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The Empathist-In Chief: "This says everything."
Further

Winning Blind Cruel Inept Nationalism, Also Cultism

Hoo boy. The stupid and evil, somehow accelerating, burn. America's so-called leader, the "Worst That Has Ever Drawn Breath," manifests ever more cognitive dissonance on steroids. Absurd, addled, vindictive, looming above "a circus of death and chaos," he commits war crimes, guts voting rights, plots devastation, abases decency, murders mercy, yet whines about mean jokes. But as America reels, Banksy, Bruce, Platner and others increasingly declare, "We are not fucking doing this anymore."

Amidst what the head of Amnesty International calls "the year of the predators," humanity itself is under attack, most notably by our ludicrous narcissist and his "casual, bewildering cruelty." Despite his foolishness, Nesrine Malik writes, "This is what evil looks like": See history's portrayals of Hitler - "the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog" - and Mussolini, "that funny man, that consummate buffoon." Trump's "farcical puniness," Malik notes, is "a projection onto the world, not of large intent, but of smallness and fear...The consequences of his violence are secondary to the validation that comes from inflicting it (to) erase his terror of humiliation (and) feed his sociopathic appetite for escalation." Thus can deeply silly still equal dangerous.

Daily, the large and small atrocities are both, albeit without the resonance of the label "fascist" only because he lacks the wit, intent and coherence it requires. The war in Iran is won, it's won but not by enough, it's not a war, we made a deal, we don't want a deal. The (imaginary) talks are going very well, we don't wanna talk. Iran struck a school full of young girls, killing hundreds, or if we did it's Obama's fault. Give me ballroom or give me death: The solution to gun violence that kills 12 children a day, wounds 32 more and has affected over 390,000 kids since Columbine - is to build one rich white guy who's never expressed any grief over any of them a gilded bunker of his own. The way to keep more people safe is to kill as many as possible, including by firing squad.

Also, Bill Maher, Hakeem Jeffries, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are low IQ losers, James Comey tried to kill and "inflict bodily harm on" him with "aggravated beachy seashell pictures," he's so "young, vital, vibrant" he could've joined the Artemis II astronauts easy like he aced his three screening tests for dementia - "A lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark. Which one is the bear?" - which the Villages audience def couldn't do, ditto sketchy Harvard Law graduate Hussein Obama. America's response to his musing what we'd do if a con man moron turned up - "How do you get to be president and you're stupid?": "That would suck - we'd probably have unprovoked wars, high gas prices and all our allies would hate us," "He's so close to getting it," "The Irony Meter is dead after spontaneously combusting," and "You're a fucking moron." Also, so grotesquely weird.

Latest bonkers Jesus/doctor/imbecile post Latest bonkers Jesus/doctor post with an umbilical-cord-eating eagle. Nothing to see here.Image from Truth Social

Meanwhile, the Orwellian rules for what you can/can’t see/say keep spooling out, lies sold as half-truths to justify a brazen, racist, whitewashing of both present and past under the shameless moniker of content “inappropriately disparaging Americans past or living,” but always white. Among dozens of changes at our National Parks, gone are signs about the contributions of Native Americans and women, warnings about climate change "not grounded in real science," evidence of Founding Fathers owning slaves and explorers' atrocities against Native tribes. But you do get Trump's loathsome mug plastered on park passes, like on our money, buildings, passports ad nauseum. Happily, fighting back for years have been patriots like the Resistance Rangers, the Alt National Park Service and whatever genius slapped these "Sex Offender" flyers across D.C.'s parks.

Hence incrementally, far too slowly but feeding vital hope and our frayed spirits, the flip side of our grim absurdist timeline begins to emerge as Trump and his monstrous clowns flail, fail, dig their own dank holes. So many horrors should have sparked it -Gaza, ICE, USAID, the boundless greed, cruelty, stupidity. Instead, prices did it, a non-stop, staggering incompetence that saw people being screwed once too often and lied to about one too many senseless wars. Last week, Banksy registered his own anti-imperialist protest in a middle-of-the-night dropping into the heart of ceremonial London a large statue mocking such Blind Patriotism. Mirroring the classical style of surrounding monuments celebrating the British Empire's inglorious colonial past, he presents a suited man, his flag flying into his face, one foot poised to step off into his own demise. Much like, you know.

