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Trump's Inferno: Just Stop
In the hopeful, chaotic aftermath of the biggest blue wave in 50 years, the inept “cartoon ghoul of a man” who fomented the carnage and his foul minions - Miller, Hegseth, Unholy Mike, the wrong Dana White - are scrambling like “pigs in the mire” to grasp some thorny new realities. To wit: Accountability is neither revenge nor crime, their once-vaunted “leader” is a dead clown walking, and hundreds of flipped state and federal seats mean their sleazy party is over.
This week we got the first giddy sightings of new Congressional Democrats, who auspiciously look much like diverse America, arriving at the Capitol for orientation. Fresh from their historic wins - flipping 549 legislative seats, ending 13 GOP supermajorities, creating at least six new Democratic trifectas, taking control of the House and Senate - they will now govern three quarters of Americans even as the Republican Party, per one online wiseacre, devolves into the Donner Party. Amidst the lame finger-pointing and precipitous shattering of GOP control, Mike Johnson blindly insisted “voters made the wrong choice" and smarmy Josh Hawley called for Christians to meet the “shocking and historic” election with a (notably modest) hour-long fast on Dec. 15 at the Capitol. Cheap thoughts and prayers: Go for it.
Because nobody ever claimed those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, MAGA world has simply tripled down on their unequivocally rejected folly. First, led by a fragile narcissist snugly embedded in his alternate reality, flaccid calls of a rigged election slowly emerged. "Here we go," noted weary America. “Lather, rinse, repeat." "Does anybody really believe this "Election" was honest?" Trump whined, devising some "creative math" to falsely argue, "The Alaska Race is OVER. Dan Sullivan WON, BY A LOT!" MAGA idiots chimed in. Pillow Guy's "cybersecurity team" vowed to reveal vague "matching algorithmic patterns across multiple states," Alex Jones weirdly declared Trump "the ultimate Democrat sleeper cell," one Christo-fascist announced a Jan. 3 "Million Crusader March - Bring your cross!" SAD. Even evil Megyn Kelly was fed up: "Just stop."
But cults, by definition, don't. Instead, hell-bent on more losing, Trump gave voters a teeny stubby middle finger and chose to boost some of his most abject zealots, all tied to hated and calamitous policies: Stephen Miller, aka Pee Wee German, a literal Nazi with "blood on his hands" whose despised deportation machine moved Hispanics to help turn Texas blue; Pete Kegsbreath, a widely loathed, utterly inept asshole and war criminal whose bungled Iran war has made life unaffordable for vast swathes of America; and Gym Jordan, a buffoonish loyalist and former assistant wrestling coach known for long ignoring an infamous sexual abuse scandal with thousands of victims - there's even a movie - that creepily echoes the regime's ongoing cover-up of Epstein's boundless, Trump-adjacent atrocities. Heckuva job, Donnie et al.
Above all, like cornered animals clinging to the heroic memory of Nixon's refusal to accept any responsibility for his crimes - “When the president does it, it's not illegal” - the MAGA reponse to its glaring failures and looming accountability for them is to cry mean wolf and argue enforcing the law and embracing the constitutional task of Congressional oversight is, in fact, a crime, even months before the fact. Trump's already shrieking Dem "SLEAZEBAGS should go to jail for what they are doing," ie their job, which as an uber grifter he can only weirdly see as "extortion." "They are threatening a lot of people because they happen to be Republicans," he wailed, a scaredy-cat Mob bully pathetically melting down into his usual feeble projection. "There are no impeachable acts committed, or even thought of, by the victims of this illegal process."
His toadies have predictably mobilized to back him up - first, with bonkers threats. White House Counsel Will Scharf sent a mob-like, "legally repulsive" letter to incoming Oversight Chair Robert Garcia warning that Democrats undertaking their constitutionally mandated Congressional oversight "may cross the line into blatant criminality," resulting in, umm, imprisonment. Citing no criminal statute 'cause it doesn't exist, he snarled, "We are monitoring the abusive and capricious threats (to) harass and aggrandize, rather than to advance any legitimate legislative end,” a rebuke one lawyer called "a total bluff” given Dems have that "for miles." Other experts mocked "a ham-fisted stab at intimidation" that "will be Exhibit 1" in a self-own giving Dems "ammo to go straight to subpoenas." Said one, “Get D-team lawyers, win D-team prizes.”
Attorney General (sic) Todd Blanche, who as America's top law enforcement official "clearly doesn’t have the slightest clue what the rule of law is," went on both CNN and Fox to also suggest Dems were committing crimes; when asked what those might be, viewers noted he looked worried - or "scargry," a blend of scared and angry - before he pivoted to, "I'm not interested in explaining." He babbled about Dems' "extremely troubling rhetoric, no basis, no facts, just everyone running around...You have to draw the line, we have to wake up in this country, that's not governing, that's a disappointment." And yes of course it's his job to represent Goebbels and "everyone else...Every A.G. in history actively defends executive members of an administration." In other words, "Trump's former personal lawyer is still Trump's personal lawyer."
Despite MAGA’s bravado - and cleaning house of flunkies who may have receipts - they continue to be “led” by a fumbling clown - caravans, "Afghanistan jungles," "perceived loss," "chartered the human ginome" - who lately ends speeches with, “By the way, I was not on the ballot.” On 60 Minutes, even right-wing Ross Douthat nailed him for his poors-are-dumb retort to $3 billion in grift and corruption: “I have a son who watches over money...Every president has a problem (going) back to George Washington.” And there was his inane Press Secretary choice of “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior” who'd maybe bring some UFC fighters “though not from our Country, to defend us against the Lunatic Left.” He said he was “just kidding” after people realized he had the wrong Dana White, who alas is Black - other suggested Whites: Vanna, Betty, Walter - but he dragged his White to a bizarre presser anyway.
Amidst the tomfoolery, pundits point out the mid-term avalanche was the biggest rejection of any party since Watergate; its 13% net gain was the largest margin of victory since 1926, a "once-in-a century margin." "Everything is coming," says one. "It's going to be an entirely new day." Thanks to another GOP own goal, Dems will hit the ground running: They've been building investigative staffs from a large pool of former career prosecutors purged by Trump who know where the bodies are: "You cannot shred institutional memory - they just changed employers." Dems are working to reverse disastrous cuts in Medicaid, SNAP, other benefits. They're probing Susie Wiles' work with Kremlin-connected lobbyists and Marco Rubio's $1.2 million spent on military flights to Florida to watch his son (occasionally) play college football on our dime.
A judge made a D.C. golf course lawsuit the Caddyshack-like "surprise contender" for a belated legal showdown over feds' defiance of court orders, with a special master appointed to investigate "ethical violations” in the case. In Mississippi, Scott Colom just ousted Cindy Hyde-Smith to become the state's first Black U.S. senator since 1874, flipping the Dems' eighth Senate seat. Thomas Massie's resolute move to impeach "dangerously incompetent" Pete Hegseth for war crimes failed despite Hegseth's low-rent, lie-filled, "just following orders" hissy fit presser: "When he’s attacked, he hides behind the troops.” He squeaked through this time - "Tick tock get ready" - but John Oliver spoke for many when he urged, "Remove this fucking asshole." And Massie just got enough signatures to finally force a House vote to release millions of Epstein files. Garcia: “Our work is just getting started.”
Meanwhile, the guy whose lamentable victory Trump celebrated as "the EXONERATION of a Great American Patriot" again proved what a "warrior ethos jerk" he remains - on Veterans' Day yet - at an event at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the country's most sacred war memorial. Because "everything is a show or photo op" to the empty buffoon with the make-up studio, Hegseth and his clueless coterie stood on the steps of the memorial for a "truly abhorrent" picture ; as they turned away, one of them loudly laughed, prompting a guard to furiously bark at them, as mandated, “ALL VISITORS WILL MAINTAIN AN ATMOSPHERE OF SILENCE AND RESPECT AT ALL TIMES." Online, a gazillion horrified people called Pete an oblivious asshat; many recalled visiting the site as middle-school kids who even then knew better, so what's his fucking problem.
At Arlington Trump was likewise insufferable. He compared his illegal 48-hour kidnapping stunt in Venezuela to America's endless, obscene tragedies in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, hideously argued "we got very little from any of those wars,” and gloated, "We’re taking out billions and billions of dollars of oil...To the victor belong the spoils." What a grotesquerie. Now the knives are out for him. For Veterans' Day, the Secret Handshake erected a new Bone Spurs tribute on the National Mall. Dubbed "The Foot Soldier," it features a golden Trump sitting on a pedestal rubbing a sore foot. Two plaques bear quotes. One from a 2013 photo in his Military Academy uniform: "I can be very military.” The other: "We honor the sacrifice (of) a soldier in spirit who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs.”
