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On Unseriousness: Digging More Bonkers GOP Holes
In a possibly more than averagely batshit news cycle, the apocalyptic clusterfuck of clowns "governing" this country got up to some serious weirdness last week. As the chief clown waffled on the best way to kill us all - AI, nukes, nukes in space, forever war, hissy fits, agitprop up the wazoo - his lackeys frantically gaslit us with brain-dead pols, high T warriors and drunken sheep fuckers. No wonder Americans are said to be dreading the fall - not autumn, but the fall of democracy and civilization (sic) itself.
With Trump's approval rightly cratering but his faithful flunkies inexplicably urging us to vote like he's on the ballot - umm, okay - he's so far gone he still giddily maintains the deranged fiction we "have the greatest economy in history," we're resplendent in "a Golden Age of America," and he's all good on shamelessly, unconstitutionally banning news outlets he doesn't like - "I don't want them in my (sic) office," aka, "I’ll take 'Something a dictator would say' for $1000, Alex" - because he evidently thinks "repressive" is a compliment, devoutly to be wished. Otherwise, heading into a mid-term election that promises ("Oh please, oh please") to be a GOP rout, he's doing nothing to drag them out of the deepening holes he's dug except flailing and digging more.
Historically, inanely dazzled by nuclear power - see his "irresponsible and dangerous and frankly incompetent" burbling about the "N-word" - he's now touting the option of a shiny new Space Force military "offensive." Never mind America's 1969 moon landing assurance from "Planet Earth," "WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND"; the one relatively peaceable place in the galaxy, space-weapons free for 18 billion years, now faces possible invasion from "Mister Schlock, Trash Gordeon, Darth Hater, Puke Skyfucker." Or in the pointedly indecipherable jargon of Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, "The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action." By more "aliens"?
Back on an increasingly fragile Planet Earth, the same dangers loom amidst an Iran debacle wherein the U.S. is committing war crimes, hiding deaths and shortfalls along with damage to buildings, equipment, vehicles - one active service member: "We’re standing with our eyes closed getting punched in the face" - lying about a vital Strait of Hormuz that remains "a parking lot" and spending up to $2 billion a month despite a third House vote to end the carnage and a defiant Iran insisting it will not reopen the Strait until “the criminal Trump and bloodthirsty Netanyahu” are gone. All as the mad child-king muses publicly about his "big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them or do I not? Anything could happen with me."
Hence another equally incoherent whiplash on the hazards of AI: From unhinged denial spewed by the master of "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV": the only guardrail needed is "a STRONG AND SMART (high IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S. has that, in spades!" - to tentative hedging - a supposed concept of a plan to create an AI Czar - with the moronic, "Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” - and an AI Force - like his "tremendous SUCCESS" the largely illusory Space Force - back to a knee-jerk "SICK conspiracy" against AI and data centers like the "many Hoaxes generated by the Radical Left Dumocrats, for purposes of destroying our Country.” When in God's name will he learn: "It ill behooves a man to rave on at length."
Still nursing a long-held grudge against the elites of the arts world, especially the storied family who both embodied it and always outclassed him, he also remains obsessed with slapping his odious name on the Kennedy Center or, now, threatening to tear it down if he can't. George Conway: "To destroy things he can’t possess or control is his essential nature." After multiple losses in court - the most mortifying the forced removal of his name, which rankled so much he's lamely kept the facade covered with a tarp - he persists in arguing the flourishing-until-he-came-along Center is "a mess" that's lost "tens of millions" or maybe "hundreds of billions" and "I’m the one capable of fixing it." Otherwise, "The building is destined to doom (sic)."
Unsurprisingly, an emerging backstory is far seedier. The only thing straining finances is the arts world boycotting him and his own Treasury holding hostage hundreds of millions in funds. After a storm brought down some ceiling plaster, lackeys left it, posted photos - Trump will fix it! - mapped the “debris field” for a 55-page bullshit briefing, and voted to close down. Richard Grenell partly replaced the art collection, including African works honoring JFK, with MAGA "art," some from "the Tony Montana Meets Saddam Hussein Collection," and workers glitzed up Trump's theater boxes. After a judge again refused to restore his name, Trump threw a tantrum and brought in forklifts, prompting the judge to issue an emergency order forbidding any mob-like, midnight demolition.
Meanwhile, he whines - The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates “to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do” (sic) - threatens - GOP-led North Carolina, whose streets are "blood-soaked killing fields" (LOL) may get no more FEMA funding after Helene, "the biggest water hurricane" - propagandizes - the Smithsonian's "Ideological Capture” - and a desperate GOP goose-steps along. Vance lies about immigrants, RFK Jr. blithers about "chemtrails," Melania sneers let them eat flowers, fabulist MAGA Mike, seeking to be raptured, boasts of an uber-productive House "almost unmatched in history." And Mitch 'Weekend at Bernie's - McConnell is outlandishly wheeled out, dead-eyed and smile-plastered, from a months-long stupor to cast a vital "vote." Mother Mary of God, make it stop.
Preening peacock Pete Hegseth, evidently thinking he’s still on TV, ordered commanders to choose only soldiers who meet “impeccable grooming and uniform standards (no exception)” to attend his upcoming “State of the Force” speech; if they’re really cute they may get to join one of his dorky workouts. He also revived testosterone screening for symptoms like low energy and “loss of spontaneous morning erections.” Rex Huppke: “OUR ENEMIES WILL QUAKE AT THE SIGHT OF AMERICA’S BONER WARRIORS!” No wonder Unholy Mike ran away - aka sent the House home early "to explain all the great things we’ve done" - so they couldn't vote on Rep. Thomas Massie's articles of impeachment against Hegseth for "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Finally, there was Kash Patel, lackiest lackey of all, with his "unbelievable" testimony before a Senate hearing on newly lowered standards to work at the FBI. First, Tom Wellborn's background on Patel, a grown, childless man who wrote a kids' trilogy about a wizard named Kash serving a king named Donald; sold Ka$h-branded merch and anti-COVID-vaccine supplements; compiled an enemies list of high-level anti-Trump conspirators; took a government plane to hear his SWAT-team-protected girlfriend sing at a wrestling match; long yelled for release of the Epstein files until he was in power and found nothing to see; likewise ignored ICE abuses, rampant corruption, right-wing extremism while purging the FBI of 1,100-plus "disloyal" agents; and abruptly lowered standards to stop losing candidates to "the rigors of the requirements from yesteryear.”
Last week, Patel defended a new policy that no longer automatically disqualifies people for several offenses: paying for sex, defrauding employers, and bestiality - having sex with animals. In the FBI's universe of moral relativism, now you're all good if you hired a prostitute fewer than three times or over ten years ago; stole from your employer at least three years ago, or did unspeakable things with a sheep, horse, goat, dog etc when you were young and presumably horny. Throughout his testimony - here starting at 5:25 - Patel, who's suing The Atlantic for $250 million for credibly charging he's often drunk on the job, frantically shuffled papers that turned out to be cheat sheets to trash Sen. Dick Durbin, who calls him "the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in U.S. history."
Patel's surreal, wide-eyed, often bellicose testimony on, say, goat-fucking rattled even Louisiana's fake-folksy GOP Sen. John Kennedy, who was trying hard to give him the bizarre benefit of the doubt. After Patel explained the earlier policy "automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it," a confused Kennedy asked, "Which side of what, the bestiality?" Patel: "Yes." Kennedy: "So, you disqualified the animal?" Patel: "We have some great canines - we're not gonna disqualify them. Hang on, I'm trying to explain." Kennedy: "So if Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified?" Patel: "If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it..." Kennedy: But how do you involuntarily do it?" Etc.
