in the Israeli-controlled portion of Gaza, which is over half of the territory under the current "ceasefire" agreement.
The New York Times described these communities as "compounds" of 20,000 to 25,000 people, where Israeli officials reportedly argued they should not be allowed to leave.
The initial reporting raised fears that the US and Israel were constructing what would amount to a "concentration camp," where Palestinians would be forced to live in squalid conditions without freedom of movement.
On Wednesday, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released new details on how Palestinians, currently facing mass displacement from their homes in the portion of the strip not occupied by Israel, would be corralled into the green zone under the US proposal.
The Geneva-based group issued a stark warning about the plan, which it said carried "grave risks, including the effective displacement of Palestinians from their homes and the transformation of large parts of Gaza into closed military zones under the direct control of the Israeli army."
“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life."
Euro-Med's report explains that the transfer of Palestinians would be carried out using "various pressure tactics."
"This is done by creating a coercive environment in the red zone and making access to relative protection and basic services conditional on relocating to designated areas within the green zone, following extensive security screening and vetting," the report says. "This removes any genuine element of consent and places the process squarely within the scope of forced displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law."
It also provides new details on the conditions Palestinians would be subject to once they've arrived: "The plan includes the establishment of 'cities' of prefabricated container homes (caravans) in the green zone, each housing around 25,000 people within an area of no more than one square kilometer and enclosed by walls and checkpoints."
This means these Palestinian cantons would be over three times as densely populated as the Tel Aviv District, the most crowded in Israel, which has about 8,130 people per square kilometer.
"Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life," the report continues.
This is not the first proposal to use the promise of safety to lure Palestinians into an enclosed space without the right to leave.
Earlier this year, following US President Donald Trump's call for the people of Palestine to be forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz proposed the creation of a massive “humanitarian city” built on the ruins of Rafah that would be used as part of an “emigration plan” for hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Under that plan, Palestinians would have been given “security screenings” and once inside would not be allowed to leave. Humanitarian organizations, including those inside Israel, roundly condemned the plan as essentially a “concentration camp.”
Euro-Med said that the design laid out in the new US plan "mirrors the historical model of ghettos, in which colonial and racist regimes confined specific groups to sealed areas surrounded by walls and guard posts, with movement and resources controlled externally, as seen in Europe during World War II and in other colonial contexts."
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case That Could Bless Trump's Bid to End Birthright Citizenship
"That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair," said one critic.
The United States Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether US President Donald Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship—as guaranteed under the 14th Amendment for more than 150 years—is constitutional.
Next spring, the justices will hear oral arguments in Trump's appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down parts of an executive order—titled Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship—signed on the first day of the president's second term. Under the directive, which has not taken effect due to legal challenges, people born in the United States would not be automatically entitled to US citizenship if their parents are in the country temporarily or without legal authorization.
Enacted in 1868, the 14th Amendment affirms that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
While the Trump administration argues that the 14th Amendment was adopted to grant US citizenship to freed slaves, not travelers or undocumented immigrants, two key Supreme Court cases have affirmed birthright citizenship under the Constitution—United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Afroyim v. Rusk (1967).
Here is the question presented. It's a relatively clean vehicle for the Supreme Court to finally decide whether it is lawful for the president to deny birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...
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— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Several district court judges have issued universal preliminary injunctions to block Trump's order. However, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority found in June that “universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts."
In July, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously ruled that executive order is an unconstitutional violation of the plain language of the 14th Amendment. In total, four federal courts and two appellate courts have blocked Trump's order.
“No president can change the 14th Amendment’s fundamental promise of citizenship,” Cecillia Wang, national legal director at the ACLU—which is leading the nationwide class action challenge to Trump's order—said in a statement Friday. “We look forward to putting this issue to rest once and for all in the Supreme Court this term.”
Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at the advocacy group Stand Up America, was among those who suggested that the high court justices should have refused to hear the case given the long-settled precedent regarding the 14th Amendment.
