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The ruins of Gaza at the bloodied hands of Israel and America
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Here We Remain: A World That Abides Slaughter

Atop all the others inflicted on us came last week's sickening spectacle of two vengeful, lying, broken old men - one a longtime killer of children, one a petty useful idiot abetting him - alternately celebrating and threatening genocide before "we the peoples of the United Nations." Born of :"the defiance of hope" to enable us to "live together in peace," the forum now hosts the perpetrators of unspeakable atrocities. Omar El Akkad: "One day everyone will have always been against this."

Even before war criminals spoke at the U.N., everyone was already against everything Trump's done, from his insane, drone-packed arch to the other $1.8 billion vanity projects to his latest tantrum over bad press. Despite multiple court rulings against it, the ensuing press ban is still partly, messily in place, with CNN, MS NOW and Politico facing dubious access, other major media finally finding their spine and solidarity, and the havoc offering us the droll sight of a needy guy who never met a camera he didn’t like in one farcical silent movie, a “shrinking figure gesticulating wildly into the wind.” The attention whore has tried to compensate with wildly weird and illegal PR stunts: Claiming an entire hemisphere, boasting, "Only Trump" and an ad pleading "Love Me" on the taxpayer dime in "an astonishing misuse of public resources more fitting for North Korea."

The final own goal of his attack on the press, teased by a frantic promo, was the launch of Trump TV: The Essentials Station, the White House YouTube channel recast as a 24/7 livestream of Trump's "greatest hits." Cue aJuly speech at Mt. Rushmore about "the communist menace," last year's speech at dinner with King Charles, a 2016 speech in Kentucky recalling the wet stairs he overcame. YouTube's real-time data let the "king of ratings" see it quickly crash and burn, from a paltry 8,000 viewers to half that to 1,000 to 704 as J.D. announced stripping health care from 760,000 people, way below the 2,000-plus watching birds snack on seeds and nuts. Many relished the flop - "Fascism is awesome!" - or suggested new slots: "Wake Up & Rage Tweet, Ketchup-Throwing, They’re Eating our Pets, The Great MAGA Crypto Scam, Wheel of Pardons" and, from 2:01 to 2:02 a.m., “Covfefe.”

Then came a clumsy, swooning welcome - "the deference was deafening" - for his strongman soulmate Chinese President Xi Jinping, the world's biggest jailer of journalists and never mind the "communist menace," with its empty pomp, cartoonish tour of a hole-in-the-ground ballroom and million-year helipad - "He has a great interest in granite" - and zero substance. The next day, with his approval rating "somewhere between Ebola and Ed Sheeran," he waddled into the 81st session of the UN General Assembly and threatened one of its130 participants with war crimes, musing, "Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic quickly and drive them into hell?" Iran's delegation swiftly walked out. Mehdi Hasan: "For shame. The president of the United States goes to the United Nations and threatens genocide against a member state in front of the world. This is where we’re at."

Slurring, stumbling, wandering at unhinged, racist length - details here - Trump boasted about murdering over 200 people “at war with civilization” in illegal boat strikes, claimed trans people are a national security risk, celebrated (and inflated) the theft of Venezuela’s oil, charged trans people are a national security risk, inanely declaimed “to the (raping and plundering) victor belong the spoils” - become, terrifyingly, "a demagogue who hijacked American democracy...devolving into a mad king before our eyes." The speech, a "sad and dangerous national embarrassment" with its "ridiculous braggadocio, narcissistic puffery, absurd demonstrable lies, open criminality and deranged, murderous threats" landed "with silence inside the hall and a pile of fact checks outside it, (the) death rattle of a rapist president and what’s left of America’s reputation on the world stage."

Then world leaders "went back to making plans that don't include the United States." Or, in the case of Denmark, trolling. Trump has created a fictional backstory for a "deal" on Greenland "long in the making - you could go back many, many decades, probably centuries" - that just repackages an existing 1951 deal; ahead of meeting held later at the U.N., officials played the Sondheim song Send In The Clowns. At this point, writes Paul Krugman, it's "Underwear on the Outside” time, a callback to Woody Allen's 1971 film Bananas about a third-world nation's absurd strongman. Coverage of the U.N. focused on Trump's rabid rejection of global cooperation or the fact almost everything he said was a lie. The bigger story: "The leader of what used to be the world’s most powerful nation, now collapsing before our eyes, has clearly, undeniably lost his mind."