Bravely, Kennedy tried to understand Patel's response to what he assumed was an underling's report. "Why would you get into bestiality?" he asked. "When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect...Why didn’t you just say, 'What planet did you parachute in from?'" Smirking, Patel said that was his response until he learned people were often "trafficked (into) these awful heinous acts." Then, he summoned his best impersonation of self-righteousness. "We did not want to punish victims of bestiality," he intoned, with the once-clear word "victim" doing a ludicrous amount of work. "At this FBI, we're not gonna criminalize and prevent victims from serving (America) in the premier law enforcement agency in the world." Maybe it was, before him. Or not. Just sayin'.
Hacks, trolls, crooks, clowns. "This is what unseriousness looks like," noted one observer, "when it finally hits a wall." And when the edict, "Do not obey in advance" matters. Tolstoy: "The wicked become even worse when they are tolerated." Friday night, with a few hours' notice, organizers of a protest dubbed "Hands Around the Kennedy Center" hoped for a turnout of 400 to 800 people. They were pleased when 950 signed up. Then over 6,400 showed up. The mood was defiant. One longtime volunteer said she'd "stand in front of the wrecking ball." People formed a human chain around the concert hall an inept, vengeful narcissist had just closed and called "a dump," relishing what it felt like “to hold hands with somebody you don’t know for something you believe in.” Afterwards, they all sang America the Beautiful. There may be hope. (Or not.)
Sep 21, 2026
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'Perpetual Villainy': Trump Admin Preps Yet Another Attack on Endangered Species
"Hmmmm.... I've done a lot of horrible things lately. What is another evil, cruel, nonsensical idea? Ya know, one that would have irreversible generational consequences?"
That's how University of Alberta professor Timothy Caulfield responded to The New York Times' Wednesday reporting that President Donald Trump's administration "is quietly moving to strip a core protection" of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), according to an internal memo obtained by the newspaper.
Signed by US Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik, the memo interprets the law to mean that only the intentional killing or wounding of a protected species is illegal. The Times explained that excluding accidental acts "would be a seismic shift," because "the killing of endangered animals almost always happens incidentally, in the course of economic activity."
The memo is dated September 14—the same day that another Trump administration attack on the ESA took effect. That legally contested earlier policy rescinds the regulatory definition of "harm" under the 1973 law so that extractive industries can degrade crucial habitats. When the move was announced in July, critics called it "a death knell for America’s wildlife."
The effort revealed by the Times goes even further. Andrew Mergen, a Harvard University law professor who previously supervised ESA litigation at the US Department of Justice, told the paper that "this is really an assault on the act like we've never seen before."
"What the administration is proposing to do is take all of the force out of what we have all understood the act to mean: Don't kill endangered species," he said. "What they seem to be saying in this document is, it doesn't matter if you killed an endangered species if you didn't mean to."
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement that "this stabs at the very heart of the Endangered Species Act by giving federal approval to the killing of some of America's most beloved wildlife... The Trump administration is desperate to annihilate environmental protections, but this incredibly radical measure is both cruel and profoundly unlawful. Killing endangered wildlife is illegal, whether that's your purpose or not."
"If you chop down a tree full of endangered birds or race a huge ship through a pod of endangered whales, you should be held accountable for your destructive acts," Hartl added. "But this administration wants to give wildlife killers a 'Get out of jail free' card. Imposing new limitations on the entire definition of take is a flagrant and illegal attempt to rewrite the Endangered Species Act via unilateral fiat. This would drive imperiled species over the cliff to extinction."
Other opponents of the plan called it "pure evil," and blasted the "perpetual villainy" of Trump's second administration—which has continued an assault on the landmark law launched during the Republican's first presidential term. All of his previous attacks on the ESA have faced resistance from conservation organizations and many members of Congress.
The rule on harm has sparked not only legal challenges from advocacy groups and state attorneys general, but also legislative pushback. In late July, US Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), co-chairs of the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus, introduced the Safeguarding Endangered Species Act, to nullify the policy.
Then, last month, Democratic US Sens. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution that, if passed, would repeal the policy. As the rule took effect on Monday, a Schiff spokesperson told CNN that "the senators will look to force a vote in the coming weeks."
This article has been updated with comment for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Sep 16, 2026
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'Misled' and 'Strung Along' by Trump, Financial Pain of Farmers Grows as Costs Continue to Skyrocket
Farmers across the US are speaking up about their struggles as President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran and trade war with Canada are taking a hammer to their finances.
In an interview with CBS News published Thursday, North Carolina farmer Matt Bell revealed that "I have never worried and stressed like I have the last year," thanks to the soaring costs of fuel, fertilizer, and farm equipment, all of which have gotten more expensive thanks to Trump's policies.
"The fertilizer, fuel, chemicals, seed, parts—you know, the whole nine yards," said Bell, "everything that we touch has gone up."
"We are fighting for survival."
Matt Bell, 52, has been farming for more than half his life in central North Carolina.
He grows soybeans, corn and wheat and raises beef cattle on more than 1,000 acres. But Bell, who voted for President Trump, says soaring prices for fuel,… pic.twitter.com/9ELYXkJywt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 18, 2026
Bell, who voted for Trump, said he feels "misled" and "strung along" when it comes to the president's rationale for attacking Iran without congressional authorization in February.
The North Carolina farmer said his costs for diesel fuel have doubled in the last year, driven in large part by Trump's war.
According to data released Friday by the American Automobile Association, the average price of diesel in the US now stands at a record-high $6.45 per gallon, a 74% increase of the average price of diesel one year ago.
"We are fighting for survival," Bell emphasized, "and we're running out of options."
Bell is far from the only farmer struggling.
Theresa Sisung, commodity and regulatory relations manager at the Michigan Farm Bureau, said in an interview with Up North Live that farmers in the state are about to "use a ton of fuel on their farms" due to the start of harvest season, making the record-high diesel prices particularly inconvenient.
"We have seen a slight increase in farm bankruptcies across the nation," said Sisung. "We are seeing those farms that are more stressed. We've had some negative margins for farms for a few years now, so there is certainly stress out in the countryside."
Michigan farmer Russell Ketchum told Up North Live that the high diesel prices have made what was already a challenging year and farming even more difficult.
"We started out the year with a lot of cold weather, a lot of freeze damage," Ketchum explained, "so we've been working on short crops all year and then the diesel fuel prices and the gas prices all on top of that, they made everything challenging to say the least."
North Dakota farmer Chris McDonald told the North Dakota Monitor in an interview published Wednesday that diesel prices have climbed so high that they "can erase your profit."
McDonald also tied the increase in diesel costs directly to Trump's war, which the president said would only last a matter of weeks but has since dragged on for more than six months.
"I think a lot of people expected that maybe the war would wrap up," said McDonald, "and the prices would go down some, and they never really did drop very much. Then it just skyrocketed.”
The Iran War isn't the only Trump policy that's hurting US agriculture and bringing pain to US farming families, as a Tuesday NPR report highlighted the impact that the president's trade war with Canada is having on farmers in Montana.
As noted by NPR, Canada is Montana's biggest trading partner, as it accounts for "$1 billion in cross-border sales." But the tariffs imposed by Trump, and the counter-tariffs imposed by Canada, have both harmed Montana farmers' sales and made the equipment they buy more expensive.
Steve Sheffels, a Montana wheat farmer, told NPR that he'd like to buy "a new drill" and some "grain bins that come out of Canada," but now fears that "I won't be able to afford them" thanks to the trade war.
Sheffels, whose wife is Canadian, also told NPR that he was not happy to see America's relationship with its largest trading partner deteriorate throughout Trump's second term.
"You don't treat your neighbors like this," he said.
Sep 18, 2026
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Van Hollen Says ICC Members Would Sanction Trump and Rubio If They 'Have Any Self-Respect’
As the United Nations General Assembly prepared to meet, a US senator said President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio should face sanctions for their role in trying to destroy the International Criminal Court in order to protect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If European countries and other signatories to the International Criminal Court (ICC) have any self-respect, they'd sanction Rubio and Trump for obstructing investigations of Netanyahu's war crimes," wrote Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) Monday on social media.