Banksy's new Blind Nationalism art work amidst London's colonial monuments Banksy's new Blind Nationalism art work amidst London's colonial monumentsImage from Banksy Instagram page

Kicking off his Land of Hope and Dreams American tour several weeks ago, Bruce Springsteen offered his own fiery rebuttal to "a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless and treasonous administration," which drew roars from a huge first night crowd in Minneapolis. Equal parts celebration and call to action, The Boss insisted, "This is still America, and - shades of the Big Lebowski, "this will not stand." Summoning "the righteous power of art, music and rock and roll in dangerous times," he asked the crowd to "join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, unity over division, and peace over....(lights come up to segue into) "WAR! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!" complete with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello shredding a solo. A righteous, dynamic pair.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

In contrast, standing grotesque and slumped-shouldered in a dingy, empty corner, is the small, mad man-child who spent Monday bellowing to a weary world that Iran will be "blown off the face of the Earth" if it targets U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which his inane recklessness closed in the first place. Online, in "the most desperate shit" to ever make its demonic way from the White House, a juvenile lackey posted him saying, "Winning it" on a loop for over 60 minutes, which still didn't make it so. The text read, "Can't stop, won't stop." Please fucking do. A horrified America: "This is a real tweet from a real account about a real man who leads a real country." Kyle Kulinski, on "the war criminal of all war criminals" who makes genocidal threats and bleats about insults: “We are not fucking doing this anymore. You don't get to say shit."

Still, one Tom Wellborn says it best in, “A Eulogy for the Worst That Has Ever Drawn Breath,” subtitled “Being a Complete and Unflinching Account of the Most Loathsome Specimen Ever to Consume Resources, Occupy Space, and Insult the Patience of a Universe That Deserved So Much Better." "There are villains, and then there are monsters, and then there are creatures so cosmically, transcendently... terrible that language itself recoils," he begins. "Grammar buckles. Syntax weeps...He is this thing. He is the thing past the thing past the thing. He is the sub-basement of the human condition, the moldy crawlspace beneath that sub-basement, and the writhing centipede beneath that."

"He has no morals. Not a single one. Not even the bad morals that at least imply a moral framework: the corrupt cop who loves his dog, the mob boss who goes to church. No. He exists in a morality vacuum so total that ethicists have proposed naming it after him...A being entirely without moral content. Not evil, because evil requires intention. Simply absent of the entire apparatus...A moral negative space shaped vaguely like a man...He has no empathy....like a raisin...He is incapable of the most basic social theater that even sociopaths manage....He takes without asking. He takes everything without asking. He takes things that aren’t takeable...The principle being: I can....He is stupid in a way that is almost majestic...His stupidity (is) total. Unified....He has been wrong about everything, always, without exception..."

"He is callous the way concrete is callous: not through malice, not through choice, but through an utter material inability to register (another) person’s pain...You could show him the face of grief, and he would wonder aloud if there was parking nearby...He is vicious the way a blunt instrument is vicious: through sheer, undirected force, through the momentum of his own awfulness...He is smelted fury with no purpose, unforged, unbent, uselessly molten....(He is) a statistical outlier so extreme that evolution seems to be embarrassed by him, a glitch in the long project of civilization...And the most horrifying part...He will never know any of this. He will never know what he is." Name it, damn it, take it down. Maine's Graham Platner hopes to help do that. We wish him well.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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Colombian Environmental Minister Irene Vélez Torres
News

'Leaving the US Behind,' 50+ Nations Gather in Colombia to 'Phase Out Fossil Fuels'

Representatives of more than 50 countries on Friday kicked off the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Colombia, a hopeful summit that comes amid a worsening global climate crisis and fossil fuel-producing nations' efforts to block a clean energy transition.

Organizers of the conference—which is taking place in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta and is co-hosted by the Netherlands—said participants aim to "initiate a concrete process through which a coalition of committed countries, subnational governments, and relevant stakeholders can identify and advance enabling pathways to implement a progressive transition away from fossil fuels, creating sustainable societies and economies."

"This process will be informed by the experience and perspectives of national and subnational governments, academia, Indigenous peoples, peoples of African descent, peasants, civil society, workers, the private sector, and other key actors at different stages of the transition," the organizers added.

