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Improbably, the White-Nationalist-In-Chief still plunges to lower, ranker, more nakedly racist depths as he tries to deflect from his failings, lies, naps and crimes. The fake Peace President’s ugly apogee, topping murders at sea, banning migrants “non-compatible with Western Civilization,” siccing ICE dogs on innocents et al: His vicious invective against Somalis as “garbage” while his Stepford bigots stand silent before it all, complicity unbound. Ferris Bueller's hapless teacher: "Anyone? Anyone?"
Obviously the mild cluelessness of blank students facing Ben Stein's teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off pales before the toxic spectacle of a blithering, execrable fascist stirring up gutter-level hatred as he spews "possibly the most openly racist shit any US president has ever been caught saying." The dissonance of the furious bigotry erupting from an alleged national leader - its vitriol, animus, beyond-the-pale crudeness, the eerie silence into which it falls - also prompts a jarring, queasy sense of, "what the fuck is wrong with this picture?" even as it comes from a ghastly human whose most longstanding, foundational tenet is brutish racism (plus greed), going back to his KKK father, his deadly hatred for the Central Park Five, his snarling claim all Mexicans are criminals and rapists.
In his ongoing "shitification of American politics," there's always, obviously much more. There's blithering, gaslighting, verbal incontinence: "Affordability is a con job, a hoax started by Democrats." Self-serving grandiosity: "The Ukraine war never would have happened if I'd been president." Outlandish fantasy: "They're finding money in our country now they never knew existed. The other day - $30 billion. Where did it come from? I said, 'Why don't you check the tariffs shelf?' They call back: Sir, you're right.'" (America: "Of all the things that didn’t happen, this didn’t happen the most.") Cult worship: The National Park Service has removed MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth from their free admission days, replacing them with Dear Leader's birthday; he'll be 12 next year.
In further Stalinesque self-glorification - and in the first time a living (sort of) president (ditto) named a building for himself while in office - months after DOGE tried to illegally seize control of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a non-profit think tank for international conflict resolution, the building has re-emerged with massive silver letters as the Donald J. Trump U.S Institute of Peace. A White House spokesbot, lauding straight-faced the what is it now 38? wars he's ended, declared, "Congratulations, world!" The world, noting the Orwellian renaming of an institute created in 1984, helpfully if hopelessly pointed out that Orwell's dark masterwork "was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual," but here we are.
Other atrocities proliferate. The report Trump’s military occupation of U.S. cities has cost over $473 million - from $270 million in D.C and $172 million in L.A. to $13 million in Chicago - even as he cut more than $1 trillion from vital domestic services. The fact that both of the DOJ's wildly unqualified, illegally appointed partisan hacks/pretend acting U.S. attorneys Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan still claim to hold their non-existent positions. The fact that, after boasting about rolling back food stamps and her "gratitude and joy for this work," USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins is still "hellbent on people going hungry" in blue states. Passage of Texas' racist redistricting coup - "Let's talk about cowardice" - and the White House's icky Daddy's Home holidays meme.
And everything "no stupid rules of engagement" dunk-tank clown Pete Hegseth does: The Signalgate report that his massive security leak "risked endangering U.S. military personnel," which he somehow turned into, “Total exoneration." His slimy, shifting narratives - the Pentagon has no idea who's on board vs. they're all on a secret list of military targets - for 48 minutes of murderous video showing "what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys clinging to a tiny piece of wood and about to go under," aka, "a shooting gallery with helpless targets" which is clearly either a war crime or murder - plain and simple,” both impeachable, though Megyn Kelly would've preferred "they lose a limb and bleed out a little."
Still, with sinking polls, rising prices, Epstein lurking, a tragic D.C shooting to open the floodgates and billions for ICE's jackbooted thugs, the splenetic racism from a presidential bully pulpit is paramount, a timeless scapegoating ploy now at "absolutely unique" levels of depravity. "It all started with Barack Hussein Obama," he raved, before attacking Somalis who have "nothing" to do with the shooting or anything else. America will "go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage," "They have destroyed our country," "Ilhan Omar is "garbage," "her friends are garbage," Somalia "is just people walking around killing each other," "they come from hell and do nothing but bitch," "their country stinks," "we don’t want them," "Minnesota is a hellhole right now," ”Let them go back to where they came from." And, evil one, may you too. Oh please.
