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MAGA precursors: Indiana KKK in the 1920s
Further

Garbage: Racist Shits 'R Us

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?

The good ole days revisited: High school student at 1963 Birmingham protest Make America Great Again: Birmingham high school student being assaulted at 1963 civil rights protestPhoto by Bill Hudson

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Protest Against Michigan Data Center
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230+ Environmental Groups Call On Congress to Impose Moratorium on New AI Data Centers

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:

  • Enormous electricity consumption, with a tripling of data centers in the next five years projected to result in the facilities consuming as much electricity as about 30 million households;
  • Unsustainable water consumption, with those data centers requiring the amount of water normally used by 18.5 million households, just for cooling the computer servers;
  • The worsening of the climate emergency, with 56% of the energy used to power data centers sourced from planet-heating fossil fuels;
  • Surging electricity costs for people living in the vicinity of energy-sucking data centers; and
  • Skyrocketing job losses as half of all entry-level white-collar jobs are projected to become obsolete due to the growth of AI and companies' investments in the technology, even as corporations report they're not seeing a significant positive impact on their bottom lines.

"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.

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Tax Prosecutions Plummet to Lowest Level in Decades as Trump Guts Enforcement Efforts
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Tax Prosecutions Plummet to Lowest Level in Decades as Trump Guts Enforcement Efforts

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.

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Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein
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See the 19 Photos House Oversight Democrats Just Released From Epstein's Estate

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."

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Kristi Noem And Joseph Kent Testify To House Committee On Threats To The Homeland
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'The Power of Christ Compels You!' CodePink Priest Goes Full Exorcist on Kristi Noem at House Hearing

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."

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A group photo of all 18 ICC judges
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ICC Judges 'Wiped Out Economically and Socially' by US Sanctions—But Remain Resolute

International Criminal Court judges remain steadfast in their pursuit of justice—including for victims of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—even as they suffer from devastating US sanctions, some of the affected jurists said in recent interviews.

Nine ICC officials are under sanctions imposed in two waves earlier this year by the Trump administration following the Hague-based tribunal's issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The tribunal also issued warrants for the arrest of three Hamas officials, all of whom have been killed by Israel during the course of the war.

The sanctioned jurists are: Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan (United Kingdom), Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji), Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang (Senegal), Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru), Judge Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Judge Beti Hohler (Slovenia), Judge Nicolas Yann Guillou (France), and Judge Kimberly Prost (Canada).

The sanctions followed a February executive order from US President Donald Trump sanctioning Khan and accusing the ICC of “baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”

The sanctions—which experts have called an act of criminal obstruction—prevent the targeted ICC officials and their relatives from entering the United States; cut off their access to financial services including banking and credit cards; and prohibit the use of online services like email, shopping, and booking sites.

Fearing steep fines and other punitive measures including possible imprisonment for running afoul of US sanctions by providing “financial, material, or technological support" to targeted individuals, businesses and other entities strictly blacklist sanctioned people—who are typically terrorists, organized crime leaders, and political or military leaders accused of serious human rights crimes.

“Your whole world is restricted,” Prost—who was part of an ICC appellate chamber's unanimous 2020 decision to investigate alleged US war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan—told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I’ve worked all my life in criminal justice, and now I’m on a list with those implicated in terrorism and organized crime."

Ibáñez Carranza said the US sanctions are not deterring her, telling the AP: “In my country, I prosecuted terrorists and drug lords. I will continue my work."

Guillou told Le Monde last week that the sanctions mean he is banned from almost all digital services—including Amazon and PayPal—in a world dominated by US tech giants. This has led to some absurd scenarios, including having a hotel reservation he booked via Expedia in his own country canceled.

"To be under sanctions is like being transported back to the 1990s," he said.

The Trump administration's objective, said Guillou, is "intimidation... permanent fear, and powerlessness."

"European citizens under US sanctions will be wiped out economically and socially within the [European Union]," he added.

Guillou remains defiant in the face of sweeping hardship caused by the sanctions, contending that he is part of a larger struggle for justice as, "empires are hitting back" in response to "three decades of progress in multilateralism."

The US—which, like Israel, is not party to the Rome Statute that governs the ICC—has been at odds with the court for decades. In 2002, Congress passed, and then-President George W. Bush signed, the American Service Members’ Protection Act—also known as the Hague Invasion Act—which authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate” including military intervention to secure the release of American or allied personnel held by or on behalf of the ICC.

During his first term, Trump sanctioned then-ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Prosecution Jurisdiction Division Director Phakiso Mochochoko over the Afghan war crimes probe.

The nine jurists sanctioned this year by the US are seeking relief and are calling on European governments to invoke the EU's so-called "Blocking Statute," which is meant to shield officials of the 27-nation bloc from the extraterritorial application of third country laws.

"States parties [to the Rome Statute] face a choice: Continue to capitulate to the bullying of the US, or meet the challenge posed by the sanctions, past and future, and respond appropriately," Jens Iverson, an assistant professor of international law at Leiden University in the Netherlands, wrote last month for OpinioJuris. "Which choice they make will reveal the actual values of the states who as a matter of law are pledged to combat atrocity and impunity."

Ibáñez Carranza told Middle East Eye in a recent interview: "What we are asking are practical measures. What we are asking is action. We need the support of the entire world. But we are in Europe now, and Europe is a powerful structure. The European Union is a powerful structure. They should react as such. They cannot be subordinated to the American policies."

Ibáñez Carranza said that said measures should be taken "to support the court, not only to support the judges, but to support the system... of Rome."

"It's not only the judges" who are affected by the US sanctions, she asserted. "They want to affect the system of Rome, the system of the court, where we deliver justice for... the most defenseless and vulnerable victims... They are the affected ones with this."

"The work of the International Criminal Court is for humanity," Ibáñez Carranza added. "And this is why we are resilient, and this is why we need not only to stand together as judges, but the entire international community."

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