With Democrats already infighting as the lame duck waddles amidst his crimes, lies, hate and question he'll never answer, The Bulwark entreats us to remember "There are no deals to be had." Our sole mission: "Destroy all monsters." In Unpopular Front, John Ganz proffers a similar but darker ultimatum: Eternal torment. He recalls 60 Minutes' Douthat asking Trump, "Do you think you're going to heaven?" Reply: "I hope so." Citing Christian forgiveness of your enemies, he asks if the smallest man on Earth can do that. Nope, he says: "I hate my enemies and I always will." In Dante's Inferno, Ganz notes, Dante and Virgil stop to talk to souls "stuck like animated friezes, repeating their state of sinfulness, the perpetual fate of the Wrathful...already pigs in the mire in this life." Thus is Trump's hatred "the entire substance of his being, the product of his disordered love for himself," and "relinquishing it would be an intolerable loss of self." So, inevitably, will he be "solidified into eternal bronzer."
"He was an arrogant person in the world/No goodness adorns his memory."
“How does it feel being a loser, Mr President?”- Sky News reporter, Dominic Waghorn👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏Give this man his Pulitzer Prize.
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— KittyKatGirl😻🙏💞🐞 (@mary1kathy.bsky.social) November 8, 2026 at 2:18 PM
Nov 12, 2026
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Green Groups Boost Pressure on Schumer to Block Permitting Bill That Guts Environmental Protections
Environmental groups are making a last-ditch push to persuade Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to block a bipartisan permitting bill that they warn would speed up approvals for polluting projects and data center infrastructure.
Activists gathered outside Schumer’s (D-NY) Midtown Manhattan office Monday morning, hours before the US Senate’s planned evening vote on whether to advance the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA).
In a media advisory, organizers from the New York Public Interest Research Group, Food & Water Watch, and New York Communities for Change, who led Monday’s protest and a previous one at Schumer’s apartment on Friday, called the bill an “aggressive attack on federal environmental protections in order to facilitate rapid, unregulated development of fracked gas power plants, dirty fossil fuel pipelines, and expensive hyperscale data centers.”
The motion needs 60 votes to advance, so some Democrats will have to support holding a final vote. The bill’s leading Democratic sponsor, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), said he believes supporters “have the votes to proceed.”
The bill faces longer odds in the US House of Representatives, especially after Tuesday’s Democratic blowout in the midterms, when voters across the country also backed restrictions on data centers.
Sponsors have revised the bill, but David Watkins, director of government affairs for the Climate and Energy programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that the amendment “fails to address the fundamental imbalance of the legislation” in favor of polluting energy.
“To get bipartisan support for negligible reductions in emissions,” he said, “this deal would convert compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and Clean Water Act into largely voluntary exercises.”
While some Democratic proponents of the bill have argued that these compromises are necessary to speed up permits for clean energy infrastructure, Watkins said existing law already allows much of that work and saw no need to enact “the most significant legislative reversal in environmental and community protections in decades.”
A coalition of conservation groups, including Earthjustice Action, Defenders of Wildlife, and Friends of the Earth, sent a letter to the Senate on Monday urging members to delay the vote until newly elected members of the US Congress—some of whom made opposition to data centers central to their campaigns—can be sworn in.
“The elections on November 3 sent a clear message from the American public denouncing the administration’s actions over the past two years and, in states across the country, rejecting the accelerated proliferation of data centers,” they wrote. “We strongly encourage you to heed the public’s wishes and advance energy infrastructure needs and an affordability agenda without making false and unnecessary trade-offs that severely undermine tribal sovereignty and our bedrock environmental, public lands, waters, wildlife, ocean, and historic preservation laws.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said he would vote against advancing the bill without substantial changes, adding that “robust consideration of the bill should be a priority in the new Congress.”
"Permitting reform for electrical transmission lines is essential," he said. But, he added, "Getting more renewable electrons where they are needed doesn’t tackle climate change if you simultaneously promote the burning of more fossil fuels. Unfortunately, this bill does exactly that."
As questions mount about whether Democratic leaders will use their new mandate to pursue a bold legislative agenda, some see BAAJA as a worrying sign that Schumer and other party leaders may squander the moment by reverting to business as usual.
“If Texas of all places can go blue, then we can be bold enough to say a better bill is possible,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement. “Young people and the working class deserve it. To stop the climate crisis, America needs Senate Democrats to fight harder. Senate Democrats must deliver.”
Nov 09, 2026
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‘This Is Evil’: Critics Hammer Google Plan to Shut Off Search Access for Schools That Reject Its AI
Tech giant Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is telling US schools that there's a price to be paid for restricting student access to its artificial intelligence tools.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that, starting early next year, schools that fully disable the company's AI will also lose access to its search engine, which is by far the most used internet search tool in the world.
Chris Phillips, vice president for education at Google, justified the policy by claiming that "Search and AI are deeply integrated," adding that students attending schools where AI is banned "will not have access to Search, and they’ll see a message from their school that indicates it’s not available."
As the Times noted, Google has deeply integrated itself into US classrooms, many of which rely on its Classroom assignment platform and equip students with low-cost Chromebook laptops.
"The company’s new strategy underscores Google’s powerful role in American education," the Times explained. "If school leaders want continued student access to Search within the company’s ecosystem, they will be forced to embrace Google's AI."
Schools around the US have been banning the use of AI for young students over concerns that reliance on the technology will hinder the development of critical thinking skills and also enable mass cheating on assignments.
Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, told the Times that he expects Google's new policy linking AI and Search will only add more fuel to the backlash against the tech industry.
"This is a particularly clear example of the tech industry going out of its way to force AI on us all," said Polikoff, "even if we have said we don’t want it."
Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden, accused Google of "using its search monopoly to coerce schools into adopting AI," and said it was yet another reason why antitrust action should be taken against the company.
"This highlights the danger of allowing an unregulated monopolist to control an essential service," Khan wrote in a social media post. "Multiple courts have found Google liable for violating antitrust laws, and this latest move shows it remains unchastened. As the public increasingly pushes back against the use of AI in schools, Google is making clear it will punish those who don’t fall in line."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose city earlier this year banned AI in elementary and middle schools, similarly took Google to task for trying to force its products onto students.
"No corporation should have the power to dictate how we teach our children," Mamdani wrote. "Our public schools exist to serve students, not to grow the profit margins of Big Tech."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) used news of Google's new AI school policy to take a shot at President Donald Trump, who has constantly downplayed the need for any regulation of the industry.
"President Trump claimed that AI oligarchs could regulate themselves because they 'love our country,'" Sanders wrote. "Now, Google is threatening schools: If you stop your students from using AI, we will cut off your access to Google Search. That’s not love. That’s extortion."
Cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, a longtime skeptic of the AI industry, responded to Google's move by writing, "This is evil."
Author Kashana Cauley remarked that Google's motto used to be "don't be evil," whereas today its motto appears to be, "We are now holding your kids and their schools hostage."
Cauley added that schools wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken up Google's offer to supply low-cost Chromebooks for students.
"The schools shouldn’t be beholden to district-wide Chromebook deals if Google is holding us hostage," she wrote. "We need to get Chromebooks and Google out of the schools."
Nov 03, 2026
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Lawmakers Report That Some Democrats Missed Hegseth Impeachment Vote to Attend Event for ‘AIPAC Front Group’
Some of the 11 Democrats who missed Tuesday’s vote to advance the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were reportedly attending an event hosted by a “front group” for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly known as AIPAC.
The vote, which would have prevented Republicans from killing efforts to impeach Hegseth over his launching of an unauthorized war against Iran, extrajudicial killings of sailors in the Caribbean and Pacific, kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and other actions, fell short by just seven votes.
The absent Democrats—Reps. Julia Brownley (D-Calif.), Lou Correa (D-Calif.), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Brittany Pettersen (D-Colo.), Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.)—could have changed the outcome.
Andrew Solender, a congressional reporter for Axios, shed new light on why some of them may have missed the crucial vote.
Citing several lawmakers, he posted on social media:
Some of the House Democrats who missed the Hegseth impeachment vote were on their way back from an Elect Democratic Women event at a venue about 1.5 miles down Pennsylvania Avenue but got caught in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam on Independence Avenue (the road on the House side of the Capitol complex).
Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim noted that EDW was one of many groups that served as a "pass-through" for AIPAC funds in Democratic primaries during the 2026 election cycle.