His on-camera racistmania was dutifully lapped up, first by the obsequious (seated) members of his creepy circle jerk, then by the obsequious (standing) minions - blinding white, stiffly smiling, hands clutched, tongues tied - performatively gathered for his "supine authoritarian MAGA messaging...a barely coded cry of 'Everybody into the pool!' for a supporting cast of racist demagogues." One by one, they obeyed. J.D. banged on the table to lay the blame where it belonged: "Why did homes get so unaffordable? Because we had 20 million illegal aliens taking homes that ought by right to go to American citizens." Marco Rubio, in some insane optics - try watching without sound - feverishly genuflected to the peace president, sitting next to him, dozing off.
ICE Barbie thanked him for having "kept the hurricanes away" and "saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean"; she urged a travel ban on "every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies" - but not those getting free jets - who "slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch benefits (from) AMERICANS. We don't want them." Whew. She flamboyantly echoes both Stephen Goebbel's Nazi rhetoric and Trump's calls for stripping citizenship, blocking all refugees - except sad white Afrikaners - from a vague list of “third world countries,” aka brown and black, "non-compatible with Western Civilization" - an illegal move that def turns the racism up to 11. Manifesting "cultishness off the charts," Press Barbie celebrated all this as "amazing" and "epic."For Minnesota's Somali community of up to 80,000, the largest in the country, it is "extraordinarily harmful." Already tense in the wake of an alleged $250 million fraud scandal involving federal nutrition aid and two non-profits - both run by white people but involving dozens of Somalis - pressure from the new racist surge feels "inescapable...The volcano has erupted." Though many are U.S. citizens, and Minneapolis' police chief has told officers they'll be fired if they don't stop illegal force by ICE goons, people are afraid to go to work, to school, to Friday prayers, especially in Somali-dense areas like "Little Mogadishu" and the Karmel Mall. "We know authoritarianism," said a Somali city council member, and with it the potency of racism and nativism. After Haitians eating pets, he said, "It's just the next iteration."
Meanwhile, ugly ripples ooze from Trump's rhetoric. ICE thugs keep thugging, though most of their victims have no criminal record and some are U.S. citizens. They've sicced dogs on people, resulting in horrific injuries and reviving MAGA's sick "good old days." They have a cruel new plan dubbed "Operation Irish Goodbye" to arrest those already self-deporting, and they're canceling citizenship ceremonies for people from the "wrong" countries. A 2025 blood-and-soil US National Security Strategy touts great replacement theory, warns Europe it faces "civilizational erasure" by migrants of color, supports their fascist groups, rejects our allies for Russia, imagines a "Crusader-style reconquest (of) Europe by the white right." He just trashed a "decaying" Europe with "weak" leaders, 'cause brown people. A Wisconsin worker was fired and went viral for calling a Somali couple "niggers"; fellow racists raised $100,000 for her, echoing "garbage" slurs.
Despite outrage about his murders at sea, Dunk-tank Pete killed four more brown people, bragged about it, insisted Trump can kill "as he sees fit" and gave a speech with ominous shock-and-awe echoes declariring "narco-terrorists are the al-Qaida of our hemisphere (and) we will keep killing them." Then the most petty, hateful person on the planet - spite-revoking a pardon?! - giddily accepted a hideous, made-up, Happy Meal, savagely mocked FIFA Peace Prize and medal - the “Trump dance! the Village People! - to appease his no-Nobel ego because "if you show up with a tchotchke (and) give it to the three-year-old in the Oval Office, he will (be) happy." Gavin Newsom got the Kennedy Center Peace Prize: “AUDIENCE WAS AMAZING (CHAIRS NOT GREAT)...CROWD WENT WILD."The View gave out medals too: "You get a medal! And you get a medal!" Okay, all medaled up. Now can he go home?

