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Dazed and Confused and Bigly Kingly For A Day
As our decrepit despot traipsed across Asia, he was fêted by leaders anxious to dodge his peevish trade wars by assiduously plying him, as one would for any dangerous, demented child, with adoration and treats: burgers, golf clubs, trinkets, ketchup and, in South Korea, even a crown for the wounded boy who would be king. Still, he couldn't keep up. In Japan, he wandered off mid-glitzy-ceremony like a nursing-home gramps looking for pudding, to be steered back in place. Nothing to see here.
The decline, of course, is ongoing. Monday, Trump told reporters he'd gone to Walter Reed Medical Center and gotten an MRI as part of a "routine yearly checkup,” except he'd just had one six months ago and an MRI is decisively not part of a routine test, but not to worry: He said it was "perfect," except that doesn't exist. For those inexplicably wondering about his cognitive state, he said he also aced a "very hard" sort of "aptitude test," except it's a very basic dementia screening that requires the patient to solve elementary-school level problems like remembering five words, identifying a giraffe or lion, and drawing a clock; he added that the test "took a while" and "was difficult,” two key factors doctors consider when assessing cognitive skills
Then, days before the expiration of federal food benefits that could leave tens of millions of Americans facing hunger along with soaring health insurance costs, and as the House GOP remains MIA during what could be the longest shutdown in history, he left for a six-day, gold-plated tour of Asia, because fuck you all. In Malaysia, he cringe "danced" with "zero class"; in Japan, he got a red carpet, golf clubs, and lost. On Wednesday, heading to fraught trade talks with both South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and then Chinese President Xi Jinping, he landed in South Korea to a hero's welcome: a brass band playing YMCA - gay hookups! - a red carpet adorned with multi-hued flags - "That was a very good red carpet" - and President Lee in a custom-made gold tie.
Leaning into the theme of peace to honor Trump's famed, fictional role as a "global peacemaker" - and clearly eager to get Trump's vengeful, randomly spiked 25% tariffs back down to a manageable 15% - Lee was just getting started on his campaign for Sycophant of the Week Award. An official lunch, bedecked with peace lilies, featured “mini beef patties with ketchup” and Thousand Island Dressing in a nod to Trump’s “success story in his hometown of New York." The menu also included a "Korean Platter of Sincerity" - U.S. beef and local rice - grilled fish with a glaze of ketchup and gochujang chili paste, and a "Peacemaker’s Dessert” of a brownie adorned with gold. After the ketchup and gold brownie came the shiny, kingly baubles
Days after almost eight million furious Americans protested Trump's abuses under the mantra No Kings, in a lavish ceremony at Gyeongju National Museum, Lee presented Trump with...a crown. Specifically, a replica of one of several 1,000-year-old crowns excavated from the ancient, golden Silla Kingdom that ruled much of the Korean Peninsula until the 10th century, and fell due to corruption and oppression. Hmm. The crown represents a time of peace and unity, an official said, as the first dynasty to unify the Peninsula's three kingdoms; it "symbolizes the divine connection between the authority of the heavens and the sovereignty on Earth," as well as the authority of a strong leader. Trump, wooed and dazzled, stared raptly, a kid at a humongous candy store.
Lee also awarded him the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, their highest civil honor, a medal hung from a golden collar. Trump happily burbled over his swag; then they talked trade. Ultimately, they "pretty much finalized" a deal for South Korea to pump $350 billion into the U.S.economy in exchange for returning tariffs to 15%, including on cars; Trump also said they'd cooperate on shipbuilding, with the Koreans allegedly building a nuclear sub at a former Philly shipyard experts say will be equipped to do it, like, never. But he got a crown! Other details on the deal's "structure" are unresolved - like the Gaza "truce?" - nor are tensions on security costs. Polls show most South Koreans don't trust Trump, but feel they need the U.S. economically to fend off China, a bigger threat, so good luck on that.
Like everywhere else, the talks were met by protests that echoed ours; signs read, “No Kings," "Trump Not Welcome," "This Is Robbery Not Negotiation." Said one protester, “It seems the U.S. (is) treating South Korea as its cash cow." Before leaving, Trump also met with China's Xi Jinping in Busan. Trump later called the meeting "amazing" and "12 out of 10," with agreements on "many important points," including soybeans, rare earths and much lower tariffs than the 100% Trump at some point wildly threatened in one of his hissy fits. He also said, “Ukraine came up very strongly," because he never learned to speak English. There have been no statements about the meeting from the Chinese, so God knows what actually, really happened there.
As a befuddled, newly crowned king returns to his fractured country, he may be mulling where to put his new bling in a space packed with Tim Apple's plaque, his Olympic medals, the World Cup he stole and other ill-begotten gains. Others are wondering what happened to the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause that bars officeholders from accepting personal gifts "from any king, prince or foreign state" worth more than about $480. Asked about the issue, a White House spokesperson asserted that Trump is "working night and day on behalf of the American people." He could be. Or maybe, amidst the fog and lies and phantasms he inhabits, he's trying to remember what just happened during his recent "Weekend at Donnie's territory."
Whatever he may have accomplished by way of reversing the catastrophic effects of his own economic idiocy, for many the enduring image of his trip will be viewed through the twisted prism of his Tuesday misadventures in Japan, when, Monty Python-style, he lost the thread during a welcoming ceremony in Tokyo. Now-viral videos show Japan's new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi gently guiding Trump as they somberly walk through a palatial room filled with dignitaries; a stunned Trump abruptly halts, stares at an Honor Guard, shuffles past US/Japanese flags where he should stop, aimlessly lumbers on, randomly salutes, lurches ahead and gapes at the band as, behind him, an aghast Takaichi bows as expected before rushing to drag him back to earth.