He was responding to a report from the Wall Street Journal detailing "a sharp escalation" in the Trump administration's efforts to, in Rubio's words, "dismantle" the ICC, which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024. The body accused the prime minister and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war.
The ICC has also reportedly launched investigations into two other far-right ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for their roles in aggressively expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law.
The Trump administration had already aggressively sanctioned ICC officials involved in efforts to prosecute Americans or Israelis, including then-chief prosecutor Karim Khan and several judges and prosecutors. It had also sanctioned UN special rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese and several Palestinian human rights organizations that had brought evidence of alleged Israeli crimes before the tribunal.
Now, The Journal reports that:
The Trump administration is preparing to impose sweeping sanctions on the [ICC]...
The sanctions would forbid most transactions with the ICC after a grace period of six to seven months... That could potentially cripple the court by prohibiting it from conducting transactions in US dollars, cutting it off from much of the global financial system.
It is unclear when a final decision and announcement might come, though some US officials said the move could be finalized as soon as this week during the United Nations General Assembly meeting or in the following days.
Several world leaders have been vocally critical of the US attack on the ICC, though they've stopped short of calling for sanctions against US officials.
Responding to Rubio's sanctions in August, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa said that the ICC's "judges and officials must be able to act independently and without external pressure."
Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen, whose nation is home to the ICC, said the Netherlands disapproves of efforts to sanction the court, adding that Dutch officials were actively working with the EU to protect the court from institution-wide US sanctions. Possible protective measures reportedly include alternative banking and payment arrangements outside the US dollar system.
There have also been calls within the European Parliament, including from Spanish socialist politician Iratxe García Pérez and others, to activate the EU's so-called "blocking statute," which would prohibit European companies from complying with the US sanctions.
Sep 22, 2026
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UN Expert Says Trump 'Murder' Spree at Sea May Constitute 'Crimes Against Humanity'
In a report on the Trump administration's bombing of dozens of boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean over the past year, a top United Nations rights expert dismissed President Donald Trump's claim that the military campaign has been in "self-defense" against "designated terrorist organizations," and warned that the evidence collected about the strikes could point to crimes against humanity being committed by the United States.
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, concurred with numerous human rights experts as he said Monday that even if the boats targeted by the US had been engaged in drug trafficking—the central claim of Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as they've defended the operation—there are no "international legal rights to unilaterally use military force" to counter drug cartels or other organized crime groups.
He noted that Trump last October notified Congress that the strikes were part of a "non-international armed conflict," governed by the law of armed conflict, as his administration highlighted the threat of "narco-terrorists."
"The United States military attacks are, however, contrary to international law, violate the human right to life, and plausibly constitute crimes against humanity," wrote Saul.
He added that the killings could reasonably constitute "crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law," noting that such crimes generally require "that murder (or attempted murder) was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population."
Saul compared the bombings to the alleged crimes of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose own "war on drugs" included the state killings of thousands of Filipinos accused of trafficking narcotics. Duterte, noted Saul, "is on trial for alleged crimes against humanity of murder for targeting suspected criminals, or criminals having criminal propensities, including drug offenders."
The special rapporteur's report pertains to attacks up until August, but came days after the US military said it had killed four more people aboard a vessel in the Caribbean. At least 234 people have been killed in the attacks by US Southern Command so far, in at least 70 strikes.
As with its previous bombings, US Southern Command did not release any evidence in its latest attack that the target was a boat involved in drug trafficking. US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) emphasized at a hearing in June that the "targeting criteria" the military has used in the boat bombing campaign has never included “evidence of narcotics on the boat," and data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has shown little to no evidence that the flow of drugs into the US has decreased since the bombings began more than a year ago.
In addition to some people who may have been involved in narcotics trafficking, the report reads, "some victims have reportedly included fishermen, migrants, and victims of human trafficking." The families of some victims have filed legal complaints over their killings.
Moreoever, said Saul, "even assuming that the vessels and crew attacked were members of the criminal groups listed as terrorist, such organizations have not mounted any 'armed attack' on the United States so as to trigger a right of self-defense."
"Deaths from illicit drugs are not assimilable to an armed attack under international law," he wrote, despite Hegseth's insistence that the US aims to protect the country from "the drugs that are killing our people."
Instead of being legitimate attacks in self-defense, wrote Saul, the bombings "amount to serial extrajudicial killings in violation of the right to life, being unjustified in national or personal self-defense or under international humanitarian law, the international law of the sea, narcotics suppression conventions, or international counterterrorism law."
"International humanitarian law cannot authorize the United States’ attacks," he added.
Saul said the military campaign, which the Trump administration has recently expanded to include land attacks in Latin American countries, may violate Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was ratified by the US in 1992.
The report was filed as world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly and weeks after US Southern Command announced its campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific was expanding to include operations inside countries in Latin America, with leaders who are aligned with Trump hosting joint military operations. The US has particularly deepened military ties with Ecuador in recent months, with the partnership reportedly resulting in torture, arbitrary detentions, and disappearances.
"International law on the right to life," wrote Saul, "applies to any extraterritorial military or law enforcement action against criminal groups."
Sep 21, 2026
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Israel Blocking Hundreds of Wheelchairs for Injured Children From Entering Gaza
Gaza has the world's largest concentration of child amputees thanks to Israel's genocidal war. Now, as Australian charities seek to deliver hundreds of wheelchairs to the children injured in the onslaught, Israel has reportedly been blocking them for more than a year and a half.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported last week that:
More than 900 wheelchairs, donated by two Australian charities to help injured children in Gaza, are stuck in warehouses in Jordan due to Israeli restrictions on aid deliveries into the war-ravaged strip.
Two shipments from New South Wales-based charity Kids on Wheels Alliance arrived in Jordan in February 2025, while a third, from Wheelchairs for Kids based in Western Australia, arrived in October 2025.
But instead of being delivered to children with severe mobility issues inside Gaza, they remain sitting in storage facilities managed by the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization (JHCO).
According to the report, JHCO submitted an application in February 2025 for the wheelchairs to be included in an aid convoy headed to Gaza, where more than 11,000 kids have been left with "severe, life-changing injuries, including permanent disabilities that require long-term care and rehabilitation," according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
That application was denied by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli agency responsible for aid coordination, because "medical equipment and medicines were not approved for inclusion in that convoy." The application has been marked as "pending" for the last 19 months, meaning that a new request cannot be sent.
An Israeli government source told ABC that Israel had not blocked the delivery of the wheelchairs. But COGAT did not answer specific questions from the network about what had happened to the shipment.
The agency said it had allowed the entry of thousands of wheelchairs "without any quantitative restrictions," as well as "approximately 22,000 tons of medical equipment and medicines" since the beginning of the ceasefire in October 2025.
One source told the outlet that the wheelchairs may have been held up under Israel's rules blocking possible "dual-use" items that authorities believe could serve a military purpose.
The wheelchairs have specialized features: they are adapted for rough terrain to help users navigate the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza and are adjustable to grow with the children who use them.
But as Dr. Abdullah Al-Balawi, a physician with the Palestinian Australian New Zealand Medical Association who has watched the boxes pile up undelivered, explained, "they do not pose any threat."
The stalled wheelchairs are hardly the first medical or disability equipment to be blocked as a result of Israel's strict restrictions on humanitarian supplies entering Gaza. Human rights groups have previously documented the use of dual-use restrictions to block wheelchair batteries, X-ray equipment, and materials used to manufacture prosthetic limbs.
It's not just medical supplies. Portable toilets have also been blocked, as have sleeping bags and tarps. These items are in high demand as around 90% of Palestinians living in Gaza remain displaced, with Israel's attacks having destroyed most of the buildings. According to a report from humanitarian organizations in April, bandages, diapers, shampoo, and tent poles have also been blocked.