As The Lever reported last month, AIPAC's super political action committee (PAC), the United Democracy Project, donated nearly $2.4 million to the group's political arm, EDW Action, while Democratic Majority for Israel donated another $140,000. Those funds made up nearly half the money the group subsequently spent in elections during the 2026 cycle, including against Democratic primary candidates critical of Israel, such as Reps.-elect Melat Kiros (D-Colo.) and Amish Shah (D-Ariz.).
EDW, which was founded in 2018 but did not start receiving AIPAC dollars through its action fund until 2024, was one of several innocuous-sounding groups—with names like "Affordable Chicago Now" and "BOLD America"—that acted as conduits for AIPAC dollars as the group's support came to be viewed as toxic among Democratic voters who were outraged by Israel's genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and push for Trump to launch a war with Iran.
Drop Site's congressional reporter Julian Andreone found that all eight of the women who missed the vote have some connection to EDW: Brownley is listed as a founding member and current executive board member, while Stansbury has been an at-large board member since 2025. Gillen is listed as a "frontline member" supported by the group.
The group provided support to Wilson, Stevens, Strickland, and Pettersen during the past election cycle. Pelosi, who has helped EDW raise money for years, missed Tuesday's impeachment vote because she was attending a veterans event in San Francisco.
According to an online post, EDW was holding a "new member reception" from 4:30 to 6:30 ET Tuesday at The Roost food hall at 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, during the impeachment vote, which was scheduled for 5:30 ET.
Solender did not clarify which Democrats missed the vote because of their attendance at the EDW event. But at least five members have blamed traffic for their absence: Gillen, Jackson, Stansbury, Strickland, and Pettersen.
Jackson said, “A traffic incident and a police-escorted bus caused a delay.” He and Stansbury entered statements in the Congressional Record opposing the referral motion after arriving too late to vote. Strickland also blamed a motorcade for her absence, with her chief of staff saying she missed the vote by just one minute; she said she also would have voted to advance the impeachment effort.
A spokesperson for Pettersen accused Republicans of having "cynically closed the vote early" when several Democratic members were stuck in traffic. In a statement posted to social media, Brownley said she and her colleagues were "rushing to the floor" when House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) closed the vote.
Correa has said he missed the vote due to a medical procedure in California. Horsford's office said he missed the vote due to an unspecified "personal emergency."
As of Wednesday morning, Stevens and Wilson had not provided an explanation for why they missed the vote.
Reports that members of Congress were attending an event hosted by a group linked to AIPAC—which has cheered President Donald Trump's attack on Iran—immediately fueled speculation that their absences from the vote may not have been entirely accidental.
Journalist and AIPAC critic Adam Johnson mocked their explanations in a post on social media: "'I was stuck in traffic after attending an event for an AIPAC front group so I couldn’t (accidentally, and in good faith) vote to impeach the person prosecuting the war AIPAC enthusiastically supports,'” he wrote. "OK. If you say so."
The lawmakers who said they missed the vote due to traffic have not responded to questions from Common Dreams regarding whether they were returning from EDW’s event when the vote took place.
Common Dreams has also asked other members who have not explained their absences why they missed the vote. Those lawmakers have also not responded to the requests for comment.
Nov 11, 2026
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Scientists Sue as Trump Administration Tries to Deliver 'Crushing Blow' to Behavioral and Brain Research
Some scientists and scientific societies sued President Donald Trump's administration in the District of Massachusetts on Monday for shutting down the entity that provides nearly two-thirds of federal funding for basic academic research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.
The administration's effort to eliminate the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) "is a disservice to the American public and a crushing blow to the behavioral and brain sciences," declared Juliane Baron, executive director of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS).
"When I think about the biggest challenges facing people across our country—advancing health and well-being, providing economic and physical security for our loved ones—these are all inherently human questions," Baron stressed. "We can't solve pressing societal challenges without understanding humans."
FABBS partnered with the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP), the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS), and two researchers—University of Massachusetts Amherst lecturer Jenna Croteau and Boston College assistant professor Gregg Sparkman—in the lawsuit, which Democracy Forward filed on their behalf.
Over the past century, the complaint explains, "SBE research has driven some of the most groundbreaking innovations in nearly every aspect of modern life—from the way doctors match kidney donors with patients, to how governments approach economic policy, national security, and international relations, to the models behind Google's search engine."
"SBE research has helped mitigate the opioid crisis, the spread of diseases like Ebola and Covid-19, and evolving threats posed by cyberhackers and terrorist networks in the United States and abroad," notes the filing. "And it has transformed economics."
As the complaint details:
When the Trump-Vance administration took office, it deemed these fields “woke.” In its 2026 budget proposal, the administration urged Congress to cut funding for the SBE Directorate. Congress refused. The congressional report that accompanied NSF's January 2026 appropriation expressly directed NSF not to reduce SBE’s budget by more than 5%.
Three months later, NSF decided to shutter the directorate anyway. On April 3, 2026—without a director, and without consulting the National Science Board, the body Congress required to make such decisions—NSF leadership announced that it would unilaterally "close-out" the SBE Directorate in fiscal year 2027. Since the April 3 decision, the agency has stopped funding opportunities for basic SBE research, released the scientists who work in the directorate on assignment from universities, and reassigned nearly all the directorate's permanent staff.
"The administration's dismantling of SBE is not only reckless; it is illegal," emphasized Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman. "NSF provided no public explanation for its decision to close the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, and this dangerous dismissal of scientific expertise is a threat to crucial scientific research. We are honored to work with this coalition to challenge the administration's crusade against science and the unlawful closure of the directorate."
Coalition members highlighted the importance of them prevailing in court, particularly in the current era of rapidly developing artificial intelligence with inadequate safeguards. SANS president Jennifer Kubota said that "understanding how the brain shapes trust, cooperation, emotion, and social behavior is essential to addressing some of society's most pressing challenges, from social isolation and polarization to the rapid emergence of AI."
"Eliminating NSF SBE funding for this research threatens decades of scientific progress and the next generation of scientists," Kubota continued. "Research opportunities lost today cannot simply be recovered tomorrow. We risk losing not only critical discoveries, but also the talented researchers who will make them."
A coalition of scientific societies and individual scientists has united to challenge the unlawful closure of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Happy to support SESP in joining this lawsuit.democracyforward.org/news/press-r...
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— Kate A. Ratliff (@kateratliff.bsky.social) November 9, 2026 at 1:02 PM
Columbia University professor and FABBS board member Jon Freeman delivered a similar warning, arguing that "we cannot allow this administration to shoot America in the foot."
"American behavioral science has transformed everything from the algorithms powering our technology to how we strengthen human connection, overcome social divisions, improve public health, and make better decisions in our everyday lives," he said. "Dismantling SBE would devastate a vital part of our scientific workforce at precisely the moment we need it most, as AI reshapes society. It's scientific self-sabotage, and the American public will ultimately pay the price in the discoveries never made and lives never changed for the better."
SESP executive officer Steven J. Stroessner also not only acknowledged the past but looked toward the future: "For decades, federal support for basic research in social psychology has helped us understand how people think, make decisions, and relate to one another. The resulting discoveries have strengthened our nation by improving education, informing public policy, fostering cooperation, and helping us address some of society’s most persistent challenges. Dismantling that support threatens not only the research being conducted today, but the discoveries we have yet to imagine."
Nov 09, 2026
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‘Illegal and Senseless’: 71% of Americans Want Swift End to Trump’s Iran War
As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is expected to face an impeachment vote in the US House in part for his role in launching the illegal war with Iran, declared Tuesday that the US had "achieved a historic MILITARY VICTORY" in the Middle Eastern country, the latest polling on the broadly unpopular conflict suggests few Americans would be convinced by such claims.
Seventy-one percent of people surveyed by Reuters/Ipsos said they wanted the US Congress to urgently pass legislation to end the war in Iran, in which more than 3,400 Iranians, 13 US service members, and thousands of people across the Middle East have been killed as the conflict has wreaked havoc on economies around the world.
Those who were demanding a swift end to the war included 93% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 51% of Republican voters who expressed their disapproval in the days after the Democratic Party's victory in the midterm elections.
Sixty-three percent of respondents said that Congress should focus "a great deal" or "quite a bit" on ending the war in the first 100 days of the new legislative session, starting January 3, and 54% said the negative impact of the conflict, such as higher gas prices, have not been worth any benefit even as Hegseth and President Donald Trump have claimed, without offering any evidence, that the US waged the war to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"Their navy sunk. Their air force grounded. Their defense industrial base—gone. More than 80% of their nuclear industrial base—gone. Their military in ruin. The ironclad blockade, UNBROKEN," said Hegseth Tuesday, without mentioning that the Trump administration had declared months before waging the war that it had already weakened Iran's nuclear infrastructure. "We control the Strait of Hormuz."