The conference comes amid widespread disappointment and frustration over what climate defenders called a "shamefully weak" draft text—called the Multirão Decision—produced at last November's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Brazil. The final document removed all mentions of fossil fuels amid pressure from oil and gas-producing nations like the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, and the presence of a record number of industry lobbyists.

“When multilateral processes move slowly, concrete alliances of the willing can take us a long way," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this week at the 17th Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Hesse state, where high-level representatives from around 40 countries discussed "concrete steps towards overcoming the climate crisis."

I've worked on #climate and fossil fuels for almost 30 years and the Santa Marta Conference is definitely one of the most hopeful things I've seen. Finally some governments are exploring solutions that meet the scale of the crisis. Good explainer 🧵👇

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— Patrick Reinsborough ❌👑 (@giantwhispers.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 7:57 AM

The Santa Marta conference, which will run through April 29, will focus on three main areas:

  • Overcoming economic dependence on fossil fuels;
  • Transforming energy supply and demand; and
  • Advancing international cooperation and climate diplomacy.

Major fossil fuel producers including Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, and the United Kingdom are among the 54 nations represented in Santa Marta.

Notably absent from the conference are some of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters, including the United States, China, Russia, India, and Japan. Their absence is fine with Colombian Environmental Minister Irene Vélez Torres, who told The Guardian that “this is not the space for them."

"We are not going to have boycotters or climate denialists at the table,” Vélez said.

Also missing by design are the legions of lobbyists who increasingly swarm COP conferences.

Word on the street is NO fossil fuel lobbyists at the Santa Marta, Colombia 'Transition Away' conference. But it does have some of the best climate scientists in the world for an advisory panel.

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— Bob Berwyn (@bberwyn.bsky.social) April 24, 2026 at 11:15 AM

Former Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who heads the World Wildlife Fund's global climate division, said in a statement that "changing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels isn’t a slow problem with a slow solution: We need a rapid, global shift to renewable power, smarter grids, and efficiency, so emissions fall fast and stay down."

"And we need a ‘coalition of the willing’ to show us the way," he added. "Santa Marta is an inflection point and an opportunity that we should not miss.”

The absence of the United States surprised no one, given the Trump administration and Republicans' promotion of oil, gas, and coal. Big Oil invested $445 million during the 2024 election cycle in efforts to elect Trump and other Republicans and promote fossil fuel-friendly policies.

Trump, who ran on a “drill, baby, drill” energy policy, has signed a series of executive orders aimed at boosting fossil fuel production, including by declaring a fake “energy emergency” in a push to fast-track permit approvals. He also tapped former fossil fuel executives to head the Department of Energy and Interior Department, which have pursued a policy of opening up more public lands and waters for fossil fuel development.

At the same time, the Trump administration dropped out of the Paris climate agreement for the second time and moved to roll back the modest climate progress achieved under former President Joe Biden.

Melinda Lewis—who directs the Global Trade Watch program at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen—is attending the Santa Marta conference, where she is working to dismantle the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system. The enforced mechanism empowers multinational corporations to sue governments before panels of corporate attorneys and has been denounced by opponents—especially those in the Global South—as a novel form of colonialism.

"While it is tragic that the United States government is failing to meet this critical moment for climate action, we are encouraged that the rest of the world has recognized that it’s high time to take bold action to remove the arcane ISDS extra-legal instrument buried in trade and investment treaties that has been used as a cudgel by fossil fuel and extractive industries to stymie government actions that might reduce their profits," Lewis said on Friday.

As Canadian researcher Joseph Bouchard recently wrote in a Common Dreams opinion piece, "Colombia is especially exposed" to ISDS harm, as "the country has 129 oil and gas projects covered by ISDS provisions, leaving it vulnerable to a wave of potential claims as it pursues its energy transition."

Lewis noted that Colombia's government, led by leftist President Gustavo Petro, "recently announced its intention to renounce its treaties that include ISDS as part of the full package of needed action to usher in a clean energy transition."

Indigenous leaders said more must be done to ensure a just transition.

“We are very concerned. We talk about a just transition, but in practice it is not true,” Oswaldo Muca, General Coordinator of the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon, told Inter Press Service. “Mining continues. Extraction continues. Deforestation continues. The territories and Indigenous peoples continue suffering this problem, and it is becoming more serious every day."