Environmental and economic justice advocates alike have been sounding the alarm for months regarding the Trump administration's push to built massive data centers to support artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency in communities across the United States—regardless of local opposition—and on Monday Congress heard from a coalition of more than 200 groups demanding action to stop what they called "one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation."
Led by Food and Water Watch (FWW), which originally demanded a moratorium on new AI data centers in October, more than 230 organizations have signed a letter warning that thus far, Congress has failed to take action to stop the rapid expansion despite the fact that "the harms of data center growth are increasingly well-established, and they are massive."
The national and state groups, including Greenpeace USA, Oil Change International, and the Nebraska-based Save Rural America, pointed to a number of harms associated with the expansion of data centers in places including rural Michigan, Wisconsin, and northern Virginia.
They warned that pushing the build-out onto communities—many of which have protested the approval of the centers to no avail—will lead to:
"The rapid, largely unregulated rise of data centers to fuel the AI and crypto frenzy is disrupting communities across the country and threatening Americans’ economic, environmental, climate, and water security," the groups told Congress. "We urge you to join our call for a national moratorium on new data centers until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment, and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting."
The groups noted that electricity costs have risen 21.3% since 2021, a rate that "drastically" outpaces inflation, driven by the "rapid build-out of data centers."
As CNBC reported last month, residential utility bills rose 6% in August compared with last summer, and though price increases can be due to a host of reasons, electricity prices rose "much faster than the national average" this year in states with high concentrations of data centers. Consumers in Virginia paid 13% more, while those in Illinois paid 16% more and people in Ohio saw their costs go up 12%.
Emily Wurth, managing director of organizing at FWW, told the Guardian that rising utility costs are driving much of the grassroots action against data centers in places like Wisconsin—where a woman was violently dragged out of a community meeting by police last week after speaking out against plans for a new facility in her town—and Tucson, Arizona, where residents successfully pushed the City Council this year to block a data center project linked to Amazon.
“I’ve been amazed by the groundswell of grassroots, bipartisan opposition to this, in all types of communities across the US,” Wurth told the Guardian. “Everyone is affected by this, the opposition has been across the political spectrum. A lot of people don’t see the benefits coming from AI and feel they will be paying for it with their energy bills and water... We’ve seen outrageous utility price rises across the country and we are going to lean into this. Prices are going up across the board and this is something Americans really do care about.”
Data center projects worth a total of $64 billion have been blocked or delayed in states including Texas, Oregon, and Tennessee, and Reuters reported last week that a sizable portion of the opposition is coming from parts of the country that heavily supported President Donald Trump in last year's election.
Hundreds of people attended a recent meeting in Montour County, Pennsylvania, where Trump won by 20 points last year, raising alarm over plans to rezone 1,300 acres for Talen Energy to build a data center.
While raising prices for households that are already coping with high grocery and healthcare bills, the unregulated growth in AI data centers is also expected to add up to 44 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in just the next five years—the equivalent of putting 10 million new fossil fuel-powered cars on the road at a time when planetary heating has already been linked to recent US weather disasters like Hurricane Helene and deadly heatwaves.
The groups appealed to Congress as Trump said he plans to sign an executive order preempting state-level AI regulations, saying that states, "many of them bad actors," should not be "involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS.”
Republicans in Congress have also recently suggested they could try to ban state-level AI regulations in the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Trump administration and its allies in the industry have issued warnings to communities that oppose the construction of AI data centers, with the White House's AI Action Plan demanding the fast-tracking of permits for building the facilities and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) lobbying for the industry and recently telling local officials in Chandler, Arizona that "federal preemption is coming" and they must approve plans for a 20,000-square foot data center in the city.
A Morning Consult poll taken last month found that public support for the centers is falling as rapidly as companies try to take over rural and suburban communities with new data centers. More than 40% said they supported a ban on the construction of new facilities, up from 37% just a month prior.