Human Rights Watch has argued that the dual-use restrictions are unnecessarily broad and arbitrary, allowing certain items some days and rejecting them on others. The organization has called on Israel to remove the dual-use label on "medical-related supplies, assistive aids, and accessible technology like eyeglasses, wheelchairs, walkers, canes [and] hearing aids."
Amnesty International has described Israel's blocking of lifesaving medical and other forms of humanitarian assistance—including food, water and sanitation supplies, fuel, and shelter materials and equipment—as part of a pattern that amounts to genocide.
"The humanitarian aid must not stop," Al-Balawi said. "This is part of the stubbornness of the other side by not letting in this aid; the wheelchairs are only a part of it."
Sep 21, 2026
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Rights Groups Detail Sweeping 'Suppression of Pro-Palestine Speech' on US Campuses
"The Trump administration’s targeting of students and faculty who oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza is dangerously reminiscent of McCarthy-era censorship and a blatant violation of academic freedom."
Sep 23, 2026
While the traumatic experiences of foreign-born scholars such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk have drawn international headlines, a report released Wednesday by a pair of leading rights groups highlights how their arrests by immigration agents were part of a wider assault "on free speech and association on college campuses, particularly against students, faculty, and staff protesting Israel's war on Gaza and the US government’s political, economic, and military support of the war."
Titled "Student Speech Under Attack: Suppression of Pro-Palestine Speech and Dissent on Campus," the new report from the ACLU and Amnesty International USA catalogs university and law enforcement responses to protests and encampments, schools' actions to restrict speech, the Trump administration's crackdowns on institutions and foreign scholars, and how all of that has had a chilling effect.
The report also features case studies on six schools—City College of New York, Columbia University, Tulane University, University of Michigan, University of Texas at Austin, and University of California, Los Angeles—and various targeted scholars, including Khalil and Öztürk as well as Yunseo Chung, Badar Khan Suri, Leqaa Kordia, and Mohsen Mahdawi.
Like Khalil, Mahdawi was a Columbia student and lawful permanent resident of the United States. At his citizenship interview last year, masked US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested and detained him for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. The Trump administration's attempt to deport Mahdawi, who was raised in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is ongoing.
"At the time of his arrest and detention, he was an undergraduate student at Columbia University majoring in philosophy and planning to start a master's degree program at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. Mahdawi said he dedicated himself 'to understanding how to achieve a lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis, particularly through the study of conflict resolution,'" the report notes.
"As a student at Columbia, Mahdawi was an outspoken critic of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and an activist and organizer in student protests on Columbia's campus until March 2024, after which he took a step back and was not involved in organizing," the document details. "Mahdawi attended protests opposing military escalations in the region and gave speeches at several of these protests advocating for Palestinian human rights and a permanent ceasefire. Mahdawi appeared in numerous televised interviews and print news articles regarding the military campaign in Gaza and related protests."
While Mahdawi was targeted by the Trump administration, not Columbia, the publication points out that he "had contacted university administrators asking for help in finding safe housing, stating that he feared abduction by ICE agents," and, according to him, the school "did nothing in response to his request."
The report also notes Columbia's decadeslong reputation as "the activist Ivy," and how "student activism in support of Palestinian rights began in October 2023... sparking a multiyear, nationwide movement of campus anti-war demonstrations calling for academic institutions to divest from what organizers and Amnesty International characterize as Israeli apartheid."
The ACLU and Amnesty laid out how Columbia suspended student groups that held peaceful demonstrations, refused to divest from Israel, threatened to expel students who joined an encampment, and had New York Police Department officers forcibly remove protesters who occupied a campus building and dubbed it "Hind's Hall" for a Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces.
Columbia University student demonstrators unfurl a banner that reads "Hind's Hall" as they barricade themselves inside a campus building on April 30, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)
Early last year, as Khalil was arrested outside his home and President Donald Trump threatened to pull $400 million in university funding, Columbia promised to the administration that it would add three dozen "special patrol officers" with arrest powers, and later announced that its University Judicial Board punished over 70 students.
However, as the report stresses, it's not just Columbia. After Israel began what many experts have called a genocidal assault on Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas-led attack, "students across more than 100 universities organized, calling for educational institutions to end their financial ties to corporations linked to the war," and their protests and encampments were often met with "university leaders' swift and punitive responses."
"Universities and colleges faced pressure from wealthy donors, trustees, and figures outside of university or college leadership, including members of Congress, to suppress pro-Palestinian protests and dismantle encampments," the publication acknowledges. "By restricting or banning protests outright, involving campus police and external law enforcement in the surveillance, intimidation, and repression of participants, and pursuing students with legal and administrative consequences, university and college administrators escalated tensions."
"During the disbandment of encampments, law enforcement forcefully pushed and arrested demonstrators, leading to concussions, cuts dislocations, and other severe injuries," the report continues. "In many instances, demonstrators posed no threat, did not resist arrest, and were sometimes attempting to deescalate or document the protest."
Police crack down on a pro-Palestinian protest at Indiana University in Bloomington on April 25, 2024. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Justin Mazzola, Amnesty's deputy director of research, said in a statement that "universities and colleges should prepare students for open discourse in a pluralistic society. Instead, campus leadership has suppressed free speech and peaceful protest while enabling the Trump administration to advance its anti-rights agenda and seek ideological control over higher education."
Mazzola also called out the Trump administration—which, as the report lays out, has issued related executive orders, conducted campus visits, abused Title VI investigations, conditioned funding on acquiescence, revoked student visas, targeted scholars for deportation for protected speech, and attempted to evade court reviews of deportations.
"The Trump administration's targeting of students and faculty who oppose Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza is dangerously reminiscent of McCarthy-era censorship and a blatant violation of academic freedom," he asserted. "The Trump administration must stop stifling political expression on campus and end its relentless push for ideological conformity in higher education. Students' rights must be respected, protected, and fulfilled."
The report features recommendations for schools, campus and local law enforcement, the Trump administration, and Congress. It also details rights on campus, reminding students and educators that they "have the right to peacefully protest, and the government has a duty to respect, protect, and facilitate that right—not suppress it."
University of Texas at Austin graduate students, faculty, and demonstrators protest Israel's war on the Gaza Strip after walking out of commencement on May 11, 2024. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
As for US colleges and universities, they "must take all possible measures to ensure that their campuses are spaces where students may exercise their rights to freedom of speech and expression without fear of unwarranted punishment or retaliation regardless of viewpoint," said Jennifer Turner, principal researcher in the ACLU's Human Rights Program.
"Schools should resist the pressures placed on them to silence and punish students or faculty who engage in protest or advocacy for Palestinian rights," Turner added. "Instead, they should stand up to the federal government's intimidation tactics and defend the university's core mission of fostering free-flowing inquiry and debate."
The groups' report was released after Khalil and other Palestine defenders sued Columbia in federal court last week over what Khalil called "gross and systemic discrimination against Palestinian students." He vowed that "next, I will turn to the hateful individuals at Columbia who were also responsible for what we endured."
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Paltry Concessions Given to Secure Paramount-Warner Merger Deal Decried as 'Meaningless Bullshit'
"Billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top," said one critic.
Sep 22, 2026
"A settlement that promises less than nothing."
That's how one critic of Paramount Skydance's planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday described the paltry concessions extracted by Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state officials to enable the proposed $111 billion media megamerger.
Critics argue that the proposed settlement agreement lacks meaningful antitrust enforcement and hands control of major news and entertainment properties to a billionaire family closely aligned with President Donald Trump.
“Every! single! one! of these concessions is meaningless bullshit,” writer Cory Doctorow said Tuesday on Medium. “Bonta just handed the American movie and TV sector to two of the most odious creeps to draw breath, surrendering without firing a shot."