Muca added that benefits from resource extraction "do not reach Indigenous territories, but they destroy the territory and leave the damage."

On Friday, more than 250 legal experts from around the world asserted that "phasing out fossil fuels is not a political choice—it is a legal obligation."

The jurists noted in an open letter that "the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously confirmed that every state must use all means at its disposal to prevent significant harm to the climate system, including by avoiding the principal activities driving it: fossil fuel production and use."

The letter's signers include former Irish President Mary Robinson and Julian Aguon, an Indigenous human rights lawyer from Guam who played a key role in winning the ICJ climate case.

"The phaseout of fossil fuels is not just scientifically necessary to prevent catastrophic and irreversible harm to the climate system, all peoples, and ecosystems; it is legally required," they wrote. "It is also socially, economically, and environmentally beneficial for present and future generations."

Ultimately, countries participating in the Santa Marta conference will draw their own individual roadmaps with the help of scientists and other experts.

“If we think about it," said Vélez, "the conference is that turning point where, collectively, we decide to be on the right side of history."

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US-POLITICS-TRUMP
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'Monstrous' Trump Rule Change Could Slash Benefits to 400,000 Adults With Down Syndrome and Other Disabilities

The Trump administration is pushing forward with a new rule that could strip as many as 400,000 low-income adults with disabilities of hundreds of dollars per month.

ProPublica reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration was planning a major rule change to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which provides basic income to adults with severe disabilities like Down syndrome and autism and some indigent elderly people who may struggle to support themselves.

The program, which serves around 7.5 million Americans, typically provides payments of around $600-700 per month—enough to help pay for basic needs like food and shelter, but not enough to live on independently, especially for those already struggling due to disabilities. As a result, many SSI recipients still reside with family members.

Under the rule change, ProPublica reported that the administration would "penalize" these individuals "simply for living in the same home as their families, according to four federal officials, internal emails, and a federal regulatory listing."

According to the report:

The administration is working on a rule change that would deduct the value of a disabled adult’s bedroom from their SSI allotment, even if the family members they live with are poor enough to qualify for food stamps. This would mean slashing the benefits of some of the most low-income SSI recipients by up to a third... or ending their support altogether.

Kathleen Romig and Devin O’Connor of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained the proposed rule change in a policy briefing in August:

Currently, very low-income disabled or older people who receive SSI can have their benefits reduced by up to one-third (about $300 a month) if they receive “in-kind support and maintenance,” including a place to stay. Similarly, SSI recipients can have their benefits reduced based on the income of their parents (if they are under 18) or spouse, under the assumption that they will contribute to an SSI beneficiary’s living expenses. However, these reductions don’t apply to beneficiaries who live in a household that receives “public assistance,” including food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That’s because households financially precarious enough to qualify for those benefits can’t afford to financially support SSI recipients...

SSI’s public assistance household rule has been updated to reflect the ways struggling families make ends meet—but the Trump administration proposal would return the program to the outdated criteria first established in 1980... This change would ignore the reality that families who receive SNAP have very low incomes—the typical multi-person SNAP household with at least one member who receives SSI has an annual income of around $17,000, well below the poverty line.

According to ProPublica, one woman with Down syndrome in Philadelphia, 22-year-old Shy’tyra Burton, who has struggled to find a job due to her intellectual disability, is expected to see her $994 monthly benefit cut by about $330 a month because she has continued to live with her father, Rondell, a sanitation worker.

He makes about $2,000 a month, or $24,000 annually—well below the federal poverty line for a single parent with multiple children. Even with the SSI payment, which allows Shy’tyra to pay for her own internet and meals, Rondell said that he's "still barely managing."

Using actuarial figures from the Social Security Administration (SSA), which administers the program, ProPublica determined that as many as 400,000 disabled people and indigent elderly people could lose some or all of their benefits.

"These are not people gaming the system," argued Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), whose state could see more than 57,000 people lose benefits as a result of the cuts.

"Fewer than one in three applicants is approved," he said. "The process takes years and requires medical and vocational evaluations.

"The administration calls this rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. It is not," he continued. "This policy costs more, helps no one, and punishes families for taking care of their own."