“This case is a right-wing fantasy, full stop. That the Supreme Court is actually entertaining Trump’s unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship is the clearest example yet that the Roberts Court is broken beyond repair," Edkins continued, referring to Chief Justice John Roberts.
"Even if the court ultimately rules against Trump, in a laughable display of its supposed independence, the fact that fringe attacks on our most basic rights as citizens are being seriously considered is outrageous and alarming," he added.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of the Asian Law Caucus, said that “it’s deeply troubling that we must waste precious judicial resources relitigating what has been settled constitutional law for over a century," adding that "every federal judge who has considered this executive order has found it unconstitutional."
Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, asserted, “The attack on the fundamental right of birthright citizenship is an attack on the 14th Amendment and our Constitution."
"We are confident the court will affirm this basic right, which has stood for over a century," Mays added. "Millions of families across the country deserve and require that clarity and stability.”
62,000 African Penguins Starving to Death Highlights Humanity-Driven Extinction Crisis
"If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive," said one researcher, "it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing."
A study published this week about tens of thousands of starving African penguins is highlighting what scientists warn is the planet's sixth mass extinction event, driven by human activity, and efforts to save as many species as possible.
Researchers from the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE), the United Kingdom's University of Exeter, and other institutions examined a pair of breeding colonies north of Cape Town, South Africa, and published their findings Thursday in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology.
"These two sites are two of the most important breeding colonies historically—holding around 25,000 (Dassen) and around 9,000 (Robben) breeding pairs in the early 2000s. As such, they are also the locations of long-term monitoring programs," said study co-author Azwianewi Makhado from the DFFE in a statement.
As the study explains: "African Penguins moult annually, coming ashore and fasting for 21 days, when they shed and replace all their feathers. Failure to fatten sufficiently to moult, or to regain condition afterwards, results in death."
The team found that "between 2004 and 2011, the sardine stock off west South Africa was consistently below 25% of its peak abundance, and this appears to have caused severe food shortage for African penguins, leading to an estimated loss of about 62,000 breeding individuals," said co-author and Exeter associate professor Richard Sherley.
The paper notes that "although some adults moulted at a colony to the southeast, where food may have been more plentiful, much of the mortality likely resulted from failure of birds to fatten sufficiently to moult. The fishery exploitation rate of sardines west of Cape Agulhas was consistently above 20% between 2005 and 2010."
Sherley said that "high sardine exploitation rates—that briefly reached 80% in 2006—in a period when sardine was declining because of environmental changes likely worsened penguin mortality."
Humanity's reliance on fossil fuels is warming ocean water and impacting how salty it is. For the penguins' prey, said Sherley, "changes in the temperature and salinity of the spawning areas off the west and south coasts of South Africa made spawning in the historically important west coast spawning areas less successful, and spawning off the south coast more successful."
The researcher also stressed that "these declines are mirrored elsewhere," pointing out that the species' global population has dropped nearly 80% in the last three decades. With fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs left, the African penguin was uplisted to "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species last year.
Sherley told Mongabay at the time that the IUCN update "highlights a much bigger problem with the health of our environment."
"Despite being well-known and studied, these penguins are still facing extinction, showing just how severe the damage to our ecosystems has become," he said. "If a species as iconic as the African penguin is struggling to survive, it raises the question of how many other species are disappearing without us even noticing. We need to act now—not just for penguins, but to protect the broader biodiversity that is crucial for the planet's future."
Looks like the combined effects of climate change and over fishing are key factors in decimating the populations of these penguins.www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
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— Margot Hodson (@margothodson.bsky.social) December 5, 2025 at 4:46 AM
Fearful that the iconic penguin species could be extinct within a decade, the conservation organizations BirdLife South Africa and the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) last year pursued a first-of-its-kind legal battle in the country, resulting in a settlement with the commercial fishing sector and DFFE.
The settlement, reached just days before a planned court hearing this past March, led to no-go zones for the commercial anchovy and sardine fishing vessels around six penguin breeding colonies: Stony Point, as well as Bird, Dassen, Dyer, Robben, and St. Croix islands.