The settlement, which was announced Monday, clears a major roadblock to Paramount CEO David Ellison's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, HBO, Warner Bros. Pictures, and numerous cable networks. The combined company would control nearly 30% of both US theatrical film distribution and basic cable channel licensing.
The agreement contains a pledge to distribute at least 30 films annually for the first two years, then 32 movies each year after, invest hundreds of millions of dollars in US film production, maintain existing theater rental terms for three years, not sell Paramount and Warner Bros. studio lots for five years, and create an editorial independence board for CBS News and CNN.
In a Monday Substack post, American Economic Liberties Project research director Matt Stoller pointed out an apparent loophole in the settlement's film distribution requirement.
“They only have to distribute that many films,” he wrote. “They can make half as many. And those can be co-produced. So in fact, if you add up the numbers, Ellison promised to make fewer films going forward than Paramount and Warner are putting out today."
The settlement's editorial oversight board for CBS News and CNN have also come under fire. The five-member board overseeing the two entities will be appointed and paid by the combined company. Reuters reported Tuesday that the board would have no explicit investigative authority and that the company would be empowered to fill vacancies.
“As we learned from the failed and widely panned Facebook oversight board, a fake bipartisan oversight committee won’t save CNN,” Jessica González, the co-chief executive of the advocacy organization Free Press, said Monday. “We have all the evidence we need from the Ellisons’ destruction of CBS about what they do to warp journalism at Donald Trump’s request.”
David Ellison's father, tech billionaire Larry Ellison, is a Republican megadonor.
Seth Stern, a media attorney and chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that "it's unclear how the attorneys general or courts can constitutionally hold Paramount accountable for the board's actions or inaction without themselves interfering in content."
Stoller noted that the agreement's force-majeure clause, which would reportedly allow Paramount-Warner to dodge its commitments in the event of economic recessions, strikes, and other labor disruptions.
Other opponents of the proposed deal bristle at the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of Saudi and Emirati investment in the new company that would be created if the merger is approved.
Alvaro Bedoya, a senior adviser to the American Economic Liberties Project, lamented that “today, billionaires have yet again bribed, censored, and bullied their way to the top."
“Layoffs will follow. People from [Los Angeles] to Atlanta will lose their jobs, small businesses will lose their contracts, your cable bill and movie ticket will be even more expensive,” he continued. “Dissent against money and power will be even harder to find.”
“This did not have to happen," Bedoya stressed. "Thanks to an extraordinary outpouring of grassroots anger against the merger, a coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block it. They beat Paramount in court, winning a court-ordered pause on the merger, and beat them again at the negotiating table, getting the conglomerate to agree to pause the merger until as late as next June.”
“But the Ellison family does not care about the law. Instead, they loudly threatened to leave California if their merger did not go through immediately," he added. "[Gov.] Gavin Newsom caved to that pressure. So did [former state Attorney General] Xavier Becerra. And eventually, so did Attorney General Rob Bonta, agreeing to a weak settlement that will be exceedingly difficult to enforce.”
Stoller said that "there are a bunch of reasons they cleared the deal, such as threats to move the studio out of California, corruption, and general incompetence."
"I personally think CNN is terrible, and I’m glad it’s going to be discredited," Stoller wrote. "I also find it embarrassing that the Democratic AGs used antitrust law in an attempt to shade news coverage. But it’s downright comical they demanded that David Ellison not corrupt CNN by having David Ellison appoint a board ensuring that David Ellison not do that."
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'It Should Be Illegal': Trump's 1,156 July Stock Trades Involved AI, Big Oil, Weapons-Makers, and More
By failing to report some transactions within 45 days, the president appears to have violated a key federal law, again.
Sep 22, 2026
Donald Trump has been repeatedly ripped as "the most openly corrupt president in American history" by a range of critics, and the Republican faced fresh criticism on Tuesday after disclosing more than 1,100 securities transactions from July.
"The 1,156 purchases and sales totaled between roughly $79 million and $270 million," CNBC reported. "Purchases totaled at least $43.6 million, while sales came to at least $35.6 million... in what appears to be a broad reshuffling of his portfolio."
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has previously sounded the alarm over Trump's "unprecedented" trading, said on social media Tuesday that "it should be illegal for the president to trade individual stocks—period."
As Trump continues to rail against regulations on artificial intelligence, the filing with the Office of Government Ethics shows recent transactions involving tech giants including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle.
The president is also waging an illegal war on Iran with no end in sight, and those who manage his portfolio made trades involving military contractors such as GE Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir, and SpaceX.
CNBC highlighted that the Northrop Grumman sale—worth $250,001 to $500,000—occurred the same day that "Trump signed an executive order tightening supply chain requirements for defense contractors and restricting waivers for certain critical materials sourced from China and other covered countries," though the disclosure does not include timing.
Iran has responded to Trump's war by restricting ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused fuel prices to surge worldwide. The president was accused of cashing in on the crisis he has created after he disclosed June stock transactions. The new filing shows more trades in oil and gas giants, including Chevron and ExxonMobil.
The Washington Sun pointed out that "Trump also purchased up to $500,000 worth of stock in Axon Enterprise, the manufacturer of Tasers, which has done tens of millions of dollars worth of business with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection."
While "Trump is ostensibly aware of the contents of his portfolio, given that he personally certified his most recent disclosure, which bears his signature," the Sun noted, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle tried to dismiss any allegations of corruption in a statement to multiple outlets.
"President Trump's stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions," Ingle said. "All holdings are maintained in discretionary accounts and invested through computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000."
"Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold," he added. "All investment decisions are made entirely by independent managers. There are no conflicts of interest."
However, as the Sun highlighted, "a number of Trump's trades were disclosed more than 45 days after they were made—in violation of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which also applies to top officials in the executive branch. It’s not the first time the president has run afoul of the stock trading law."
Just in: Trump reported making another 1,158 stock trades in July 2026.It appears he violated the Stock Act, again, by failing to report all of his trades within 45 days. extapps2.oge.gov/201/Presiden...
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— Zach Everson (@zacheverson.com) September 22, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Despite bipartisan support at times, congressional efforts to fully ban trading by lawmakers, their dependents, and the president and vice president have been unsuccessful.
In July, 13 Democrats in the US House of Representatives helped Republicans pass a purported congressional stock trading ban— even though the bill wouldn't apply to Trump or Vice President JD Vance, and the GOP tacked on a voter suppression provision demanded by the president.
The Senate has not yet acted on the bill, officially called the Stop Insider Trading Act, and condemned by critics as "a Trojan horse."
Trump's disclosure came a week after Bloomberg reported that "Trump has traded more securities than every member of Congress combined since he returned to office" last year. From January 2025 to June 2026, lawmakers reported a collective 22,200 transactions while the president made nearly 28,700.
Donald Trump and every member of Congress should be working for the American people — NOT their stock portfolio.
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) September 18, 2026 at 6:03 PM
Sharing the reporting on social media last week, House Democrats wrote: "The American people deserve a president that serves their interests, not his own wallet."
Annual financial disclosures released this summer show that Trump pocketed at least $2.2 billion—over half of it from his family’s cryptocurrency grift—during his first year back in the White House.
Following that revelation, Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, called on the chamber to pass legislation aimed at stopping "the president, vice president, senior administration officials, members of Congress, and their families from profiting off the crypto industry," and warned that a failure to do so "will only turbocharge Donald Trump's brazen crypto corruption."
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Amnesty Slams UEFA for Allowing Israel in Nations League Despite 'Occupation, Apartheid, and Genocide'
"The beautiful game should bring people together, not rubber-stamp apartheid."
Sep 22, 2026
Human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday slammed the Union of European Football Associations for allowing the Israel men's team to participate in upcoming Nations League matches despite the Israeli government's continued systemic human rights abuses against Palestinians.
Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s regional director for Europe, called Israel's participation in the UEFA games "unconscionable," citing "clear evidence that Israel’s football association continues to support illegal settlements."
Cockburn said that UEFA should have long ago suspended the Israel Football Association (IFA) over its "refusal to exclude clubs based in illegal settlements" in the occupied Palestinian territories.
"As the money keeps flowing from FIFA and UEFA to the IFA," Cockburn said, "they risk contributing to the sustainability of illegal settlements and of Israel’s unlawful occupation... and therefore Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ human rights."
"Sport should never be used as a public relations spectacle for states committing atrocities," Cockburn added. "As the Israel team travels to Europe, Palestinian families are being displaced and dispossessed, their land stolen, their olive trees uprooted, and their histories erased by settlers with the support of the Israeli military. The beautiful game should bring people together, not rubber-stamp apartheid."
As explained in a Tuesday report from BBC, Israeli's inclusion in the Nations League has been a source of controversy for months.
Delegates for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), which faced signifiant public pressure to boycott matches between Ireland and Israel, recently voted in favor of playing the matches, although roughly 30% of delegates voted in favor of a boycott.
Regardless, more than 160 Irish athletes on Monday signed an open letter organized by Irish Sport for Palestine urging FAI to reconsider its vote in favor of the matches.
Heimer Hallgrimsson, manager of the Irish men's team, tried to justify the matches by arguing that Ireland was playing against Israel, which meant it was really playing "against genocide."
The IFA shot back at Hallgrimsson, accusing him of "ignorance, hypocrisy, and stupidity."
The BBC also noted that the two scheduled matches between Israel and Ireland will be played on neutral cites in Hungary and Serbia "against a backdrop of ongoing and increasingly volatile disagreement between the two countries about Israel's military offensive in Gaza."
Cockburn praised efforts by sports fans to keep pressure on the UEFA to "demand accountability, justice and, fair play."
"When rules are broken, when occupation, apartheid, and genocide are ongoing," he emphasized, "we cannot look the other way.”
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Majority of Democratic Voters Want to Prosecute Both Biden and Trump Administration Officials Over Gaza
The vast majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza and want its supporters in both parties to face consequences.
Sep 22, 2026
The majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza for the past three years. And they want the American politicians in both parties who supported it to pay.
In a poll released on Monday by the Center for Strategic Politics and commissioned by the magazine Liberal Currents, 683 Democratic voters were asked whether the next Democratic administration should "pursue criminal prosecution of members of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel’s genocide in Gaza."
More than half, 57%, of the Democrats surveyed answered "yes," while only 22% answered "no" and another 22% said they "don't know."
Self-described "socialists" and "progressives" were most bullish on Gaza-focused prosecutions. But so were 52% of "liberals" and even 48% of Democrats who called themselves "moderate" or "conservative."
It is one of several questions in the poll about a hypothetical Democratic administration prosecuting its predecessors over policies considered deadly and destructive.
About two-thirds, 66%, said they wanted to see Trump administration officials prosecuted for actions taken during its aggressive war with Iran, which has led to the deaths of more than 1,700 civilians and wrought economic turmoil.
Nearly three-quarters, 72%, believed Trump officials should face similar accountability for their campaign of extrajudicial strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which have killed more than 234 people in what a top United Nations official recently said may constitute "crimes against humanity."
And more than three-quarters said they wanted to see Trump officials face legal penalties for actions committed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which have waged a violent mass deportation campaign that has entailed numerous documented due process violations, instances of racial profiling, and several shootings of immigrants and US citizens without clear justification.
The question about Gaza is the only one in the survey in which Democrats were asked about the prospect of prosecuting members of their own party as well as Republicans. And while fewer Democrats ultimately answered yes, it indicates that their ire toward the American politicians supporting the genocide transcends party loyalty.
The poll results come as some activists pursue accountability for the Biden administration in other ways. Last week, organizers launched a campaign to pressure universities and other prominent institutions to cut ties with what they called the "Genocide 20."
These are officials like former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan who crafted and defended the administration's policy of unrestricted military aid for Israel despite mounting evidence that it was killing scores of civilians and enacting a campaign of starvation against the people of Gaza.
The United States provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military assistance between October 7, 2023, and the end of former President Joe Biden's term in January 2025, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. During that period, more than 47,000 Palestinians were confirmed killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the US has continued to provide Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, including $3.8 billion in regular annual military aid, while the Trump administration has approved billions more in arms sales and expedited weapons deliveries. The death toll has risen to nearly 74,000, according to official figures, but independent experts have suggested this may be a significant undercount.
According to Monday's poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said that “foreign policy (including Israel and Iran)” is important to them in deciding which candidates to support, compared with just 4% who said it is not.
Foreign policy has been a critical dividing line in several recent Democratic primaries, in which voters have revolted against candidates backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
This includes Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who was defeated by Abdul El-Sayed in a contest for the US Senate despite her more than $30 million in backing from AIPAC, which helped to turn it into the most expensive Democratic primary ever.
AIPAC-backed House candidates have similarly suffered high-profile defeats at the hands of progressives calling to cut off US funding for Israel. Some of the victors include Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and Aisha Wahab, who won a special election in California.
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'FAA Should Not Use My Constituents as Guinea Pigs': House Democrat Demands End of AI Air Traffic Control
"Dangerously rushing a system that holds Americans’ lives in its hands is not a good use case for artificial intelligence."
Sep 22, 2026
A Democratic US congressman on Monday urged the Federal Aviation Administration to immediately suspend a new artificial intelligence system being used to help manage air traffic around Washington, DC, accusing the agency of using passengers as "guinea pigs" without adequately vetting the new technology.
The Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories (SMART) system, developed by AI firm Air Space Intelligence under an $875 million contract, began limited operations Monday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says the system uses AI to synthesize roughly 200 data streams—including weather, flight paths, airline schedules, airport capacity, and controller staffing—to anticipate congestion and recommend ways to avert delays and cancellations.
The FAA claims that use of SMART will result in fewer flight delays and cancellations, optimized airspace, more predictable operations, and lower airfare costs for consumers.
"To really improve the flying experience for the American people, we needed to build a 21st century scheduling tool like SMART,” US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “By fundamentally reshaping how we manage our airspace and preventing problems before they happen, SMART will slash those frustrating delays, reduce stress on air traffic controllers, and lower travel prices."
“It's always going to be a human that manages the airspace in America,” Duffy promised. “Humans control the airspace, humans make decisions.”
The industry trade group Airlines for America called SMART “exciting and bold," while United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told The Washington Post that “if it works as we think it can, it will do more to reduce delays and cancellations than anything that’s happened in decades."
However, Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.)—whose district includes Reagan National Airport—said in a statement that “the FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system."
"The safety of the 24 million people traveling through DCA each year must be the top priority," he added, referring to the International Air Transport Association code for Reagan National Airport.
The FAA should not use my constituents as guinea pigs for an unproven AI air traffic control system that has Americans’ lives in its hands.I’m calling on the FAA to immediately suspend use of this AI system at Washington area airports until its safety has been established.My full statement:
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— Congressman Don Beyer (@beyer.house.gov) September 21, 2026 at 1:25 PM
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation concluded that the January 2025 midair collision between a US Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet, operated by PSA Airlines—which killed 67 people—was caused by a chain of human errors.
"Residents of this region are still uncertain about air safety after last year’s fatal accident, and the administration did shockingly little to educate the traveling public about this development before implementing it in one of the most complex airspaces in the world," Beyer said.
The congressman continued:
Unfortunately, I was informed today that air traffic controllers were not consulted on the SMART system’s design and development, and were not trained on using it prior to the system’s adoption at local airports. I was further informed that the air traffic controllers have been told the SMART system can adjust schedules and potentially even routes. Despite outward appearances, the airlines reportedly were privately "panicking" about the hasty implementation of this system. I do not know why the administration felt the need to race it into use, but it is unacceptable to use AI as a substitute for rebuilding the human-directed air traffic controller workforce.