The rule change is being reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where it will be subject to editing before being sent back to the Social Security Administration, where it will face a period of public comment.

The OMB is administered by Director Russell Vought, one of the architects of the Heritage Foundation's far-right Project 2025 agenda. In addition to using last year's government shutdown to withhold SNAP benefits from around 42 million Americans and starve blue states of funding for federal programs, he has used the office to push for a full-fledged assault on benefits for the poor, disabled, and elderly, including those administered by the SSA.

Vought reportedly led the charge for the SSA to raise the age threshold for disabled adults receiving Social Security disability insurance from 50 to 60, or to remove age as a factor altogether when determining whether a disabled individual has the capability to work. According to the Urban Institute, the plan could have kicked 750,000 people off their disability payments and reduced payouts by $82 million over the next decade.

The administration ultimately backed off the proposal once it became clear that many of those hurt would be older coal miners and factory workers in red states, some of Trump's core demographics of support. But it is still reportedly soldiering ahead with its plan to cut SSI payments for those with disabilities.

Vought has justified these and other dramatic cuts as part of efforts to make the government more efficient. But ProPublica found that while cutting Burton’s benefit could save taxpayers about $11 per day, it could mean her father is unable to care for her, forcing her into a state facility that costs hundreds of dollars a day in public money.

"The Trump rule would have harmful consequences beyond the loss of benefits and eligibility, creating heartbreaking dilemmas for SSI recipients and their families," explained Romig and O'Connor. "It could discourage families from offering help to their loved ones, for fear of jeopardizing their meager benefits. It could force more people to turn to institutional care because they could no longer afford to live in the community."

Fred Wellman, a military veteran and Democratic candidate for the second congressional district in Missouri—a state where around 6,000 disabled and elderly people could potentially be affected by the proposed cuts—called the policy a “truly monstrous decision” especially in light of a recent Republican proposal for Congress to allocate $400 million for Trump’s White House ballroom project after a court ruled it could not be funded using donations.

"As they push to build a $400 million ballroom, they are stripping disabled Americans of their meager benefits," Wellman said. "Over and over, this administration and the GOP choose cruelty over caring. It’s just sick."

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US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-GOVERNMENT-SHUTDOWN
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Privacy Advocates Relieved Trump Allies 'Can't Get Their Warrantless FISA Reauthorization Across the Finish Line'

Just a day after Democrats in the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives helped Republicans send a major spying bill to the Senate, despite warnings that it was dead on arrival there, both chambers on Thursday passed a 45-day extension to continue negotiations.

The Senate approved the stopgap bill for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)—which allows the federal government to spy on electronic communications of noncitizens located outside the United States without a warrant—by a voice vote. The House signed off with a 261-11 vote, just hours before a previous short-term extension was set to expire.

President Donald Trump and his homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, have been demanding a "clean" extension of the program, while critical lawmakers from both parties and over 100 civil society groups have called for privacy reforms to protect Americans whose data is swept up in federal surveillance efforts.

Hajar Hammado, senior policy adviser at Demand Progress, one of the organizations leading reform calls, said in a Thursday statement that "intelligence agencies, the White House, and their allies in Congress have tried every trick in the book from fearmongering to misinformation, but they still can't get their warrantless FISA reauthorization across the finish line."

"The reason we keep ending up at this point is congressional leaders' refusal to allow votes on overwhelmingly popular, bipartisan reforms," she continued. "This 'my way or the highway' approach needs to stop."

According to Politico, US Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters on Thursday that he and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) discussed the short-term extension during a closed-door meeting the previous day.

"I think there's already a pretty substantial dialog going on" between key Democrats and Republicans in both chambers, Thune added. "We're interested in looking at some ways in which it can be reformed... So we're entertaining those ideas at the moment."

Hammado declared that "when Congress returns, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune must allow votes on amendments for real privacy protections or we'll keep repeating this farce over and over again. Our bipartisan movement in defense of civil liberties is holding strong, and we won't accept anything less."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime defender of privacy rights who had threatened to block the extension, highlighted on social media Thursday that he "secured a commitment that the FISA court opinion revealing abuses of Americans' rights will be DECLASSIFIED before Congress votes on reauthorization."