Other speakers tried to steer the conversation back to reality. Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the primacy of international law, especially in Palestine, calling the birth of the U.N. "an act of defiance (by) people who refuse to surrender the future to fear...who know our futures are bound together." But with accountability: The U.N. deems Gaza "a collective crime," a "live-streamed atrocity...sustained by the complicity of influential third states"; their complicity must be confronted for the rule of law to survive. Holding photos of Iranian children killed in U. S. strikes, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian argued it is Trump who has defied international law, while Iran has remained committed to negotiations. “We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists." He also called for accountability on all sides, asking "why Israel kills, yet Iran is subject to sanction.”

Israel kills. And Benjamin Netanyahu offered a bellicose "potpourri of lies and incitement." In his "furious, ugly and disgraceful" diatribe, he called universal charges of genocide "the biggest lie of the century," summoning the chutzpah to call the carnage in Gaza "the opposite of genocide." Anyone who disagreed, he raved, was "a moral coward" - About half the Assembly, who walked out as Zionist allies chanted “Am Yisrael Chai," "the Nation of Israel lives"; Hundreds of protesters outside, with about 100 arrested; including Brooklyn Council Member Chi Ossé, who later posted a selfie in handcuffs with “Free Palestine. Netanyahu burn in hell"; and world leaders "spreading lies about my country and our brave soldiers," "tyrants (in) a global anti-Jewish conspiracy (to) erase us from the face of the Earth. Instead of collapsing, we delivered devastating blows to all of them with our great American friends."

There was much more. He brandished a pager in tribute to Israel's 2024 operation targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon that killed 12 and wounded over 3,000. He dismissed settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as the work of "juvenile delinquents." He said bombing Iran was "’one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make." Shameless, he claimed Israel still has "the most moral army in the world.” He denied a Haaretz report, confirmed by the New York Times, that Egypt's intel chief warned him in September 2023 Hamas was planning "a major attack," but he declined to pass the tip on to his intelligence agencies. He called the duly elected mayor of his host city, who deems him a war criminal and wants the ICC's arrest warrant issued, anti-Semitic," claiming "many Jews no longer feel safe in New York." He evidently doesn't; he flew into New Jersey.

He ended his speech with a Bible verse from Samuel that describes the genocide of the Amalek, enemies of Israel, after God orders King Saul, "‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people." Saul mostly does, but spares their king and “the best of the sheep and cattle. Then the prophet Samuel admonishes him: "(God) sent you on a mission, but you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel." Samuel's murderous gist: “Nezah Israel lo yeshaker,” or "the eternity of Israel will not falter.” Bibi's lesson: "We have no choice but genocide." And so they made it: Over 73,900 direct deaths, about half women and children. Over 175,000 wounded, often gravely. Roughly 641,000 ultimately dead, from destruction of the healthcare system, malnutrition, disease. The bodies of perhaps 10,000 more still remain under the rubble.

And the devastation goes on. Under Israel's blockade, there is widespread hunger, 90% of Gazans remain homeless, trauma and illness go untreated. More than 900 wheelchairs donated by two Australian non-profits for over 11,000 disabled children - Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world - are held hostage in Jordan warehouses by preposterous Israeli restrictions on anything that could "serve a military purpose." Other victims of insane "dual-use" rules: Portable toilets, sleeping bags, tarps. bandages, diapers, shampoo, tent poles. And presumably kites, after Bibi announced "targeted strikes”against the launch of any kites, balloons or drones, with the IDF ordered to "act forcefully" against perps. What else to expect from a place where a government official calls Palestinian children “explosives of the future." "What a childhood in Gaza teaches: Want less."

The cruelty, madness, loss continue to spark palpable rage. Actor Mandy Patinkin, a Jew aware of history, on the corrosive effect of "the revenge business": "How could it be done to you and your ancestors, and you turn around and do it to someone else?!” Omar El Akkad - born in Egypt, raised in Qatar and Canada, a US citizen - on "what it means to live under an ordering of the world that abides slaughter, and whether any ordering ever stood for anything at all." He wrote the book One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, though its full title is One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will always have been against this,” what one critic calls "a cathartic savaging" of empire, Western hypocrisy on Gaza, selective empathy in "the most privileged sliver of global society."