“Dangerously rushing a system that holds Americans’ lives in its hands is not a good use case for artificial intelligence," Beyer asserted. "I call on the FAA to immediately suspend its operation, at the very least until it is clearly established beyond doubt via air traffic controller feedback and independently verified stress testing that the technology is safe."
Duffy responded to Beyer's concerns in an interview with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, saying: "I like Don [but] this is just complete stupidity. The problem with this analysis is our new software is predictive, so we can predict weather and make better decisions on when we fly and weather."
Beyer isn't the only lawmaker voicing concerns over the use of SMART. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Monday that "safety must always be the FAA's number one priority. This is extremely concerning, and we need immediate answers about what this means for travelers."
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) said that it was not involved in the SMART rollout.
“NATCA has not been involved in the design, testing, or implementation of SMART and therefore cannot speak to its effect on the air traffic control workforce at this time,” the union said, adding that any new technology “should complement and not replace the experience, training, and professional judgment of air traffic controllers who are responsible for the safety of the National Airspace System.”
The FAA's launch of SMART comes as the agency continues to suffer from a shortage of certified air traffic controllers. The Washington Post reported that the FAA had about 11,000 certified controllers as of April, more than 1,500 short of its official target of 12,563.
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Federal Judge Blocks DHS From Deporting Austin Man Shot by ICE
"DHS must not obstruct or otherwise interfere with this investigation by removing Mr. Garces Perez from the country," said lawmakers.
Sep 22, 2026
The attorney representing Wilber Rafael Garces Perez said Tuesday that a federal judge had granted her emergency request to block the Trump administration from deporting the 28-year-old delivery driver, who was shot by an immigration agent Sunday and has since been transferred multiple times between hospitals and a detention center—all while the officer's bullet reportedly remains lodged in his back.
"We have filed a federal lawsuit, and the judge has ordered that he be present at the first hearing, which is scheduled for Wednesday, September 30," said Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch. "And that means he won't be deported in the meantime."
Lincoln-Goldfinch applauded the rare piece of "good news" that has come out of Garces Perez's case since he was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent while making DoorDash deliveries in his car Sunday afternoon.
As Common Dreams reported, Garces Perez was transferred from an ICE detention center in Pearsall, Texas to a hospital late Monday after reporting that he had lost feeling in the left side of his body, likely as a result of the bullet that remained close to his spine.
But Lincoln-Goldfinch and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said Tuesday that Garces Perez had again been taken back to the detention center.
Castro said he and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) plan to visit Garces Perez at South Texas ICE Processing Center on Wednesday, to "check on his condition and demand his release."
"It is nothing more than a prison," said Castro. "Wilber came to the United States legally. He had work permits and was an asylum seeker. None of this should have ever happened."
Garces Perez arrived in the US in 2024 from Venezuela, using a government program for asylum seekers and the CBP One app that was introduced by the Biden administration to make an appointment for approval from immigration agents. He received a work permit and applied for asylum.
He mistakenly missed an immigration hearing after a notice was sent to an old address, The New York Times reported, which led to his deportation order. He has no criminal history.
Lincoln-Goldfinch had been planning to visit her client in the hospital Tuesday, where he was taken after he called in to a press conference the lawyer was holding Monday and said that he had not received medical treatment for his gunshot wound.
After speaking to Garces Perez via a video call Tuesday morning, Lincoln-Goldfinch reported on social media:
Wilber tells me that after he spoke publicly, guards at the Pearsall detention center forcibly took the tablet from his hands, revoked his communication privileges, and moved him out of the infirmary into an isolated room with a flat bed that cannot be adjusted like a medical bed.
[...]
At the hospital, Wilber says doctors finally spoke directly to him about his care and gave him IV morphine for his pain. We now understand that the gunshot fractured his clavicle and that he has significant swelling and is wearing a sling. We still do not have clarity about the cause or extent of the loss of movement he experienced.
He was discharged back to Pearsall around midnight. Today, he tells me he is receiving only Tylenol and ibuprofen for pain. He remains in isolation, on a flat bed, and without the tablet he previously used to communicate. We are asking for his communication privileges to be immediately restored and for him to be provided an appropriate medical bed and adequate medical care. Most importantly, we are continuing to advocate for Wilber’s IMMEDIATE release.
Also on Tuesday, it was revealed that the ICE agent who shot Garces Perez was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting—similar to the case of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, who was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Maine in July.
"Before we hear anything from ICE about, 'We pulled him over, or he was fleeing, or he was aggressive,' our response to any statements like that is, 'We won't believe you until you show us,'" said Goldfinch-Lincoln. "Show us your body cam footage, show us your dash cam footage."
On Tuesday, more than 100 members of Congress signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE Director David Venturella, spearheaded by Casar, calling on ICE to release Garces Perez and "abandon efforts to swiftly deport him or remove him from Texas."
"ICE has provided no justification for this shooting, and there is no indication Mr. Garces Perez posed a threat to officers," reads the letter, noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "has a history of withholding information and attempting to obstruct active investigations into wrongdoing by its agency."
"DHS must not obstruct or otherwise interfere with this investigation," said the lawmakers, "by removing Mr. Garces Perez from the country or interfering with the release of footage, data, or other information by Texas state or local agencies involved in the operation."
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Mamdani Hails Landmark DoorDash Deal as ‘Largest Settlement for Food Delivery Workers Ever’
"After years of corporate greed and impunity, we are holding DoorDash to account."
Sep 22, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday touted a settlement with food delivery app DoorDash as a "landmark win" for workers.
During a press event, Mamdani announced DoorDash had agreed to pay $131 million—of which $115 million will go directly to short-changed workers—in what he described as "the largest settlement for food delivery workers ever secured in American municipal history."
The mayor said that DoorDash's systematic exploitation and underpayment of its workers showed it profited by using "greed as a business model."
"Two months ago, Tony Xu, the CEO of DoorDash, gave business owners a piece of advice," Mamdani said. "A CEO, he said, has to take the greedy algorithm and keep going all the way to see if there is more. In computer science, a greedy algorithm is one that makes the most optimized, best short-term outcome at every step, and never weighs the consequences."
Mamdani: Today, after years of corporate greed and impunity, we are holding DoorDash to account. I am proud to announce that DoorDash will pay more than $131 million, the largest settlement for food delivery workers ever secured in American municipal history, and a landmark win… pic.twitter.com/XuCMMSyBMR
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 22, 2026
Mamdani explained that DoorDash for years "failed to count every hour worked by deliver workers," emphasizing that this was "not an accidental rounding error or a mistake."
The mayor touted the work done by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), which analyzed more than 150 million DoorDash payments and determined that the company had "underpaid more than 260,000 delivery workers across New York City" over a four-year period.
"After years of corporate greed and impunity, we are holding DoorDash to account," Mamdani said. "City Hall will not sit idly by while a megacorporation that made nearly a billion dollars in profits last year rips off the working people who keep our city moving."
A Tuesday report in The New York Times noted that, in addition to making a $131 million payout, DoorDash has also agreed to allow closer monitoring of its payment methods to ensure that its workers get what they are owed.
While the company defended its payment calculation model as "fair, practical, and legal," it also acknowledged it made mistakes that led to some workers not getting everything they had earned.
"We screwed up,” DoorDash said, “and our mistakes meant some NYC Dashers were underpaid or paid late."
DCWP Commissioner Samuel Levine told the Times that the city's settlement with the delivery app "sends a strong message that we are in a new era of enforcement in New York," adding that "we will not tolerate nickeling and diming New York City workers."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of Campaign for New York Healthcare, said in a Tuesday social media post that the DoorDash settlement showed the importance of electing leaders willing to take on corporate power.