"The more Americans know about these abuses," he said, "the more they'll demand real reforms."

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Free The Filton 24 Protest London
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Rights Group Petitions Israeli Supreme Court to Free Abu Safiya and 13 Other Gaza Doctors

An Israeli human rights group is petitioning for the country's Supreme Court to order the release of 14 doctors from Gaza who have been imprisoned for more than a year without charges.

Among them is Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who has been detained without charges since December 2024 and this week had his detention extended by a district court, which Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) described as "unlawful."

On Thursday, PHRI said that Israel's Supreme Court must recognize "the special protections afforded to doctors and medical workers under international humanitarian law, as well as the urgent need for medical personnel from Gaza to carry out their duties and help rehabilitate the extensive damage inflicted on Gaza’s healthcare system."

They called on the court to revoke the detentions of Safiya and 13 other doctors, who include pediatricians, orthopedic specialists, and surgeons.

Nearly all of the hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed during more than two years of genocidal war by Israel, and more than 1,500 healthcare workers have been killed in what UN experts have described as a "medicide."

PHRI said that hundreds of medical workers have been targeted and arrested by the Israel Defense Forces without charge, "effectively paralyzing an entire healthcare system already made fragile by the ongoing destruction."

"Over the past two years, testimonies from detained medical workers have described dire conditions of incarceration, including starvation and abuse amounting to torture across Israeli detention facilities," the group said, noting that at least five of them had died in custody.

PHRI said it had submitted a request to Israel's Supreme Court to reconsider the detention orders, but upon receiving no response, it filed a petition.

"Despite protections under international humanitarian law, and an ongoing ceasefire, doctors from Gaza are still being held without any due process, subjected to severe conditions amounting to torture," the group said. "The continued detention of doctors who could provide urgently needed medical care—actively hinders the rehabilitation of the healthcare system and prevents any meaningful recovery."

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United States Secretary of War Pete Hegseth
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'It Needs to End. Now': Trump and Allies Ripped for Lying to Dodge Iran War Powers Deadline

Friday marks 60 days since President Donald Trump formally notified Congress of the US and Israel's illegal war on Iran—a key deadline under a relevant federal law. In a new notification obtained by Politico, the White House claimed the conflict has been "terminated," but lawmakers aren't buying that argument.

"That's bullshit," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said of the latest notification on social media. "This is an illegal war, and every day Republicans remain complicit and allow it to continue is another day lives are endangered, chaos erupts, and prices increase, all while Americans foot the bill."

Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has fought to stop Trump's assault on Iran since before it began, told Common Dreams that "Trump knows this war is deeply unpopular with his base. He's trying to say it's over, but the reality is that thousands of US troops are still in the region, and food and gas prices are still going up at home."

The Republican president and some of his key allies had previewed the White House position in various remarks on Thursday.

"Look, the country's doing really well, and that's despite a military operation—I don't call it a war," Trump, a well-documented liar, told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. "Iran is dying to make a deal."

Since Trump began bombing Iran on February 28, legal experts and US lawmakers have alleged violations of international law and the Constitution, which empowers only Congress to declare war. However, both chambers are narrowly controlled by Republicans, nearly all of whom have refused to support Democratic war powers resolutions intended to end the conflict, most recently in the Senate on Thursday.

Defenders of Trump's so-called "Operation Epic Fury" argue that he was allowed to strike Iran under the War Powers Act of 1973, which empowers the president to deploy military forces for up to 60 days as long as he notifies Congress within 48 hours. After those two months, he is required to end hostilities or seek permission from federal lawmakers to continue them.

"He seems set against doing so," Tess Bridgeman and Oona A. Hathaway wrote Friday for Just Security. "If he refuses, he will take a war that is already doubly illegal and turn it into a triply illegal war. He will also make it clear, if it was not already, that he regards the law as no constraint on his use of the US military's lethal power."

On Thursday, as the latest Senate resolution was blocked in a 47-50 vote, Trump allies joined the president in suggesting that, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told NBC News in the Capitol, "We are not at war."

"I don't think we have an active, kinetic military bombing, firing, or anything like that. Right now, we are trying to broker a peace," Johnson said. "I would be very reluctant to get in front of the administration in the midst of these very sensitive negotiations, so we'll have to see how that plays out."