President Donald Trump's administration has drastically slashed resources for enforcing tax laws, and the result has been a massive plunge in tax-related prosecutions.
A Tuesday report from Reuters found that federal tax prosecutions in 2025 fell to "their lowest level in decades this year," falling by 27% over the last year.
The report noted that the Trump administration has made "deep cuts to the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigative unit," and has also reassigned some agents who worked in the unit to focus more on immigration cases.
The Trump administration has even assigned more than 20 IRS agents in the agency's DC office to conduct patrols alongside city police officers as part of the president's purported plan to reduce crime in the capital city, Reuters reported.
Reuters also observed that the US Department of Justice closed its Tax Division, and that "a third or more of the criminal lawyers who worked there quit."
Sources told Reuters that the Trump administration explicitly told DOJ prosecutors earlier this year that tax prosecutions were not a top priority, and one source said that DOJ leadership under the second Trump administration was "very skeptical about white-collar crime and whether we should be doing those cases."
The report added that US attorneys' offices at the moment are unlikely to pick up the slack for enforcing tax laws given that DOJ records show "more than 1,000 lawyers have left US attorneys’ offices this year, roughly double the number who quit or were pushed out in previous years."
David Hubbert, a senior fellow at the Tax Law Center at New York University’s law school, told Reuters that these cuts would likely result in a surge in tax cheating.
"Decreasing criminal enforcement across all types of taxpayers would signal an indifference to cheating and insults the millions of honest filers who pay the taxes they owe," Hubbert explained.
US House Committee on Oversight and Reform Democrats on Friday released 19 of the 95,000 new photos they just received from the estate of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the Department of Justice is preparing to release its files from the federal case against President Donald Trump's former friend following votes in Congress.
"These disturbing images raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world," the committee's Democrats said on social media, with a link to the photos, all of which Common Dreams has included below, on Dropbox. "Time to end this White House cover-up. Release the files!"
The photos feature sex toys, Trump condoms, and high-profile figures including the president, film director Woody Allen, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, billionaires Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, previously known as Prince Andrew of United Kingdom.
The committee's Democrats received the photos on Thursday night and have reviewed "maybe about 25,000... so far," Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told CNBC. "There's an enormous amount of photos we have not gone through... It will take days and weeks to ensure that we got those photos and that a redaction is done in the appropriate way."
"Obviously there are photos of powerful men, and folks that we want to have an opportunity to speak with and ask questions of,” Garcia said, noting that some shots Epstein took himself and others may have been sent to him. "Some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing."
A protester dressed as a priest confronted US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the Trump administration's violent crackdown on immigrants during a Thursday hearing held by the House of Representatives' Committee on Homeland Security.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief has often spoken about her Christian faith—she said just two days ago on a government social media account that "I have relied on God and placed my faith in Him throughout my career in public service."
During the Republican-led committee's hearing on "Worldwide Threats to the Homeland," a man in black and red religious attire began shouting about recent raids and other actions by DHS, including two department agencies: Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"Stop ICE raids! The power of Christ compels you!" the man shouted. "End deportations! The power of Christ compels you! Love thy neighbor! The power of Christ compels you!"
As police removed that man from the room, another protester stood and shouted similar messages: "Stop ICE! Get ICE off our streets! Stop terrorizing our communities!"
The second man—who displayed a sign that read, "No ICE, No Troops," and noted an affiliation with the peace group CodePink—was also swiftly forced from the room by police.
In a statement from CodePink, Bita Iuliano, another activist who attended the hearing, took aim at Noem: "How dare she sit there and talk about 'threats to our homeland' when she's the one using OUR tax dollars to terrorize our communities. If she really wants to protect our homeland, which by the way is stolen land, she should stop asking for more and more of our tax dollars for a department that is making our neighbors afraid to leave their homes."
"ICE should be abolished, and that money should be used to fund what our communities actually need—healthcare, schools, housing, the fight against climate change, to name a few," Iuliano argued, also calling out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
"Noem, along with Hegseth, Rubio, and the rest of the war criminal crew, are the ones terrorizing our communities, from our streets here to Palestine, Venezuela, and all over the world," she said. "They are the ones making it unsafe, and they're using our dollars to do it. All we have are our voices, and we're going to make sure we're heard."