"When the unspeakable happens, the world should stop but it doesn't," he writes of the comfortable bubble of a white nationalist world run by broken men and their accomplices that blithely "shrugs at one kind of slaughter," having developed "a terrible immunity...When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power?” The time to choose is now, he adds, and hindsight will not undo or excuse their crimes: "At the time they say, 'Yes, this is tragic, but necessary'...The alternative to the countless killed and maimed and orphaned... screaming from under the rubble (is) barbarism.” " There is no way to finish the sentence, 'It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead but...'" he movingly writes. "There is no such thing as someone else’s children."

The evening after Netanyahu assailed Zohran Mamdani as anti-Semitic - he dismissed the speech as "baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide against Palestinians" - the good mayor was home at Gracie Mansion. He was hosting Palestinian families from Gaza who have lost family members there or have made their way to America as refugees to "honor their contributions to the city and acknowledge the losses they have endured." They ate a meal; a smiling Mamdani glided around the table, filling water glasses. And they planted an olive tree - for Palestinians, source of food, wood, fuel, symbol of peace, hope, resilience, a deep connection to their heritage and ancestral land. Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: ‘"Here we remain, as long as thyme and olives remain." Zohran Mamdani: "May peace be our future."


A young boy in Gaza mourns his murdered  mother A young boy in Gaza mourns his murdered mother Getty Image

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The Perito Moreno Glacier is located in El Calafate, Argentina.​
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'We Are Spending Our Reserves,' WMO Chief Warns as UN Drops Global Water Report

The world's water cycle "has become more erratic and unpredictable," and recent trends have "serious implications for people and economies in the future," the United Nations' weather agency said Thursday, announcing the release of its annual report on one of the planet's most important natural resources.

Speaking at the launch of the "State of Global Water Resources 2025," World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that "some parts of this cycle—such as precipitation, river flow, soil moisture—are fast. They respond to weather within hours, days, weeks. Others, like groundwater and glaciers, are slow. They accumulate or decline over seasons to decades or longer."

"Traditionally, these slow reserves have acted as the planet's savings account: a buffer that absorbs bad years so that a single drought or a single dry season does not translate directly into a water crisis," she continued. "One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account. And the simple answer is that we are depleting it. We are spending our reserves."

According to the WMO's new report, terrestrial water storage—or the total stored in groundwater, lakes, rivers, soil moisture, vegetation, ice, and snow—has been falling since the mid-2010s. Saulo stressed that "this is not a single bad year, but it is a persistent, decadelong signal."

The agency also found that 2025 was among the driest years for river discharge worldwide in more than three decades, with below-normal flows over a third of the global basin area—and for the seventh straight year in a row, the number of river basins with "normal" conditions was in the minority.

Last year was also the fourth straight to feature widespread glacier loss across all regions. The WMO noted that the losses from 2023-25 could fill about 560 million Olympic-sized swimming pools—or about a third of annual freshwater withdrawals.

The report also "shows that water-related extreme events continue to devastate communities and economies," Saulo noted, highlighting the Early Warnings for All Initiative. "Over the past five years, Asia and Africa have accounted for at least half of all reported hydrological extreme events and more than 80% of associated deaths. And precisely these regions often lack the observations necessary for forecasts and early warnings."

Her comments came a day after the death toll from the flooding disaster in Tibet and Nepal topped 1,400. Experts have emphasized that tragedy's connection to the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, with University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Mann writing that the "glacial collapse and deluge... was not a freak weather event; it was the structural failure of a mountain itself, nature's latest commentary on the deadly consequences of human-caused planetary warming."

That warming has also intensified the naturally occurring warm phase of a key pattern in the Pacific Ocean called El Niño, according to a study published last month. The WMO chief warned in her Wednesday remarks that "the strengthening El Niño will increase the extremes—drought in some countries and floods in others."