"Just in case you were wondering why DoorDash was spending so much money to elect Andrew Cuomo and oppose Zohran Mamdani," D'Arrigo observed, "DoorDash now has to pay $115 million to the workers it stole wages from."
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'Do I Drive Them Into Hell?' Trump Again Threatens to 'Annihilate' Iran in Genocidal UN Speech
"Trump doesn’t know how to end the war he started with Iran," said one critic. "He’s so desperate that he’s threatening war crimes in front of the entire United Nations."
Sep 22, 2026
In a rambling, lie-laden speech Tuesday to world leaders gathered at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, US President Donald Trump again threatened to "annihilate" Iran if its leaders don't agree to a deal to end the illegal war of choice he started nearly seven months ago in the Middle Eastern country.
"I have a big decision to make," Trump said. "Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?"
"Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?" the president continued. "But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already and won in a landslide."
President Trump says Iran deal will be made after the midterm elections, and says he has decision between a deal with Iran or destroying them: "Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?" pic.twitter.com/Y5K6v4B326
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 22, 2026
Trump has repeatedly threatened to destroy Iran—a country of over 90 million people—since his first term. However, his latest menacing remarks raised eyebrows for their brazeness on the world stage.
"It’s one thing to make genocidal threats against a nation on social media. It’s another thing to do it from the podium of the UN," University of Colorado Law School associate professor Maryam Jamshidi said on X. "That's what Donald Trump just did. He used his speech at the UN to threaten Iran with annihilation."
While Jamshidi urged UN Secretary-General António Guterres and member states to condemn Trump's threat, independent journalist Taylor Noakes said of Trump that "what’s particularly sad about this (aside from the fact he’ll likely never be prosecuted for war crimes) is how so many leaders of other liberal democracies have stood by and done nothing while the Americans make a mockery of the UN as an instrument for global order."
The Democratic veterans group VoteVets accused Trump of "casually contemplating war crimes in front of the entire UN [General] Assembly," calling his threat "deranged and dangerous."
Bonus for whoever wrote this chyron
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— Brandy Zadrozny (@brandyzadrozny.bsky.social) September 22, 2026 at 7:54 AM
Journalist Mehdi Hasan said: "For shame. The president of the United States goes to the United Nations and threatens genocide against a UN member state in front of the world. This is where we’re at."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), called Trump's comments "dangerously unhinged."
"Such rhetoric is not merely reckless, it is a criminal threat of genocide against an entire nation," he added. "US lawmakers and US partners around the world should condemn Trump’s remarks and take all due steps to bring an end to the war on Iran.”
Trump didn't just openly mull committing war crimes, he groundlessly boasted in his speech that the US "has carried out dozens of strikes on cartel drug boats, destroying 97% of the drugs coming into the ocean and sea."
Citing data from US Southern Command and Trump administration officials, The New York Times says that at least 234 people have been killed in a minimum of 70 strikes on boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The administration has provided no solid evidence to support its trafficking allegations. Regional leaders and relatives of victims contend that at least some people killed in the strikes were fishers with no narcotrafficking ties. Legal experts assert that the attacks violate international law regardless of whether or not the targeted vessels were engaged in drug trafficking.
Trump's speech was laced with demonstrably false or unfounded statements, including an accusation that the Iranian government killed 72,000 people this year, that his invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro left the US with "more than 60% of the oil in the world," that his administration "ended the war in Gaza," and that he settled eight wars.
"Donald Trump’s maniacal rant before the UN General Assembly today, complete with ridiculous braggadocio, narcissistic puffery, an almost unbroken line of absurd, demonstrable lies, open criminality, and deranged, murderous threats, should awaken even the most cowardly and complicit among world leaders that their attempts at appeasement of Trump and the tyrannical axis that he leads can only result in further aggression, economic terrorism, murder, and genocide," said Craig Mokhiber, a former senior UN official who resigned in protest of what he described as the world body's failure to stop Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
"The world must unite to counter the threat and to defend peace, human rights, and the rule of law," he added, "which are, after all, declared purposes of the UN."
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Weighing 2028 White House Run, AOC Says Stakes of Race Would Be ‘All or Nothing’
"Life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things," the Democratic congresswoman said amid nationwide progressive political momentum. "Sometimes life just makes things ready for you."
Sep 22, 2026
As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weighs whether to run for president in 2028, there are numerous factors that complicate her decision: her identity as a Latina woman, her role as a leader in a progressive movement on the verge of unprecedented power, and her considerations about raising a family in the future.
Whatever decision the 36-year-old Democratic congresswoman makes, however, it will be “all or nothing,” she said in an interview published Tuesday by The New York Times, in which she spoke candidly about the stakes of what would be a historic and potentially transformative bid for the nation’s highest office.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 2018 in a victory over the Democratic Party establishment that became a model for the wave of progressive momentum that has defined this year’s cycle.
Amid what she described as the “ascendance” of her movement—marked by the insurgent victories of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed over opponents with establishment support and big money behind them—Ocasio-Cortez is now wondering aloud whether her own moment has arrived.
“There’s an argument that some make that this is a very unique political window and, oftentimes in politics, you do only get one shot,” she said. “And you don’t—and just in life in general—life doesn’t wait for you to be ready for things. Sometimes life just makes things ready for you.”
But she is well aware of the obstacles and sacrifices, both personal and political. Having recently opened up publicly about receiving fertility treatments, she wondered aloud what a potential candidacy might mean for her life, including a possible future pregnancy.
She is also well aware that she would be up against the weight of very recent history. Two of the last three Democratic candidates for president, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Vice President Kamala Harris, were women, and they both lost to President Donald Trump after campaigns in which sexism—and, in Harris’ case, racism—featured prominently in attacks against them.
“Pretty candidly, I think about my identity," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I’m not naïve to the fact that we are living under a very regressive administration, and I happen to be a woman, and I, you know, happen to be Latina. And I think that there’s a lot of conversation about electability, and I don’t kind of shy away from those realities.”
Those realities are indeed hard to ignore, especially in contrast to her mentor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who ran two formidable Democratic primary campaigns for president in 2016 and 2020 and with whom Ocasio-Cortez embarked on a wildly successful "Fight Oligarchy" rally tour last year, speaking to large crowds in both red and blue districts.
Though they have long campaigned together and advance a platform centered on the same signature policies of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a tax on billionaire wealth, Sanders consistently ranks among the most well-liked politicians in office, while a New York Times/Siena poll this month showed AOC with just 30% favorability, compared with 41% unfavorability among likely voters.
There are other paths in front of AOC that could put her on a more traditional long-term trajectory to the White House, which has never in modern history been occupied by a president who ascended straight from the US House.
She also said she was considering a primary bid against the Democratic Party's current Senate leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), whom many Democratic voters have come to see as the embodiment of all that is sclerotic and unchanging about their party's entrenched elite.
At a time when backing from corporations and other powerful special interests plays an unprecedented role in achieving political power, Ocasio-Cortez emphasized her near-exclusive backing from small donors, which she said makes her one of "very few people who are financially independent from special interests that are able to advocate directly for the needs of working people.”
Regardless of the decision she makes, she recognizes the enormous stakes.
“It’s very all or nothing,” she said. “If I were to run in this cycle, and not win, I would be done.”
“And I am not opposed to that,” she added. “That, in and of itself, does not exclude the decision... But it has to make it worth it.”
Ocasio-Cortez has previously emphasized that her "ambitions" have less to do with achieving the highest possible seat for herself than with helping her movement succeed.
“My ambition is to change this country,” she said during a forum in May. “Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever, a living wage is forever, workers’ rights are forever, women’s rights, all of that.”
She told the Times that the question that will ultimately determine her path forward is: "Where can I do the most good?”
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