Tehran has disputed Hegseth's repeated claims of victory, and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, on Monday evening called on the Trump administration to "SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out," including an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports and vessels, an end to fighting on all fronts, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and gas sales, and other measures and reparations.
Meanwhile, Trump, who faced a 32% approval rating in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, attempted to deflect questions about ending the conflict, telling reporters Monday: "Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We're just keeping it the status quo."
He added that the US military is "fully locked and loaded with the best equipment ever made" but said, "We don't think there's going to be any reason to use it however."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft, wrote at Substack Tuesday that Trump may ultimately reject "both war and peace" and choose a "Swiss cheese status quo" that leaves the conflict simmering without any major resolution.
In that scenario, he wrote, Trump "walks away and claims to retain the blockade and sanctions infrastructure, but in reality imperceptibly begins to let it wither away."
"Given Trump’s aversion to admitting defeat, his fear of coming across as a loser, his impatience with complicated diplomacy, his obsession with outdoing Obama’s [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and Iran’s disinterest in giving him an ego-soothing exit ramp, he may end up choosing the Swiss cheese walk-away option," wrote Parsi.
While Hegseth continued to deny the reality of the deeply unpopular war, the anti-war group Just Foreign Policy urged Democratic leaders in the US House and Senate to listen to the vast majority of Americans and take action immediately, without waiting for the new session to begin, to cut off funding for the war.
The group reminded Democrats ahead of the election that they could block more funding for the Iran War on December 11, when current government spending expires, and force a government shutdown if Trump insists on continuing the conflict after that date.
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is considering a possible run to serve as Senate Majority Leader, threw his support behind blocking the funding.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said the results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll provide Democrats with clear marching orders.
"A 71% supermajority of Americans, including most Republicans, want Congress to end the Iran war," he said. "Lawmakers can act on that right now by passing legislation to prohibit more funding for the war, and by not passing any bills that continue to fund it."
Seeing the poll numbers, political scientist Yousef Munayyer said that many Americans were "enraged" by Trump's decision to join Israel in attacking Iran not just because "it was a stupid decision, [but] it was a stupid decision that was taken with no public debate at all."
"There was not effort at all on the part of the White House to present a rationale for this or convince the public ahead of time," said Muayyer. "They didn't feel they had to because they felt empowered to do whatever the hell they wanted and had a Republican-controlled Congress who would allow it. Voters saw that not only as stupidity, but out-of-control stupidity that needed to be checked before it further wrecked the country."
Nov 10, 2026
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Global Declaration Calls for 'Fossil Free Zones' to Protect Climate, Ecosystems, and Indigenous Peoples
“Fossil Free Zones are where the transition away from fossil fuels stops being a promise and starts happening on the ground.”
Nov 12, 2026
More than 40 advocacy groups on Thursday issued a declaration calling on the world's governments to establish permanent "Fossil Free Zones” to protect the climate, critical ecosystems, and Indigenous peoples and their lands from oil, gas, and coal exploration and extraction.
Unveiled at the United Nations Climate Change Conference—also known as COP31—in Antalya, Türkiye, the Fossil Free Zones Declaration urges governments to make the zones a central component of each nation's plans to transition away from oil, coal, and gas.
What is a Fossil Free Zone? As Cecilia Requena, a Bolivian senator and environmentalist, and Juan Pablo Osornio, the engagement and policy director at the nonprofit green group Earth Insight, explained:
A Fossil Free Zone is a defined area demarcated by its ecological, biodiversity, or cultural significance, where exploration, extraction, and development of fossil fuels are permanently prohibited. Think tropical rainforests, key biodiversity areas, Indigenous peoples’ territories, and critical marine ecosystems. They translate the abstract global commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels into something tangible: a map, a boundary, a legal safeguard.
"Amid deep geopolitical fragmentation and weakening international cooperation, continued dependence on fossil fuels is further exacerbating existing vulnerabilities," the Fossil Free Zones Declarations states.
"Beyond its climate impacts, this dependence exposes countries and communities to volatile energy markets, supply disruptions, and economic instability, while undermining energy security and national sovereignty," the document continues. "Continued coal, oil, and gas extraction also causes unnecessary and avoidable harm to people and nature, including driving deforestation and biodiversity loss."
"Fossil fuel expansion continues to threaten ecosystems essential for biodiversity, climate stability, and the cultures and livelihoods of the peoples who protect them," the declaration adds. "Halting this expansion in critical territories such as forests or coral reefs is therefore an immediate, concrete step toward a just, orderly, and equitable transition, alongside plans to phase out existing fossil fuel production within key ecosystems."
The declaration—whose signatories include WWF International, Amazon Watch, the Science Panel for the Amazon, and Parliamentarians for a Fossil Free Future—calls for halting new fossil fuel exploration and expansion while prioritizing the responsible closure of existing projects in areas of climatic, ecological, and cultural importance.
“Fossil Free Zones are where the transition away from fossil fuels stops being a promise and starts happening on the ground," said Earth Insight senior associate for diplomacy Ignacio Arróniz Velasco. "When governments permanently close critical ecosystems and Indigenous territories to oil, gas, and coal extraction, they protect ecosystems, uphold the rights of the peoples who steward nature, and take a concrete first step towards a full, fair phaseout."
"This can be done with existing tools like nature protection laws or land tenure recognition," he stressed. "This is what implementation looks like. COP31 gives governments a real chance to work together on Fossil Free Zones and build them into their national roadmaps, so the just transition starts in the places that matter most for climate, nature, and people.”
Noting that "the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the globe, and should be the most obvious place to draw the line against new fossil fuel development," Susanne Waage, WWF Norway's fossil fuel transition lead, lamented that "Norway continues to explore aggressively for new oil and gas in one of the world's most vulnerable regions."
Waage added that the European Union, "Norway's largest oil and gas customer, has already said no to new Arctic oil and gas. Norway should listen, stop exploring for new oil and gas resources, and help make the Arctic a Fossil Free Zone."
Pascal Mirindi, Democratic Republic of Congo national coordinator of the group Our Land Without Oil, asserted: "We cannot claim to protect forests, peatlands, and vital ecosystems while opening the door to oil and gas within them. In the DRC, these projects threaten territories and the communities who depend on them for their livelihoods."
"Fossil Free Zones offer a concrete and immediate solution," Mirindi added. "Here at COP31, we are calling on governments to end all new exploration in critical ecosystems, to recognize these zones in their national roadmaps, and to guarantee a just transition centered on the rights of communities."
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Top Democrats Launch Congressional Probe Into Trump-Nvidia ‘Scheme’
Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Richard Neal accused the Trump administration of an "ostensible attempt to mask an unconstitutional export tax as a national security tariff action—benefiting both Nvidia and the Chinese government."
Nov 12, 2026
A pair of leading congressional Democrats on Thursday launched an investigation into what they described as an illegal "scheme" by the Trump administration and the AI semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose chief executive resigned following revelations that he had extramarital affairs with a subordinate and a woman suspected by US intelligence agencies of being a Chinese spy.
In a letter to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) accused President Donald Trump and members of his administration of an "ostensible attempt to mask an unconstitutional export tax as a national security tariff action—benefiting both Nvidia and the Chinese government."
"The scheme worked like this: Trump would allow Nvidia to sell its Taiwan-manufactured H200 chips to companies in China, provided that those chips be sent to the United States to undergo a security review and receive an export license before being re-exported to China," the lawmakers wrote. "Trump then used Section 232 authority—which is intended to allow the president to address imports that threaten national security—to impose a 25% tariff to be collected when the chips entered the United States, effectively taking a cut of Nvidia’s sales to China through what appears to be an unconstitutional export tax system."
"The Commerce Department would then grant Nvidia export licenses so that the chips could be sold to Chinese companies," added Wyden and Neal, who are poised to lead the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, respectively, in the upcoming Congress.
The lawmakers instructed the Trump administration to preserve all records pertaining to the tariffs and export licenses, as well as any communications with Nvidia and former CEO Jensen Huang, who announced his resignation on Thursday.
Wyden and Neal expressed alarm over reports that Trump and Lutnick were made aware of US intelligence indicating that Alice Huang—the Chinese businesswoman with whom Jensen Huang had an affair—was "funneling information to the Chinese government and facilitating Chinese access to advanced AI chips made by Nvidia." The New York Times reported that Trump "took no action" in response to the intelligence, which he was briefed on last fall.