The agency's latest forecast, also released Wednesday, anticipates an "exceptionally high likelihood of nearly 100%" that the warm phase will persist through to February 2027. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that "El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: The planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up."

Only when the last glacier has melted and the last reservoir has dried up will you realize that you can't drink gasoline…#climatecrisis#climatecollapse

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— Jürgen Döschner (@jdoeschner.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 4:01 PM

While the related releases generated calls for action, Saulo said that "it is not all bad news. Some regions showed improvement in 2025," pointing out that "parts of South America saw a partial recovery in water storage during 2025 after a severe multiyear deficit," while "Central and Southern Africa maintained much-above-normal water levels across several major lakes."

Still, action is needed. As Saulo put it: "The State of Global Water Resources report calls for a sense of urgency, not panic. The buffers that have historically protected water security—snow, ice, groundwater—are eroding in many regions on a timescale of years, not overnight. We have a genuine window for action: expanding early warning coverage; investing in the hydrological monitoring infrastructure; and opting for water management policies to address both water supply and use/overuse."

"My concluding message is that this report exists because members share their data and their science," she said. "This level of understanding—global, standardized, comparable year to year—did not exist a decade ago. It is the product of sustained international cooperation under WMO's mandate. And my last call is for all of you to continue to invest in it."

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How Greedy Corporations Are Weaponizing AI to 'Squeeze' Consumers and Working Class Families
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How Greedy Corporations Are Weaponizing AI to 'Squeeze' Consumers and Working Class Families

A report released on Wednesday by Groundwork Collaborative and Reset Tech details how corporate America and assorted nefarious actors are using artificial intelligence to gouge US consumers.

The report begins by noting that while AI is "often promoted as a technology that will boost productivity, reduce costs, and improve efficiency," the reality so far is that it is "enabling new forms of fraud, expanding surveillance-based pricing, and increasing costs for essential services such as health insurance, transportation, and electricity."

As one example of how AI is hurting consumers, the report highlights AI's role in helping health insurers more rapidly deny claims, even as many physicians have expressed concerns about the technology's accuracy.

"AI adjudication tools like UnitedHealth’s nH Predict have been accused of often erroneously denying needed care, hoping that patients and providers don’t take the time to appeal," the report notes. "A recent lawsuit alleges that the 0.2% of patients who do appeal win about nine times out of ten, reversing the AI-powered tool’s denial."

On the other side of the coin, AI-powered medical scribes used by healthcare providers have been found to bill insurers for procedures more complex or expensive than the services that were actually delivered. The report points to a recent analysis conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which found that AI-powered tools are now one of the top drivers of medical inflation in the US.

Groundwork Collaborative and Reset Tech also document how AI allows companies to implement surveillance pricing systems, which use customers' personal data to determine how much they should be charged for a given product or service to maximize the amount of revenue generated per sale.

According to the report, data brokers collect and analyze data taken from internet users and then sell their findings to corporations who can use that knowledge to create detailed profiles of individual consumers.

One area where this kind of pricing is increasingly being used is in the car insurance industry, which thanks to modern technology has vastly more information about drivers' habits than ever before.

"This information—known as telematics—includes speed, braking patterns, acceleration, and location tracking," the report explains. "Insurers analyze this information with AI to assess risk and set personalized premiums. While this may reward some safe drivers, it can also lead to higher premiums and be used to deny coverage entirely."

The report finds that airlines have also been using customers' information to create a dynamic pricing system that charges different fares based on "demand, search activity, booking patterns, and other consumer data."

Rishi Bharwani, US director of Reset Tech and co-author of the report, said that elected officials need to wake up to how cutting-edge technology is being used to gouge consumers with what he described as "a hidden tax on households."

"Families feel it every day, even if they can’t see it," Bharwani explained. "Lawmakers need to act now to stop greedy corporations from using AI to squeeze consumers."

Janelle Jones, senior fellow at Groundwork Collaborative and report co-author, noted that AI pricing is becoming more popular even as families across the US are struggling to afford basics such as food and energy.

"As working people face an affordability crisis, higher prices caused by AI are the last thing they need," Jones said. "It's another attack on household budgets that add up, and which working people certainly shouldn’t be on the hook for."