Various faith leaders have also spoken out against the Trump administration's attacks on immigrants, including Pope Leo XIV, whose hometown of Chicago has been a key target of DHS action since President Donald Trump returned to power in January.
Pointing to Christian scripture, the first-ever American pontiff said in early November: "How did you receive the foreigner, did you receive him and welcome him, or not? I think there is a deep reflection that needs to be made about what is happening."
Pope Leo also advocated for allowing religious leaders to access people who have been detained, saying that "many times they've been separated from their families. No one knows what's happening, but their own spiritual needs should be attended to."
Shortly after that, more than 200 US Catholic bishops released a rare joint statement last month stressing that "human dignity and national security are not in conflict" and calling for "meaningful reform of our nation's immigration laws and procedures."
The pope then urged "all people in the United States to listen" to the bishops and said that while "every country has a right to determine who and how and when people enter," the way immigrants are being treated in the US "is extremely disrespectful."
US Rep. Ro Khanna suggested on Thursday that the top Democrat in the Senate had offered the latest evidence that the party needs "a new generation to lead... with moral clarity and conviction" after Sen. Chuck Schumer refused to denounce the Trump administration's threats of regime change in Venezuela.
"Why is this hard?" asked Khanna (D-Calif.) after Schumer (D-NY), the Senate minority leader, told CNN's Jake Tapper Wednesday evening that "everyone would like" it if Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "would flee on his own" instead of stating that the US should not try to force out the South American leader.
When asked point-blank if he disagrees with President Donald Trump's "ultimate goal of regime change in Venezuela," Schumer turned his focus to the lack of clarity in the White House's strategy.
"The bottom line is President Trump throws out so many different things in so many different ways. You don't even know what the heck he's talking about. You know, obviously, if Maduro would just flee on his own, everyone would like that. But we don't know what the heck he's up to when he talks about that," said Schumer. "You cannot say I endorse this, I endorse that when Trump is all over the lot, not very specific and very worrisome at how far he might escalate."
Chuck Schumer won't say if he opposes regime change in Venezuela.
JAKE TAPPER: Do you disagree with President Trump's ultimate goal of regime change in Venezuela?
CHUCK SCHUMER: Look, the bottom line is President Trump throws out so many different things in so many different… pic.twitter.com/kwjWMsBgM8
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) December 10, 2025
Schumer's response, Khanna suggested, should have been: "Yes, Democrats oppose regime change war in Venezuela. Instead of wasting trillions on endless wars, we must invest in jobs, healthcare, and housing for Americans."
The CNN interview took place hours after the US military seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela in what one think tank called an "illegal" escalation. In recent weeks Trump has claimed he's ordered the airspace above and around Venezuela closed—an action experts said he had no legal authority to take—authorized covert CIA action in the country, and this week said the US plans to "hit ‘em on land very soon," threatening strikes against Venezuela as well as Mexico and Colombia.
The White House has aggressively pushed a narrative about the need to stop the trafficking of fentanyl from Venezuela—despite findings by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United Nations that the country plays virtually no role in the flow of the drug into the US. At least 87 people have been killed in US military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September—bombings that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump have claimed without evidence have targeted "narco-terrorists," but which Latin American officials, the family of one victim, and legal experts have denounced as extrajudicial killings and homicide.
Trump has previously signaled a desire to take control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves.
On November 21, Trump reportedly spoke to Maduro in a phone call and offered him safe passage out of Venezuela if he abdicated power, in the most explicit confirmation that the administration is seeking regime change. A CBS/YouGov poll released two days later found that 70% of Americans oppose any military action in Venezuela.
Labor attorney Benjamin Dictor and Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner of Maine were among those who joined Khanna in condemning Schumer's refusal to unequivocally reject the goal of forcing Maduro out through military action.