The US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7, just hours after Trump's genocidal threat to wipe out the Middle Eastern country's "whole civilization." That truce has since been extended, but it and another deal for Israel's supposed targeting of Hezbollah in Lebanon are both "fragile, temporary, and in danger of collapse at any moment," as Amnesty International stressed in a Wednesday statement calling on the international community to push for sustainable peace in the region.

Throughout the ceasefire, Trump has maintained his naval blockade on Iran, which has responded to the war by closing the Strait of Hormuz to most ship traffic. Restrictions on the trade route have driven up fuel prices around the world, including across the United States, where new polling shows that over 60% of Americans say the president's war was a "mistake."

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cited the ceasefire on Thursday when questioned about how the administration plans to address the 60-day deadline by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)—a leading voice for war powers resolutions on Iran and other military aggression by the administration—during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Hegseth said that "ultimately, I would defer to the White House and White House counsel on that. However, we are in a ceasefire right now, which, [in] our understanding, means the 60-day clock pauses, or stops, in a ceasefire."

Interjecting, Kaine responded that "I do not believe the statute would support that. I think the 60 days runs maybe tomorrow, and it's gonna pose a really important legal question for the administration. We have serious constitutional concerns and we don't want to layer those with additional statutory concerns."

Before the notification to Congress on Friday, a senior Trump administration official had affirmed that what Hegseth laid out is the White House position, telling Reuters that the US military and Iran have not exchanged fire since April 7 and, for War Powers Act purposes, "the hostilities that began on Saturday, February 28, have terminated."

Highlighting Trump's ongoing blockade of Iran, US Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) called Hegseth "flat wrong," and declared that the Pentagon chief "does not get to rewrite the law because following it is inconvenient."

Another California Democrat, Rep. Sara Jacobs, said on social media Thursday: "Trump's war on Iran was illegal from day one—Congress never authorized it. Tomorrow, the statutory 60-day clock runs out too. Republicans are out of excuses and should join Democrats and stop this war. Let's put the pressure on."

In a video released Friday, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) noted his role in the Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal—which Trump ditched during his first term—and emphasized the president's "legal obligation to withdraw troops after 60 days, or come to Congress for authorization."

Democrats have vowed to keep introducing war powers resolutions. As one went down in the Senate on Thursday, Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) introduced another in the House, following in the footsteps of other Congressional Progressive Caucus members.

"Americans don't even know why we are in this war, and neither does Congress," Balint said in a statement. "This unauthorized war is yet another example of the Trump administration's brazen and illegal attempts to consolidate power. At a time when Americans have told us everything is too expensive, it is shameful that we are wasting upwards of a billion dollars a day on this."

"We need it to end, to bring our service members back to safety, and to get Congress and this administration to focus on lowering the cost of living here at home," she added. "Today, I introduced a war powers resolution which would direct the president to stop the use of US armed forces in Iran unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war from Congress. It is essential to hold every member of Congress accountable for allowing this war to continue and put them on record for the American people to see."

Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of the political reform group Issue One, took aim at federal lawmakers on Friday, declaring that "the American people should be deeply concerned by Congress' failure today. Since the war in Iran started, our country has spent more than $25 billion bombing military and civilian targets in Iran. Fourteen Americans have been killed, and more than 200 have been wounded. More than 3,000 Iranians have died—half of them civilians, and many of them children. The stakes are profound, which is why Congress should be making such decisions, not just one man in the Oval Office."

"Yet, in defiance of the Constitution, too many in Congress bow to the President. In missing the 60-day deadline to assert constitutional authority, Congress has totally failed in its most fundamental role as the first branch of government," he continued. "The precedent set today is deeply harmful to American democracy. When the president acting alone becomes normalized, it becomes more difficult to have a government of, by, and for the people."

"The founders were very clear that Congress, not the executive, has the final say when it comes to war and peace," he concluded. "This can't go on. Congress must approve all future funding for the war with Iran. Moving forward, Congress has to reassert its power in deciding when and how our country enters war. In order to do that, Congress should update the 1973 War Powers Resolution to reassert constitutional checks and balances to protect future generations of Americans."

This article has been updated to include the White House's new notification to Congress claiming the Iran War has been "terminated" plus comment from Issue One, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Congressman Ro Khanna.

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