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Participant seen holding a sign at the protest. A large
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Trump 'Gleefully Eviscerating' Efforts to Help Families With 'Illegal' Pocket Rescission

Elected Democrats—and even the Senate's top Republican appropriator—blasted President Donald Trump late Friday for rescinding nearly $1 billion in congressionally approved spending that the White House deemed "wasteful and harmful" through a legally contested process.

In a statement announcing what was targeted, the administration celebrated funding cuts for what it called "pro-illegal immigration programs," a "nefarious" Department of Justice subagency, a program that "propagates America Last climate alarmism," an office that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—or "discrimination, and radical woke ideologies"—and more.

House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) responded in a statement that "Donald Trump knows he can't get these cuts through Congress, so he is illegally making them through the back door."

"Trump's actions are a blatant attack on Congress' constitutional power of the purse," he added. "It is exactly why we need to pass my Congressional Power of the Purse Act and stop any president from illegally overriding Congress."

The Associated Press reported that "under federal law, Congress has 45 days to review the president's proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election."

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) stressed on social media that "a pocket rescission is an illegal line-item veto. It is the president saying that he and he alone will convert a bipartisan spending bill (that has been signed into law) into a partisan spending bill. He is canceling the lines of spending he doesn't like."

"This violates the core separation of powers embedded in our Constitution in which it is the Congress, not the president, who decides what programs are designed and at what level they are funded," he continued. "Republican colleagues said they would never let this happen. Well, here it is. They should ask themselves: 'How would I like to have a Democratic president canceling out the Republican flavored programs he or she doesn't like in a bipartisan spending bill that has been signed into law?' If they have any integrity or any spine, they will join us in ending this practice."

Noting that the cuts will impact everything from critical health research, to combating the international illicit narcotics trade, Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) declared: "This is theft from the American people, plain and simple. These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people—not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families."

She specifically called out Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought—a co-author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for a right-wing overhaul of the federal government, who was recently condemned as an "unelected shadow president" by the House Democrat who introduced impeachment articles against him. According to Murray, "Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious because Vought is saying their votes don't count."

Murray also pointed out that during negotiations for the recently enacted stopgap spending legislation, "Democrats fought to include language to prevent the Trump administration from once again usurping Congress' power—but for the second time in a year, Republicans refused to take common sense action and prevent this from happening."

"While Trump spends tax dollars on ads promoting himself, Congress needs to reassert its powers to help people, and it's past time Republicans join us in that fight," she argued. "Russ Vought's message to Congress is that your votes don't count, and your laws are optional. It is now time for my Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to stand up and join us to stop this, and remind this administration this is not how this works."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) emphasized the impact of the administration's move, saying that "Trump is gleefully eviscerating programs and protections that help hardworking American families live a safe and healthy life, all while he continues to punish them with skyrocketing gas and grocery prices."

"With this rescissions package, the Trump administration is illegally stripping nearly $1 billion in critical funding that supports kids, K-12 students, small businesses, and health and clean air research," he highlighted. "Americans are crying out for relief."

"Instead of ending his Iran War and tariff chaos that are driving up costs, Trump is rolling out the red carpet for our adversaries while stealing funds meant to help American families," he added. "Senate Democrats will challenge Trump's illegal cuts at every turn and continue the fight to help American families, lower healthcare costs and secure our communities."

The administration's rescission announcement came less than six weeks away from the midterm elections. Democrats aim to win majorities, while Trump's Republican Party is fighting to keep control of both chambers of Congress. One of the nationally watched races is that of Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine).

As some congressional Republicans cheered the Friday action, Collins put out a statement denouncing it. She said that "without warning or consultation, Congress just received an $810 million package of pocket rescissions from the administration," which she called OBM's most recent attempt "to undermine Congress' constitutional power of the purse."

"This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law," Collins continued. "Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress' appropriations powers. OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."

"The independent Government Accountability Office has concluded that pocket rescissions are unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act," she added. "Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law. I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions."

While some Democrats had called for their Republican colleagues to make such promises, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) fired back at Collins on social media, writing that "Senate Republicans had chance after chance to stop Trump's illegal seizure of taxpayer money. Time after time, they pledged allegiance to Trump instead of to citizens. And he'll keep rolling them if the Senate doesn't change hands."