"Chuck Schumer is so spineless he can’t even affirmatively oppose illegal, unauthorized regime change by military force," said Dictor.
Schumer has called for the passage of a war powers resolution to block the deployment of US forces in Venezuela. As Trump has continued the boat bombings and built up military presence in the Caribbean, two war powers resolutions aimed at stopping the US from striking boats and targets inside Venezuela have failed to pass.
But his refusal to speak out comes two months after journalist Aída Chávez reported that a "senior Democratic staffer" was "discouraging Democrats from coming out against regime change in Venezuela... arguing that opposing Trump and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio's regime change amounts to supporting Maduro."
After Schumer's interview, Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy joined in calling for "regime change in the Senate Democratic Caucus."
"Regulating AI is winning issue for Democrats, but their own party leaders are too complicit with Silicon Valley to use it," said one observer.
Polls show that a majority of US voters—and especially Democrats—want more robust guardrails on artificial intelligence, but Democratic governors' silence on President Donald Trump's directive banning states from regulating AI has some observers asking if lobbying by the powerful industry is to blame.
Sludge's David Moore and Donald Shaw reported Friday that tech titans including OpenAI and Meta last week sent a small army of lobbyists to meet with attendees of the Democratic Governors Association’s annual meeting, held this year at the swanky Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.
According to the report, lobbyists and governors—some of whom "are teasing White House bids in 2028 or rumored to be in the mix"—gathered for a closed-door meeting. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore were among those who reportedly met with the lobbyists.
Trump signed an executive order trying to prevent states from regulating AI and following through on the safety laws they enacted, but there was little public pushback from Democratic governors.AI lobbyists descended on the DGA winter meeting last weekend in Phoenix, per a list we obtained:
[image or embed]
— David Moore (@davidrussellmoore.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 11:15 AM
The meeting preceded Trump's Thursday signing of an executive order aimed at limiting states' ability to regulate rapidly evolving AI technology. The order directs the US Department of Justice to establish an AI Litigation Task Force empowered to sue states that enact “onerous and excessive" AI regulation. The edict also threatens to withhold federal funding from states that implement AI regulations that the Trump administration finds objectionable.
Democratic governors have been relatively muted on the order, especially given the overwhelming support for regulation of AI—which many experts say poses threats to humanity that may equal or outweigh its benefits—across the political spectrum.
As Moore and Shaw wrote:
While Democratic governors were silent, their Republican counterparts have been loudly arguing for months against the federal government preempting state AI policies. In June, 17 Republican governors sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune [R-SD] and House Speaker Mike Johnson [R-La.] warning them against preempting their states’ protections on AI use. Over the past couple months, a trio of Republican governors—Spencer Cox (Utah), Ron DeSantis (Fla.), and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Ark.)—continued to make known their opposition to the Trump administration’s executive order.
Newsom, who many observers believe is eyeing a 2028 White House run, especially disappointed proponents of AI safeguards last year when he vetoed what would have been the nation's strongest AI safety regulations.
It's not just Democratic governors—congressional Democrats have increasingly partnered with an industry expected to soon be worth trillions of dollars. Some Democrats, like Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, are personally invested in AI stocks. The AI industry also made record contributions to political campaigns during the 2024 cycle.
Other Democrats, including some who may have their sights set on higher office—notably Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York—advocate stronger guardrails on AI development.
The public is worried about AI. Regulating AI is winning issue for Democrats but their own party leaders are too complicit with Silicon Valley to use it. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
[image or embed]
— Jeet Heer (@jeetheer.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 7:24 AM
"Voters want the party to get tough on the industry. But Democratic leaders are following the money instead," Jeet Heer, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, wrote Friday.
Citing voters' desire for stronger regulation, Heer argued that "Democrats have a tremendous opportunity to use the AI backlash for wedge politics," adding that "it's a way to win back working-class voters who are already disillusioned with the GOP and Trump."
The progressive congresswoman also warned that "an extension with abortion restrictions kills women."
The US House of Representatives is set to vote on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies next week, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Friday that if Republicans let the ACA tax credits expire at the end of the year, "people are going to die."