During Trump's second White House term, Jensen Huang emerged as a leading ally of the president in the rapidly advancing artificial intelligence industry. Huang has been a frequent guest at Trump's White House and has donated tens of millions of dollars to the president's projects, including the ballroom.
Following news of Huang's resignation, Trump said the former Nvidia CEO "has done a fantastic job." The president had previously said Huang should remain the company's chief executive, calling him "an honorable guy."
Wyden and Neal wrote Thursday that "despite reportedly learning of Mr. Huang’s compromising relationship last fall, President Trump granted Nvidia permission to sell its advanced H200 AI chips to China in December 2025 in exchange for a cut of the export sales." Lutnick, too, received classified information warning about Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, according to Axios.
The lawmakers noted in their letter that Lutnick's Commerce Department halted an investigation into a Singaporean company suspected of smuggling Nvidia AI chips into China after an Nvidia executive intervened. The company under investigation was Megaspeed, where Alice Huang previously worked as managing director.
Facing subpoena threats, Huang agreed on Thursday to testify before House lawmakers in a closed-door hearing later this month, Bloomberg reported.
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Report Outlines How Trump CFPB Gave 'Corporate Pardons' to Companies Accused of Illegally Ripping Off Consumers
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the CFPB's architect, promised a reckoning when Democrats retake Congress: "If you've been making your profits by cheating American families... you better get ready for some investigations."
Nov 12, 2026
The Trump administration has almost entirely abandoned consumer protection lawsuits even as complaints about corporate abuses surge, according to a Guardian analysis published Thursday.
From mid-2012 to the start of 2025, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—created to fight predatory actions by financial institutions in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis—averaged about 30 enforcement actions a year, helping to recoup over $21 billion for consumers illegally ripped off by banks, mortgage lenders, credit card companies, and other entities.
But since January 2025, when President Donald Trump returned to office, it has launched just two enforcement actions. Meanwhile, it has dropped pending cases against at least 23 defendants—including credit card companies like Capital One, banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, and Warren Buffett’s business empire Berkshire Hathaway.
Those cases were not abandoned because consumers no longer have complaints about these companies. On the contrary, complaints have increased against 17 of the 23 companies the bureau stopped pursuing. Overall, the number of complaints filed by consumers with the bureau has shot up from nearly 2.7 million in 2024 to 6.3 million this year.
“Consumers are telling the bureau that there is an emergency, and the bureau is not listening or acting on that information,” Erie Meyer, a former chief technologist at the CFPB who helped oversee the creation of its complaint database, told The Guardian. “People are getting screwed twice: first by the company, second by the agency that’s supposed to stick up for them.”
Austin Hinkle, a former senior counsel and section chief at the CFPB, described Trump’s new regime at the bureau as essentially issuing “corporate pardons” to firms that were being investigated under the Biden administration for alleged flagrant abuses.
“People are getting screwed twice: first by the company, second by the agency that’s supposed to stick up for them.”
In February 2025, just a month after his second term began, Trump’s CFPB dismissed a lawsuit filed under the Biden administration accusing Capital One of cheating millions of customers out of more than $2 billion in interest by deliberately concealing higher-interest savings accounts from them, going as far as directing employees not to inform customers about the accounts unless asked. The company agreed to a $425 million class-action settlement in April, considerably less than the $2 billion in lost interest alleged by the CFPB.
Also in February 2025, the bureau dismissed a lawsuit against the mortgage company Vanderbilt, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. Regulators accused the company of knowingly saddling low-income families with mortgages they could not afford in an echo of the lending behavior that spawned the 2008 housing crisis, which in turn led to the CFPB’s creation. In one case, Vanderbilt granted a mortgage to a family that, by the company’s calculations, would have had just over $57 left in income after monthly expenses. In another, it approved a mortgage for two adults who already had 33 debts in collection.
In March 2025, the bureau also dropped a case accusing three of the nation’s largest banks—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo—of failing to prevent widespread fraud using their money transfer system, Zelle. Consumers allegedly lost a combined $870 million after the banks failed to stop repeat scammers from using the app. Regulators also alleged that the banks refused to compensate victims even after they provided evidence that criminals had taken over their accounts.
All of these cases were dismissed with prejudice, meaning that a future CFPB cannot reopen any of them.
The administration also dropped other cases involving payday lenders accused of trapping borrowers in cycles of debt, companies allegedly charging delivery drivers fees to access their own earnings, student loan servicers accused of collecting discharged debts, and banks accused of mistreating elderly and disabled veterans receiving federal benefits. It also canceled a settlement with Navy Federal Credit Union over illegal overdraft fees charged to military service members, veterans, and their families.
In addition, the administration has terminated or weakened another 23 existing enforcement orders, often involving companies that had already agreed to compensate victims for misconduct, according to a report by Democrats on the US Senate Banking Committee. That report estimated that reduced enforcement at the CFPB had cost consumers $19 billion during Trump’s first year in office.
The money transfer company Wise, for instance, had a $2 million fine reduced to just $45,000. Other companies like Apple and US Bank were freed from enhanced oversight years ahead of schedule.
Many consumer protection cases and settlements were dismissed while the bureau was run by Russell Vought, an architect of the Heritage Foundation’s far-right Project 2025, which has functioned as a policy playbook for Trump’s second term. He also leads the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Vought has referred to the CFPB as “a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals” and said his goal was to “close down the agency.”
In April 2025, he attempted to fire about 90% of the CFPB’s workforce—an effort blocked by federal courts. Vought stopped serving as acting director in August. The agency is now led by Mark Paoletta, a former chief legal officer for Vought.
Democrats, who retook both the US House of Representatives and Senate earlier this month in a midterm landslide fueled by grievances about high prices and a lack of accountability for powerful corporations, have vowed to investigate the Trump administration's efforts to "dismantle" the CFPB.
Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), who is in line to become the chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions beginning in 2027, told The Guardian that he and his colleagues plan to pursue “subpoenas, investigations, hearings, and, ultimately, legislative action to restore consumer protections in this country and hold accountable those who seek to profit off the most vulnerable Americans.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who led the charge to create the CFPB in 2010, is expected to take over as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, where she has promised a reckoning for corporate abuses.
As ranking member, she has already confronted Vought directly about his actions while in charge of the CFPB—including during a hearing in July when she questioned him about the bureau’s decision to terminate a settlement with Toyota Motor Credit after the company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The company had been accused of trapping consumers into paying thousands of dollars in some cases for unwanted insurance and warranties, while making the products extremely difficult to cancel and withholding refunds.
Warren has promised that she will prioritize accountability for the financial institutions that have been allowed to run roughshod under Trump.
“Big Tech CEOs, administration officials, Trump family crypto businesses, Wall Street executives, and giant corporations should preserve their documents and prepare to answer tough questions,” an aide to Warren told Politico Monday.
On CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Warren said, “If you’ve been making your profits by cheating American families and scamming your investors, you better get ready for some investigations, serious ones.”
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World Barreling Toward 'Irrecoverable Overshoot of 1.5°C,' Report Warns During COP31
"The imminence of breaching 1.5°C cannot be an excuse to open the door to defeatism—the focus has to be on accelerating action to limit the magnitude and duration of overshoot."
Nov 12, 2026
With world leaders, climate campaigners, scientists, and more gathered in Türkiye for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, an independent project that tracks government action warned Thursday that global warming is headed toward "an irrecoverable overshoot of 1.5°C" unless countries "rapidly reduce emissions to limit both the magnitude and duration of this overshoot."
A series of analyses released in the lead-up to the summit—including the United Nations Environment Program's "Limiting Overshoot" publication from September, the UNEP's "The Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return" from October, and the World Meteorological Organization's "State of the Climate: Update for COP31" from last week—have all sounded the alarm about at least temporarily surpassing 1.5°C, the Paris Agreement's global temperature rise limit for this century.
The new Climate Action Tracker (CAT) report, "Without Rapid Action, The World Is Heading to Irrecoverable Overshoot," lays out real-world action based on current policies; pledges and targets from the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of countries that have signed on to the Paris Agreement; and the "optimistic scenario" based on all announced ambitions.
"Aggregated climate action has now essentially stalled for five consecutive years, with positive and negative actions canceling each other out," says the CAT briefing. "The warming outlook from current policies is leading to 2.7°C in 2100 (slightly up from 2.6°C) as it stood from 2021-2024."