So did Troy Jackson, the former Democratic Maine Senate president running to unseat Collins. He said that "Susan Collins voted for Trump's pick to lead the OMB. Now she’s surprised he's doing exactly what he promised to do? She's the appropriations chair who voted with Trump 96% of the time. Expressing concern isn't enough. Mainers see through the bullshit."

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Protesters rally in Chicago against ICE, military presence
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Marking One Year of NSPM-7, Rights Advocates Call On Congress to Rein In FBI's Spying Capabilities

On the first anniversary of President Donald Trump's signing of one critical national security memo, every member of Congress on Friday received a report on how his administration's "blatant use of the counterterrorism framework against left-wing domestic speech" has allowed the FBI to "spy on the First Amendment," attacking one of the bedrock principles of the US Constitution in order to crack down on "speech disfavored by Trump."

The 19-page report, titled "7Can the FBI Spy on the First Amendment?," was sent to every congressional office by the advocacy group Defending Rights and Dissent (DRAD), exactly a year after the president signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) in the wake of the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Trump and other top White House officials immediately blamed the killing of 31-year-old Turning Point USA co-founder on the "radical left," and claimed left-wing extremists were behind "the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today." Days earlier, the US Department of Justice had removed from its website a report showing that political violence perpetrated by far-right extremists in the US far outpaced that of people on the left.

The memo outlined how the Trump administration planned to crack down on left-wing groups by directing law enforcement agencies to treat political speech "as a precursor to terrorism," if it came from organizations that demonstrated particular viewpoints—including those critical of capitalism or the US government. Groups that displayed so-called "extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality" were also named as potential targets.

NSPM-7 called for the FBI's 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF)—comprised of about 4,000 agents across the country—to investigate groups suspected of left-wing extremism under the memo, with local police officers staffing many of the task forces.

"This extremely broad language leads to individual agents interpreting what these viewpoints mean to them when determining who to target. And thanks to the existence of FBI assessments, designed with the same preventive purpose that NSPM-7 echoes, Task Force officers can investigate groups or individuals without a factual basis to suspect them of criminal wrongdoing or consider them a national security threat," wrote Chip Gibbons, policy director at DRAD. "At the assessment level, the FBI can even have an informant infiltrate their group. Informants often act as agent provocateurs in sting operations, in which the informant proposes and recruits individuals to participate in a fictitious terror plot concocted by the FBI."

Under pressure from Trump, Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller, and other officials to deliver prosecutions of suspected left-wing extremists, wrote Gibbons, "the agents' loose guidelines, politicized guidance, and track record of the FBI creates a recipe for disaster."

"Trump and Miller have made clear they plan to exploit the broad counterterrorism authorities of the executive branch to unleash this machinery of repression upon their domestic political opponents. Unless Congress acts now, they will get away with it."

A year after NSPM-7 was signed, the memo has already underpinned a crackdown on groups and individuals who oppose Trump's deeply unpopular deployment of federal immigration agents to carry out his violent mass deportation policy and other aspects of his far-right agenda.

US Attorney Daniel Rosen cited the memo in June when he announced the indictment of 15 organizers who led protests against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Minnesota, and those indictments came out of a sprawling investigation into local labor and rights groups that was opened after federal agents fatally shot anti-ICE protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January. Top administration officials also accused Pretti, soon after he had been killed, of being a "domestic terrorist."

In July, Miller said NSPM-7 would allow the administration to "disrupt, identify, defund, de-bank, arrest, prosecute these political terrorists that are operating within our country," as Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that four left-wing groups had been designated as "foreign terrorist organizations."

And in March, the memo underpinned the conviction of eight people accused of domestic terrorism for wearing all black to a protest at Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, where one demonstrator shot and wounded a police officer. The protesters were later sentenced to 30-100 years in prison.

“This wouldn’t be a terrorism case if it weren’t for that memo,” a defense lawyer told one news outlet after the conviction.

Gibbons emphasized on Friday that carrying out NSPM-7's directives "requires no new laws, no new agencies, because well before Trump ever returned to power, the FBI and its enablers have amassed for itself the power to spy on pure political speech."