The New York Democrat spoke to reporters in Washington, DC a day after only four Republicans voted with Democratic senators in an unsuccessful effort to pass legislation extending ACA subsidies, as over 20 million Americans face a surge in health insurance premiums. A GOP bill to replace the subsidies with annual payments to tax-advantaged health savings accounts also failed.
"We have to remember who's in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House. Republicans have a House majority, they have a Senate majority, and Donald Trump is president of the United States, and JD Vance is vice president of the United States," Ocasio-Cortez said in remarks shared by her and multiple news sources on social media.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) "refused to engage" in a debate on the looming healthcare crisis and "kept Republicans home for over a month so that they would not negotiate," she said. Trump and Vance "did the same thing—they stuck their heads in the sand for the entirety of a... government shutdown where we were urging them to come to a solution on extensions of ACA premium subsidies," she continued, calling for a "clean" extension while the GOP sorts out its supposed healthcare plan.
Rep. @AOC on healthcare subsidy proposals: "An extension with abortion restrictions kills women." pic.twitter.com/HOCqHMGemp
— Forbes Breaking News (@ForbesTVNews) December 12, 2025
"People are gonna be kicked off of their insurance. Open enrollment is happening right now, and there are going to be millions of Americans that are affected—that aren't gonna be able to go to a doctor, aren't gonna be able to afford their prescription drugs, because of some petty fight in Washington," the congresswoman said, noting Democratic efforts to force votes on an extension.
As NBC News reported Thursday, early enrollment data from several states shows that "more people appear to be walking away from Affordable Care Act coverage or switching to cheaper plans for 2026 compared to this time last year," which "could reflect signs of financial strain for people who can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars more in monthly premiums once enhanced federal subsidies expire at the end of the year."
Demanding that her colleagues in DC recognize the urgency of the issue, Ocasio-Cortez—who supports Medicare for All—said Friday that "I don't understand why they can't just extend these subsidies so that we can save people's lives while they figure out whatever their political food fight is."
AOC also pushed back against GOP efforts to restrict reproductive healthcare in an ACA subsidy bill, saying "an extension with abortion restrictions kills women—so no, I'm going to allow this Republican majority to kill women in this country so that they can try to do whatever their victory lap is. I will not accept women, and the lives of women, as some political cost for them being able to extend these things. Reproductive care is healthcare. Period."
Since the right-wing US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade and GOP-led states further restricted reproductive rights, multiple stories have emerged from places including Georgia and Texas exemplifying how "Republican abortion bans kill women."
After Johnson met with the House GOP's "Five Families" on Friday, he is expected to allow a floor vote to extend the subsidies next week and, according to Punchbowl News, is considering giving moderates an option without abortion funding restrictions.
As Politico reported Friday evening:
[GOP] leaders ultimately expect the extension vote to fail, resulting in skyrocketing premiums for millions of Americans when the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
Instead, according to House Republican leadership aides, Republicans are preparing to roll out a healthcare framework that would allow businesses that fund their own health plans to purchase "stop-loss" policies—which would protect businesses from going bankrupt from just a few unexpectedly expensive insurance claims.
It also would appropriate funds to pay for "cost-sharing reductions" in Obamacare and include some elements of a separate legislative proposal designed to crack down on pharmacy benefit managers—companies that negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and large employers.
Like Ocasio-Cortez—who has faced mounting calls to launch a 2028 primary challenge to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) over his handling of the March funding fight and recent shutdown—the upper chamber's top Democrat put the blame squarely on Republicans after both bills failed to advance on Thursday.
"Republicans must answer for why people will lose coverage. Republicans must answer why families see premiums double and triple over the next year," Schumer said. "Democrats' focus does not change. We fought like hell to stop these hikes, and we're going to continue to fight like hell to bring costs down for the American people on healthcare, on housing, on electric rates, on groceries."