"Our 2030 and 2035 targets scenario that assumes governments meet all their targets remains unchanged at 2.6°C in 2100," the report details. "The round of 2035 NDCs has closed: And it's clear governments have failed to meaningfully improve the outlook for end-of-century warming."
CAT's scenario that includes 2030 and 2035 NDCs as well as long-term targets projects "warming of 2.1°C in 2100, down from 2.2°C last year," the report continues. "Ambitious near- and long-term targets matter, but without credible policies and immediate implementation, they risk becoming empty promises rather than drivers of real-world emission reductions."
"Our optimistic scenario, assuming full implementation of all announced and net-zero targets, remains at 1.9°C in 2100," it stresses. "Even under our most optimistic assessment, if governments were to implement every single national pledge they have made—including the net-zero targets—we will still permanently overshoot the 1.5°C limit and get close to 2°C."
As both greenhouse gas concentrations and the profits of fossil fuel giants have soared while communities around the world face deadly heatwaves, rapidly intensifying hurricanes, rising sea levels, and destructive wildfires—like those that ravaged COP31 host Türkiye in September—scientists have reiterated warnings about the need for sweeping action to cut emissions.
"Continued warming from greenhouse gases emitted from human activities threatens to feed further warming as permafrost, wetlands, and wildfires destabilize and respond by releasing carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide," Ben Poulter, warming-induced emissions program director at Spark Climate Solutions, said in September, when a study he co-authored was published.
"This study provides a critical look at the magnitude of the temperature response," Poulter added, "and a call to action to accelerate the accounting and monitoring of warming-induced emissions to support pathways that phase out fossil emissions to stabilize the planet’s climate."
But the brutal truth is that the positive developments do not yet add up to bending the curve of emissions fast enough. Increasing energy demand and build-out of new fossil fuel infrastructure have led to still rising emissions.
[image or embed]
— Climate Action Tracker (@climateactiontracker.org) November 12, 2026 at 1:04 AM
Bill Hare, CEO of CAT partner organization Climate Analytics, emphasized Thursday that "the stark choice for governments is to either continue to support the fossil fuel industry, which would consign humanity to insurmountable economic damages, rising mortality from heat, and climate-driven diseases and disasters that they are unable to adapt to—or pivot to the solutions which are available and cheaper than ever."
"The imminence of breaching 1.5°C cannot be an excuse to open the door to defeatism—the focus has to be on accelerating action to limit the magnitude and duration of overshoot," he argued. "Every increment of warming above 1.5°C means even more significant consequences across climate, nature and human systems."
The report outlines "five key levers that could cut emissions at the speed and urgency needed to follow a Paris-aligned pathway, limiting the magnitude and duration of overshoot," which are:
- A transition away from fossil fuels;
- Deep methane cuts;
- Rapid renewables-driven economy-wide electrification;
- Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as a complement to emissions cuts, not a substitute; and
- An end to deforestation.
"Governments collectively are simply not moving fast enough to adopt the policies that would enable us to escape from the emerging overshoot trap," said the lead author of CAT's report, Climate Analytics policy analyst Sarah Heck. "Worse, several are taking their foot off the accelerator and slowing their climate action—or in cases such as the USA, Canada, and New Zealand—rolling it back at a staggering level."
So far this week, Climate Action Network International has given its satirical "Fossil of the Day" award—long used to call out bad actors during climate summits—to New Zealand, for "dismantling its own climate commitments" under Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, as well as "absent leaders of wealthy countries," including Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
The stark choice for governments is to either continue to support the fossil fuel industry – or pivot to the solutions which are available and cheaper than ever. The lack of decisive action means that long-term warming is expected to cross the 1.5°C limit around 2030.
[image or embed]
— Climate Action Tracker (@climateactiontracker.org) November 12, 2026 at 1:04 AM
While a key Democratic US senator is attending COP31, President Donald Trump is skipping the summit and has not sent a delegation, even though his country is the world's worst historical climate polluter. UNEP's report from last month highlights the dangers of the pro-fossil fuel agenda that the Republican leader has pursued since returning to power last year, including ditching the Paris Agreement, again.
Trump's ongoing illegal war on Iran has not only led to the deaths of thousands of people but also padded the pockets of those invested in the fossil fuel industry—including himself—while people around the world pay the price at the pump, due to Iran's restrictions on ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
"With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz exposing our vulnerability to geopolitical shocks," said Niklas Höhne of CAT partner organization NewClimate Institute, "the case for renewables and electrification has never been stronger—and it does appear that global emissions could be on the verge of a peak and a much faster decline than we had previously thought."
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‘Arms Embargo Now’: Israel Uses US Bombs to Kill 6 Palestinians and Wound 28 in Gaza Hospital Attack
“The patients in the department were all surgical patients waiting to undergo operations. The bombing happened at a time when they should have been asleep," said one doctor.
Nov 12, 2026
American-made bombs appeared to have been used in an Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza on Thursday, in which at least six people, including a surgeon and at least one child, were killed and at least 28 more were injured.
Trevor Ball, an analyst with Armament Research Services, told The New York Times that Associated Press footage of the aftermath of the bombing showed two 250-pound precision-guided aerial bombs that were manufactured in the US.
"Arms embargo now," said Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs for the Center for International Policy, in response to the latest attack on the hospital, which has been struck numerous times since Israel began attacking Gaza more than three years ago in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
The US has passed legislation providing Israel with at least $16.3 billion in direct military aid since October 2023, on top of the $3.8 billion the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) receive from the US annually, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Both the Trump and the Biden administrations have also vehemently defended Israel's attacks on Gaza even as they have targeted hospitals, journalists, aid workers, and children—repeating Israel's claims that medical facilities are used as military outposts by Hamas and are therefore legitimate targets, and that Israel is targeting the Palestinian group it labels a terrorist organization and is taking steps to protect civilians.
In the case of Nasser Hospital this week, Dr. Ayman Abu Ubaid, a surgical specialist who was wounded in the attack that occurred around midnight, told The Guardian that the IDF provided no warning that could have allowed staff to remove patients and medical providers from harm's way.
“The patients in the department were all surgical patients waiting to undergo operations. The bombing happened at a time when they should have been asleep," Abu Ubaid told The Guardian.
The doctor added that "the bombing caused thick smoke to fill the rooms and fires to break out, amid the groans of [the] wounded and people’s screams. There were many casualties and blood everywhere... Most of us sustained injuries to our limbs, as well as shrapnel wounds in different parts of our bodies.”
Hadja Lahbib, the European commissioner for equality, preparedness, and crisis management, emphasized that "hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law and must never be targets.
"Civilians must be protected," said Lahbib. "I urge a prompt, independent, and impartial investigation to ensure accountability."
Israel said it had targeted and struck Hamas commanders and fighters who were operating out of the hospital, but did not provide evidence.
One confirmed death was that of Dr. Rizk Abu Shaaira, 52, who was featured in the documentary film "American Doctor," working alongside physicians from the US who traveled to Gaza to provide medical aid.
"My colleague and friend Dr. Rizk Abu Shaaira was killed yesterday at work when Israel, backed by the US as always, bombed the surgical recovery room at Nasser Medical Complex," said Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon from California who was also featured in the film.
"Dr. Rizk's shocking murder is yet another reminder of why we must get control of our country," said Sidhwa. "Our government has no right to force us to subsidize the mass murder of doctors and children, not in Palestine and not anywhere."
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American emergency doctor, also paid tribute to the surgeon, saying he had been seen in the documentary "operating and serving his people."
"He lost his life doing that, he lost his life because he was doing that," said Ahmad.
Abu Shaaira died alongside a patient he had operated on, The Guardian reported.
A 13-year-old boy named Jihad Naeem Muhammad Abu Tilikh was also among those killed, according to the hospital.
Several floors of the hospital were heavily damaged, and part of the surgery department was destroyed. The radiology, laboratory, surgical operations, and inpatient surgical departments were forced to suspend operations.
Nasser Hospital was also struck in August 2025 in a double-tap strike that killed at least 20 people, including journalists and healthcare workers.
United Nations experts have accused Israel of "medicide" due to its destruction of about 90% of Gaza's health infrastructure, which has left just two hospitals operational. More than 1,700 healthcare workers in Gaza have been killed since October 2023.
More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, including about 1,600 who have been killed since a ceasefire was reached in October 2025.
"How can this still be called a ceasefire?" said Philippe Lazzarini, former commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. "A real one is needed and overdue."
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'Righteous Risks and Righteous Fights': El-Sayed Makes Case for Bold Action From Senate Democrats
"If all we do is kind of go back to what we've been doing in a moment where we've been given a mandate, I worry that we may not earn our mandate."