"The threats facing the African penguin are complex and ongoing—and the order itself requires monitoring, enforcement, and continued cooperation from industry and the government processes which monitor and allocate sardine and anchovy populations for commercial purposes," Nicky Stander, head of conservation at SANCCOB, said in March.
The study also acknowledges hopes that "the revised closures—which will operate year-round until at least 2033—will decrease mortality of African penguins and improve their breeding success at the six colonies around which they have been implemented."
"However," it adds, "in the face of the ongoing impact of climate change on the abundance and distribution of their key prey, other interventions are likely to be needed."
Lorien Pichegru, a marine biology professor at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University who was not involved in the study, called the findings "extremely concerning" and warned the Guardian that the low fish numbers require urgent action "not only for African penguins but also for other endemic species depending on these stocks."
'One of the Worst Awards Someone Could Possibly Get': FIFA Blasted for Giving Trump Made-Up 'Peace Prize'
"Winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like winning the Dahmer Culinary Award," said one critic.
President Donald Trump, whose administration is engaged in a boat-bombing campaign in the Caribbean that human rights organizations and legal experts consider a murder spree, has finally been given a peace prize.
Although Trump tried unsuccessfully this year to get the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award him its prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, he was given something of a consolation gift on Friday when FIFA, the official governing body behind the World Cup, gave him its first-ever FIFA Peace Prize.
After being given the award, Trump called it "truly one of the great honors of my life," and suggested he deserved it for supposedly "saving millions and millions of lives."
A Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health study released last month estimated that Trump's decision to shutter the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year has already caused hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, and a study published this summer by medical journal The Lancet projected that the end of USAID will lead to up to 14 million preventable deaths over the next five years.
According to the New York Times, the announcement awarding Trump the prize was "so hastily arranged that it surprised several of the body’s most senior officials, including board members and vice presidents."
The paper also noted that the prize was just the latest effort by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to shower Trump with flattery whenever possible.
"Mr. Infantino has lauded Mr. Trump at almost every opportunity, attending events that have little to do with soccer, handing over major FIFA trophies to Mr. Trump, and presiding over FIFA’s rental of office space in Trump Tower in New York two years after the organization opened a gleaming North American hub in Miami," the Times reported.
Human Rights Watch was quick to blast FIFA for giving Trump any sort of peace prize given what it described as the administration's "appalling" human rights record.
Jamil Dakwar, human rights director at the ACLU, also said that Trump was undeserving of the award, and he noted the administration "has aggressively pursued a systematic anti-human rights campaign to target, detain, and disappear immigrants in communities across the US—including the deployment of the National Guard in cities where the World Cup will take place."
Dakwar also called on FIFA "to honor its human rights commitments, not capitulate to Trump’s authoritarianism."
Daniel Noroña, Americas advocacy director for Amnesty International USA, also warned FIFA that many soccer fans could end up being targeted by federal immigration officials for trying to attend World Cup games in US cities next year.
"The threat of excessive policing, including immigration enforcement, at World Cup venues is deeply troubling, and FIFA cannot be silent," he said. "FIFA must obtain binding guarantees from US authorities that the tournament will be a safe space for all, regardless of political stance, opinion, or immigration status."
Anti-war group CodePink protested against Trump's award of the FIFA prize in Washington, DC, and argued that the president is "escalating war on Venezuela, protecting Israel’s continued attacks on Palestine, and terrorizing our communities with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the National Guard," and thus should not receive any honors for his supposed peacemaking efforts.
Other critics, however, argued that FIFA was the perfect organization to give the president a made-up peace prize given its long history of corruption and bribery scandals.
@EiFSoccer, an account on X primarily dedicated to soccer news, said that "the FIFA Peace Prize is unironically one of the worst awards someone could possibly get," given that it was being handed out by "one of the most corrupt sporting institutions of all time."
"Winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like winning the Dahmer Culinary Award," joked journalist Mark Jacob on Bluesky.
Fashion commentator Derek Guy, meanwhile, wondered "WTF is a FIFA Peace Prize" and then equated it to "being an NFL laureate in physics."