"But Republicans are fighting like hell to send those costs right through the roof," he added. "They're fighting like hell to kick people off insurance. They're fighting like hell to cut taxes and give sweet giveaways to billionaires and the ultrarich. January 1st is coming. Republicans are responsible for what happens next. This is their crisis now, and they're going to have to answer for it."
"Palestinian babies freeze to death as shelters and lifesaving humanitarian aid—located just a few miles away—for 1 million civilians is blocked by Israel," noted one journalist.
A second Palestinian infant and a young girl died of hypothermia in Gaza as heavy rains and flooding—whose effects are exacerbated by Israel's genocidal annihilation and ongoing siege of the coastal strip—raised the death toll from Storm Byron to at least 16.
Taim Al-Khawaja—who was several months old—died in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, while 9-year-old Hadeel al-Masri died in a shelter west of Gaza City, according to local officials. Their deaths follow that of Rahaf Abu Jazar, an 8-month-old who died Thursday of exposure after floodwaters inundated her family’s tent in Khan Younis.
At least five other people were killed when a building in Beit Lahia collapsed amid the storm, and two others were killed when a wall collapsed onto tents housing displaced Palestinians in the Remal neighorhood of Gaza City. According to Gaza's Government Media Office (GMO), at least 13 buildings have collapsed and more than 27,000 tents have been destroyed or left uninhabitable by Byron's winds, rain, and floodwater.
While farmers in neighboring Israel welcomed the torrential rains, which delivered relief from drought conditions, the storm is devastating Palestinians already reeling and weakened from nearly 800 days of war and siege. Israel's US-backed onslaught has left more than 250,000 Gazans dead, maimed, or missing and 2 million more starved, sickened, or displaced. Roughly 1.5 million Palestinians are currently living in tents or other makeshift shelters.
The recent hypothermia deaths evoked horrific memories of the past two winters in Gaza, when more than a dozen Palestinians—most of them infants and children—died from hypothermia caused by exposure. While many Israelis and their supporters abroad point to the relatively mild Mediterranean winters in an effort to deny these deaths, experts note that hypothermia can be deadly at temperatures over 60°F (15°C) in overexposed conditions such as those in Gaza.
Reporting from Gaza, Al Jazeera's Ibrahim al-Khalili said Friday that genocide-ravaged Gazans are now enduring “an added layer of suffering."
“The tents are collapsing. The cold is unbearable. Basically, they don’t have anywhere to go. What is unfolding is devastating,” he said. “It’s not just a storm; it’s a new wave of displacement even after the war has stopped. Many people here told me that a new war has really begun after this flooding, and people are being forced to flee whatever fragile shelters they had.”
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem on Friday called the recent exposure deaths a "continuation of the war of extermination."
“The successive collapses of homes bombed during the war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, caused by the storm, and the resulting deaths, reflect the unprecedented scale of the humanitarian disaster left by this criminal Zionist war,” he said.
Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told Agence France-Presse Friday that Gazans are also enduring "absolutely appalling hygiene and sanitary conditions."
"There aren't enough toilets; there are places—I saw some in Gaza City—where large pools of water are essentially open sewers right next to the displacement camps," he added.
While the shaky two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has somewhat eased the Israeli blockade on Gaza, the GMO said Friday that “the occupation continues to close crossings and prevent the entry of humanitarian aid and materials that could provide shelter."
“This includes blocking the entry of 300,000 tents, prefabricated mobile homes, and caravans," the agency added.
The #Gaza Strip has been left flooded by #StormByron, destroying already damaged buildings and causing additional loss of life.MSF is concerned about the upcoming winter and heavy rain.Caroline Seguin, Emergency Coordinator, updates:
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— Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (@msf.ca) December 12, 2025 at 2:02 PM
In a statement Friday, Doctors Without Borders Gaza emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin said that the charity is "very, very worried about the next month with the winter coming and the heavy rain."
"Last year we saw a huge increase in respiratory infections for children, diarrhea as well, and of course all the wounded that are living inside the tents will have big difficulties to heal their wounds and will have probably an increase of infection for the wound of the wounded," Seguin noted. "It's near to be not possible to live in this conditions."