As hundreds of thousands of Americans expressed opposition to President George W. Bush's impending invasion of Iraq in 2003, notes the report, "the FBI issued two controversial intelligence bulletins, one on 'Tactics Used During Protests and Demonstrations,' and one on 'Potential for Criminal Activity at Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Annual Meeting.'"

"The latter bulletin was prepared in advance of mass protests against the Iraq War," reads the report. "It went so far as to list 'tactics by which protestors draw attention,' which included 'marches, banners, and forms of passive resistance such as sit-in.' It urged law enforcement to 'be alert to these possible indicators of protest activity and report any potentially illegal acts to the nearest FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.'"

The inspector general of the Department of Justice at the time raised alarm about the bulletins' potential violation of the First Amendment, but the head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Jack Goldsmith, dismissed the concern.

"The OLC opinion made clear that the executive branch believes it is not unconstitutional for the FBI to monitor protected speech so long as it claimed it was looking for potential unlawful activity, such as terrorist threats or 'civil disorder,'" writes Gibbons.

The FBI's international terrorism program has also pursued "homegrown violent terrorists," and the agency sought to prove in the 1960s and '70s that anti-war protests were "the product of Soviet foreign"—providing the National Security Agency with the names of US citizens to be added to a watchlist.

"While the stakes were high before, the actions of the Trump administration, especially those of Stephen Miller, have made it clear they aim to use the counterterrorism bureaucracy to destroy their domestic political opponents," reads the DRAD report.

Gibbons called on Congress to take several key actions to rein in the FBI as it seeks to carry out the directive outlined in NSPM-7, including:

  • Creating a statutory charter for the FBI that outlines what it can investigate and why;
  • Imposing on the FBI a definition of "terrorism" that puts the focus on criminal violence against people instead of political ideology;
  • Eliminating the FBI's assessments of individuals based on their political speech and putting the agency "out of the business of suspicionless investigations"; and
  • Requiring a warrant for foreign intelligence searches and queries under §702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

"With NSPM-7, Trump and Miller have made clear they plan to exploit the broad counterterrorism authorities of the executive branch to unleash this machinery of repression upon their domestic political opponents," said Gibbons. "Unless Congress acts now, they will get away with it."

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Sen. Bill Cassidy...
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As Trump Threatens to 'Annihilate' Iran, Most Senate Republicans Still Refuse to Demand End to Illegal War

Even as some swing-state Republican US Senate candidates are suddenly calling for an end to President Donald Trump's unpopular and illegal war with Iran, the vast majority of elected GOP senators are voting to keep the conflict going.

A war powers resolution that would have compelled Trump to end the war he started more than six months ago was narrowly defeated in the US Senate on Thursday.

Just four Republicans—Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Thom Tillis (R-NC)—voted in favor of the resolution, which failed by a vote of 49-50. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to vote against the resolution.

The Iran War, which Trump launched in February without congressional authorization, has led to a massive spike in energy prices, including record-high prices for diesel fuel.

As reported by NPR, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who voted against Thursday's resolution, nonetheless acknowledged the economic toll the war is taking on Americans while speaking with reporters earlier this week.

"Everybody wants to see wars come to a conclusion," said the South Dakota Republican. "We are hopeful that the administration's efforts will lead to getting... the shipping lanes open and taking some of the pressure off of the American peoples' pocketbooks via a lower price at the pump for gasoline."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who led the war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives, decried the Senate's failure to pass it as "a slap in the face to the millions of American people who want this war to end."

"The Senate had the opportunity to send a clear message to this administration that they would not stand for another day of his war of choice," said Jayapal. "Instead, a majority of Senate Republicans acted as a cult party and stood by Trump’s unpopular and devastating war."

The Washington Democrat vowed that the House "will continue to pass these resolutions and demand an end to the war."

Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser for Demand Progress, had a more optimistic take on the resolution's failure, arguing that the close vote count "shows that the tide continues to turn against this illegal war."

Kharrazian also noted that "Congress has already passed a legally binding war powers resolution directing him to remove US forces from the fighting," but the president "ignored it and kept waging a war that was illegal from day one."

During an unhinged speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump threatened to "annihilate" Iran by driving the country "into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations."

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