Nov 12, 2026
Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed said an interview published by NPR on Thursday that now is the time for Democrats in the US Senate to take bold action and deliver progressive change.
During the interview, the Michigan Democrat explained why he would like to see Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) replace current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as head of the caucus when the party takes the majority in the upper congressional chamber next year.
"I deeply appreciate Senator Schumer," El-Sayed said. "But this is about leadership from the American public, and if all we do is kind of go back to what we've been doing in a moment where we've been given a mandate, I worry that we may not earn our mandate."
El-Sayed said he was particularly impressed by Van Hollen in 2025 when he took up the cause of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration.
"He's willing to take risks when it matters—flying down to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a real risk," El-Sayed explained. "I want folks to sort of think about what it means to earn that mandate that we just got. To me, it means taking righteous risks and righteous fights."
Van Hollen has not formally stated that he will run against Schumer to be Senate Democrats' leader, but he said earlier this week that he has not ruled it out.
Two polls of progressive activists released in the last week show an overwhelming demand to find an alternative to Schumer as Senate Democratic leader.
Elswhere in the interview, El-Sayed outlined an agenda he'd like to see Senate Democrats pursue, including ending President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran, passing Medicare for All, and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
El-Sayed said he'd even be willing to name the Medicare for All program after Trump if the president agreed to sign off on its passage.
"Put his name on it," El-Sayed said. "He'll probably pass it. I'm not above doing that. I don't care what it's called."
While it's unlikely that Trump would sign Medicare for All into law should it pass, El-Sayed said it would still be worth passing just to get the president on the record vetoing it.
"I dare Donald Trump to veto," he said. "I dare him, because if you want to make the argument that Democrats want to deliver for you, do that. Make him veto it."
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As Top Dems Waver, Van Hollen and Khanna Work to Axe Funds for Trump's Iran War
"If every Democrat was talking like Chris Van Hollen," said one peace advocate, "we'd be just weeks away from ending this war."
Nov 12, 2026
As leading Democrats express hesitation about using an upcoming fight over government funding to cut off money for President Donald Trump's illegal Iran war, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Ro Khanna are pushing their party to act boldly against a conflict that spurred massive backlash against the GOP at the ballot box last week.
The Washington Sun reported Wednesday that Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Khanna's (D-Calif.) call for Democrats to withhold their support for any government funding package unless it excludes money for the Iran war is "hitting resistance from senior members of the party." The outlet cited several top Democrats, including Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, and other lawmakers who have voiced skepticism about potentially sparking a government shutdown over war funding just weeks after the midterms.
But Van Hollen, who is considering a run for Senate majority leader in the upcoming Congress, has countered that any blame for a shutdown would fall on Trump and his Republican Party.
"If the president wants to tell the country that he’s prepared to shut down the United States government in order to conduct an illegal and senseless war in Iran, that will be his choice," said Van Hollen.
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), echoed Van Hollen, writing to Democrats: "You wouldn’t be shutting down the government. You’d be offering a bill that funds the government but prohibits any funds for the war."
"If Republicans oppose that," Duss added, "they would be choosing to continue the war and shut down the government."
Trump launched the war on Iran without congressional authorization in late February and has funded the conflict with existing Pentagon appropriations. The Pentagon has put the Iran war's price tag at $47 billion—an estimate that outside experts say is a dramatic undercount.
The White House has called on Congress to approve a supplemental funding package that includes tens of billions of dollars for the war, which Trump administration officials previously said would be over in a matter of weeks.
Van Hollen told The Washington Sun last week that he is "not planning to vote for anything that provides any funding to fuel the war in Iran."
“I think this is a really important moment for Democratic leadership,” said Van Hollen. “Are the Democrats, including the Democratic leadership, going to listen to the verdict of the American people and vote to end this war?”
Erik Sperling, executive director of the advocacy group Just Foreign Policy, said Wednesday that "if every Democrat was talking like Chris Van Hollen, we'd be just weeks away from ending this war."
"Instead, too many AIPAC-backed Dems are acting powerless to stop one of the most unpopular wars and lame-duck presidents in history," Sperling added.
Current government funding is set to expire on December 11.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who is vying to become House speaker in the upcoming Congress, would not commit to supporting efforts to cut off Iran war money in the upcoming government funding package and said the details are in the hands of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriators.
DeLauro said in a statement to Politico last week that "Democrats will absolutely not fund Trump’s war of choice with Iran that has increased costs on American families and made us less safe." But The Washington Sun reported on Wednesday that neither DeLauro nor Murray "would commit to demanding Iran war restrictions as a condition of supporting a December funding extension, with Murray saying Democrats are examining their options."
Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, tells me Democrats will “explore every option” to end the Iran war, but wouldn’t commit to opposing Schumer should he refuse to block any government funding bill with dollars for it. Murray has the power to stop war funding in the CR.
— Julian Andreone (@JulianAndreone) November 10, 2026
In a social media post earlier this week, Khanna—a possible 2028 presidential candidate—argued that the midterm results were "a cry for help by Americans who are in pain." A tracker maintained by Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs estimates that the Iran war has cost US consumers over $157 billion in extra gasoline and diesel costs.
"Democrats must stop the war in Iran to bring down the cost of gas, food, and diesel," Khanna wrote. "We can do this by insisting on no funding for Iran combat activities in the continuing resolution."
This election was a cry for help by Americans who are in pain.This November, Democrats must stop the war in Iran to bring down the cost of gas, food, and diesel. We can do this by insisting on no funding for Iran combat activities in the continuing resolution. https://t.co/o7IrzGJlcY
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) November 9, 2026
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has joined Van Hollen and Khanna in demanding specific provisions in any government funding bill to ensure that no more money goes toward continuing the Iran war.
“I think we should come up with a funding bill that does things like replenishes munitions... all the stuff that we need to do as a nation, but say, ‘The war is illegal, until you get [congressional] authorization,'" Kaine told Jewish Insider earlier this week. "I think we should put in a provision that says, ‘No funding for a war in Iran unless you get an authorization from Congress.'"
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‘Obscene’: Oil Giants Have Used Corporate-Friendly Provision to File Nearly Half Trillion in Government Lawsuits
"It’s obscene that the very corporations which have created the climate crisis are demanding eye-watering payouts when governments take much needed climate action."
Nov 12, 2026
Ahead of an official side event at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Antalya, Türkiye, campaigners on Thursday released an analysis of UN data regarding secretive deals within trade agreements aimed at protecting the profits of corporations, including fossil fuel giants, which have now claimed at least $443 billion from the legal provisions.
Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS), which allow corporations to sue governments over their investments and profit losses as the result of laws and regulations, have increasingly been used by the fossil fuel industry as countries have started taking action to regulate planet-heating oil and gas emissions, according to data from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The data was analyzed by the British campaign group Global Justice Now and the German research organization PowerShift, which found that based on 987 publicly disclosed ISDS cases, corporate investors have demanded a total of $1.177 trillion up to 2025.
That represents a 37.5% increase, or $321 billion more, from the amount investors were attempting to claim at the end of 2023.
$1.177 trillion is nearly equivalent to the total global climate finance needs, including mitigation costs, for 2021-22, said the campaigners.
The total compensation demanded by fossil fuel investors, $443.8 billion, "is equivalent to the estimated minimum amount of economic losses developing countries will face due to climate change in 2030," said Global Justice Now and PowerShift.
In fossil fuel cases, the amount demanded rose by $80 billion, or 22%, compared to 2023.
Fabian Flues, investment policy lead at PowerShift, pointed out that by "weaponizing" ISDS, fossil fuel giants are siphoning "money from public budgets that are already stretched," and Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, compared the ISDS payouts to "the owners of enslaved people being compensated for their grotesque harms following abolition in the early 19th century.”
“We know fossil fuel corporations are making a fortune out of global crises, hitting ordinary people hard," said Dearden. "But they are also using obscure international agreements to bully governments out of responding and drain money from the public sector. It’s obscene that the very corporations which have created the climate crisis are demanding eye-watering payouts when governments take much needed climate action."
This week, US company ExxonMobil launched a legal challenge to the European Union's Net Zero Industry Act, under which the company is required to pay for carbon storage.
“We know fossil fuel corporations are making a fortune out of global crises, hitting ordinary people hard. But they are also using obscure international agreements to bully governments out of responding and drain money from the public sector."
The law would saddle Exxon with "unrealistic timelines," the company said in a statement.
A UK-based mining company and its Singapore-based majority shareholder also sued the UK government last year for £300 million ($398 million) after officials blocked their "unviable" coal mine planned for Cumbria.
“This legal challenge is a last, desperate attempt by investors to make some money out of a project which belonged in the last century," Niall Toru, a senior lawyer at Friends of the Earth, told Land and Climate Review in May.
According to Global Justice Now and PowerShift, the total amount of compensation awarded to corporate investors through ISDS cases reached $123 billion last year, with fossil fuel investors receiving "the lion’s share of $85.9 billion, representing almost 70% of all payouts to investors."
$123 billion is "equivalent to the entire bilateral development aid given by [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries in 2025," said the campaigners.
The groups are among those calling on leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) to agree to a coordinated phase-out of ISDS.
Next Monday, Global Justice Now and the Netherlands-based group Both ENDS are organizing an official side event in Antalya featuring Vanuatu Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu, representatives from communities at the center of ISDS disputes, and a senior government official from Australia, which announced a new policy in 2022 of excluding ISDS mechanisms from future trade deals.
"Governments need to stop this heist and cancel the international agreements that enable fossil fuel investors to sue over climate policies," said Flues. "Countries like Australia, South Africa, and Indonesia have taken significant steps to free themselves from ISDS, and others should follow suit.”
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'The South Is in Play': Scott Colom Wins US Senate Race in Deep-Red Mississippi
"If this is what Southern organizers and candidates can accomplish with limited investment, imagine what is possible when we meet their leadership and labor with the resources they deserve."
Nov 12, 2026
Local district attorney Scott Colom was declared the winner of a closely contested US Senate race in deep-red Mississippi on Wednesday after more than a week of ballot counting, a historic upset victory for grassroots organizing in a state that Republicans have dominated for decades.
"I had the courage to believe in Mississippi," said Colom, who will become the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction. Colom is also the first Democrat to win a US Senate election in Mississippi since 1982, succeeding despite ongoing attacks on voting rights across the state.
Incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), who in 2023 blocked Colom's nomination to serve as a federal district judge, conceded the race on Wednesday and congratulated the Democratic senator-elect.
Colom said in his victory speech at Tougaloo College, a historically Black college in Jackson, that he sometimes "couldn't get donors to answer the phone" when fundraising for his campaign, a jab at Democratic higher-ups' lack of investment in Mississippi and the South more broadly.
Senate Democrats' campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), excluded Mississippi from a $40 million investment in battleground states across the country in July. The DSCC ultimately intervened in the final days of the race with a $500,000 ad buy for Colom, who campaigned on fighting the affordability crisis, raising wages and tying them to living costs, and reversing GOP cuts to federal healthcare programs.
Colom drew widespread attention with viral ad campaigns spotlighting Hyde-Smith's comments downplaying the rising cost of beef.
"You know, you have so many proteins to choose from," the Republican senator said in February.
"Pick another protein?" a Mississippi resident responds in one Colom campaign ad. "I'd rather pick another senator instead."
Britney Whaley, Southeast regional director of the Working Families Party, celebrated Colom's win as a challenge to "everything conventional wisdom tells us about Southern politics."
"This historic win in Mississippi should serve as a clarion call for the political establishment: It’s time to redraw the entire political map, reevaluate polling methods, and conduct a serious audit of investment portfolios. The South is in play, and it’s time to start acting like it," said Whaley. "This win belongs to the countless Black leaders and grassroots organizers who envisioned a future for Mississippi that much of the country could not imagine and spent years organizing, building, and fighting to bring that vision to life. And it belongs to the Mississippi voters who refused to have their voices silenced, showing up in the face of archaic and suppressive voting laws to make their voices heard."
"If this is what Southern organizers and candidates can accomplish with limited investment," Whaley added, "imagine what is possible when we meet their leadership and labor with the resources they deserve."
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement that "Mississippi voters made history because they refused to be intimidated, discouraged, or counted out."
"Even in the face of efforts to remove voters from the rolls, attempts to intimidate voters and election officials, and bids to create fear around the electoral process, Mississippi voters showed up," said Johnson. "They showed up for their communities, for their families, and for the future of their state. They reminded the nation that we the people have the power."
With Colom's victory, Democrats are set to hold at least 55 seats in the US Senate come January. Alaska's Senate race, where Democratic candidate Mary Peltola is narrowly leading Republican Dan Sullivan, has yet to be called.
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‘Outrageous’: Omar's Office Slams DOJ Effort to Make Former Bodyguard an Informant
The targeting of Abdullahi Mohamed amounts to the "blatant weaponization of the full federal government to intimidate political opponents,” said a spokesperson for Omar.
Nov 11, 2026
"The country is run by a criminal syndicate," one progressive organizer said Wednesday in response to the news that the Trump administration, as part of its effort to build a criminal case against US Rep. Ilhan Omar, had tried to obtain incriminating information from her former bodyguard—even offering to protect him from deportation in exchange for the information.
As The New York Times reported, Abdullahi Mohamed briefly worked as a bodyguard for Omar (D-Minn.) during an overseas trip, and drew an unusual amount of attention of federal prosecutors when he interviewed with an immigration official for a green card application in October 2025.
Mohamed, who has Somali and British citizenship, was seeking to become a permanent resident after marrying an American citizen in Minnesota.
But his interview included questions that were not routine, including whether he had "any interactions with any government officials or politicians in the United States.”
Mohamed, did not understand the question due to his lack of fluency in English, his lawyer, Bruce Rivers, told the Times, and he answered no despite having worked for Omar.
His green card application was denied—a frequent occurrence if officials believe an applicant has lied or misrepresented themselves. But in a development that one immigration judge told the Times was "deeply unusual," Mohamed received a letter from the US Department of Justice several months later, in February, saying he was under criminal investigation for lying to a government official under oath—a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
At a meeting with prosecutors the following month, the Times reported, it became clear why Mohamed had been targeted and why his case had been assigned to top officials in the US attorney's office in Minnesota who oversaw the criminal division and fraud and public corruption cases.
"The main focus of the meeting was Ms. Omar," according to the Times.
Around the same time, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were heavily focused on an anti-fraud task force led by Vance, and a social services fraud scandal in Minnesota. The administration pointed fingers at Somali American communities across Minnesota and the country, and Trump claimed Omar was “one of the ringleaders" of fraudulent activity in the US.
Vance also told a conservative podcaster that he hoped to hold the congresswoman accountable for immigration fraud.
“They asked him if he knew who she was married to and that kind of stuff. He didn’t know any information about that stuff.”
In October, agents with the Department of Homeland Security raided Omar's Washington, DC home as part of its investigation into her immigration history. Officials have said the White House aims to deport the progressive congresswoman.
At the meeting with Mohamed in March, the prosecutors asked him about Omar's immigration from Somalia to the US when she was a child and her 2009 marriage, which some right-wing politicians and commentators have claimed was a ploy to help a man suspected of being her brother to obtain a green card.
Rivers told the Times that several times during the meeting, prosecutors told him and Mohamed that the investigation into Omar was "100% being run by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue"—the White House.
In an indication that the administration was also investigating Omar's financial records, the prosecutors also asked Mohamed if he knew anything about a $10,000 payment involving Omar and Mohamed's brother. The prosecutors called the payment a potential bribe; his brother later told Mohamed that the payment had settled a loan.
“They asked him if he knew who she was married to and that kind of stuff,” Rivers told the Times. “He didn’t know any information about that stuff.”
The prosecutors also offered to intervene in potential deportation proceedings against Mohamed if they provided the information they were looking for.
Jackie Rogers, a spokesperson for Omar, told the Times that the prosecutors' offer to Mohamed after his green card application had been denied was "outrageous."
“This is a staggering abuse of presidential power and a blatant weaponization of the full federal government to intimidate political opponents,” Rogers said.
The prosecutors then secured a grand jury indictment against Mohamed after their gambit to use him as a witness against Omar failed.
But in September, after Mohamed once again said he had no information about Omar's immigration history as part of testimony before a grand jury, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against the former bodyguard, because he had been placed in deportation proceedings.
“There is no longer a federal interest in continuing prosecution in light of his anticipated removal from the United States,” said the prosecutors.
Mohamed is now in Nairobi, Kenya, while his wife remains in the US.
Despite the administration's attacks on Omar, the congresswoman easily won her reelection campaign last week, with more than 76% of the vote.
"A couple of weeks ago when they decided that they were going to come for me, they thought that they were going to find someone who was going to cower," said Omar on election night. "They thought that if you attacked me and you silenced me, that my community wouldn't show up and vote."
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