The spectacle of a U.S.president with mush for brains stumbling around a palace like a toddler lost at the mall before marching up to shake hands with his own entourage was too much for many. "Bro has no idea what is going on," said one. Also, "Is this real life? This guy has control of our nukes." It was noted, if it's any consolation, he probably has no idea how to launch them; it was also noted Stephen Miller would happily do it for him. It was suggested "this is that 'high energy' we always hear about," that "his handlers should put a shock-collar on him (so) when he wanders off they can just zap him back to coherence," that "it's great, totally cool knowing this guy gets to do whatever he wants these days." One thing to look forward to: "Can't wait for this guy to ask what happened to the East Wing." What a time to be alive, for now.
'The Stuff of Nightmares': Hurricane Melissa Makes Catastrophic Landfall in Jamaica
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a monstrous Category 5 storm as the island country braced for devastating impacts, humanitarian operations urgently mobilized, and experts voiced horror at the latest climate-fueled weather disaster.
"This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation," the National Hurricane Center said in an update after the storm made landfall.
Early video footage posted to social media shows the storm—the most powerful to ever strike the island and the third-strongest to ever form in the Atlantic—wreaking havoc and destruction.
🇯🇲 | Video que muestra los daños y las inundaciones en el área de Black River, Jamaica, por el huracán Melissa. pic.twitter.com/k6RZDE9jdB
— Entredostv (@Entredostv1) October 28, 2025
Anne-Claire Fontan, the World Meteorological Organization's tropical cyclone specialist, told reporters that "a catastrophic situation is expected in Jamaica" and described the hurricane as "the storm of the century" for the island. Melissa's landfall is expected to bring extreme flooding, landslides, and other life-threatening impacts.
Tens of thousands of Jamaicans lost power as the slow-moving storm approached the island, bringing torrential rain and maximum sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts over 220 mph. Storms like Melissa are the reason scientists are pushing to formally add a Category 6 for hurricanes.
"Unimaginable violence is hiding in the very small and compact eyewall of Melissa," said Greg Postel, hurricane specialist at The Weather Channel. "Nearly continuous lightning will accompany the tornadic wind speeds."
The International Federation of the Red Cross said up to 1.5 million people in Jamaica—roughly half the island's population—are expected to be directly affected by Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm on Earth this year.
"We are okay at the moment but bracing ourselves for the worst," Jamaican climate activist Tracey Edwards said Tuesday. "I've grown weary of these threats, and I do not want to face the next hurricane."
The International Organization for Migration warned that "the risk of flooding, landslides, and widespread damage is extremely high," meaning that "many people are likely to be displaced from their homes and in urgent need of shelter and relief."
Melissa's landfall came on the same day that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the international community has failed to prevent planetary warming from surpassing the key 1.5°C threshold "in the next few years."
Meteorologist Eric Holthaus wrote on social media that "this is the news I've dreaded all my life."
"Humanity has failed to avoid dangerous climate change," he wrote. "We have now entered the overshoot era. Our new goal is to prevent as many irreversible tipping points from taking hold as we can."
Hurricane Melissa will make landfall in Jamaica in a few hours as one of the two strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall anywhere in the Atlantic Basin -- on par with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in south Florida.Just horrific. The stuff of nightmares.
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— Eric Holthaus (@ericholthaus.com) Oct 28, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Climate experts said Hurricane Melissa bears unmistakable fingerprints of the planetary crisis, which is driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
The warming climate is "clearly making this horrific disaster for Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas even worse," Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, told the New York Times.
Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told the Associated Press that the Atlantic "is extremely warm right now."
"And it's not just the surface," said Deoras. "The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm."
Amira Odeh, Caribbean campaigner at 350.org, warned in a statement Tuesday that "what is happening in Jamaica is what climate injustice looks like."
"Every home without electricity, every flooded hospital, every family cut off by the storm is a consequence of political inaction," said Odeh. "We cannot continue losing Caribbean lives because of the fossil fuel industry's greed."
"As world leaders head to COP30, they must understand that every delay, every new fossil fuel project, means more lives lost," Odeh added. "Jamaica is the latest warning, and Belém must be where we finally see a steer to change courses. The Caribbean is sounding the alarm once again. This time, the world must listen."
This story was updated after Hurricane Melissa made landfall.
Trump CFPB Moves to Bar States From Wiping Medical Debt Off Credit Reports
The Trump administration is moving to undercut state-level efforts to wipe medical debt from Americans' credit reports, just as millions across the country are facing massive healthcare premium increases stemming from congressional Republicans' refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies.
On Tuesday, according to reporting by The Lever and Bloomberg Law, the Russell Vought-led Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will publish a nonbinding interpretive rule arguing that federal statute "generally preempts state laws that touch on areas of credit reporting."
The guidance aligns with views expressed by a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas who, earlier this year, vacated a Biden-era CFPB rule that would have prohibited the inclusion of medical debt on consumer credit reports. The Trump administration, which has repeatedly violated court orders, is complying with the decision.
Medical debt is a growing crisis in the United States: Roughly 14 million adults owe more than $1,000 in medical debt, and an estimated 20% of Americans have medical debt on their credit reports.
Supporters of removing medical debt from credit reports argue it is not a reliable measure of creditworthiness. The Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at UC Berkeley notes that "medical debt often reflects the simple misfortune of getting sick unexpectedly and having to face a medical system that is rife with insurance stonewalling, delay, and mistakes."
More than a dozen states—including California, Colorado, and New York—have moved to curb the reporting of medical debt, which accounts for a significant percentage of personal bankruptcies in the US.
The Lever reported that the Trump administration's position that federal law overrides state laws is being echoed "by industry groups to advance their ongoing litigation to overturn the 15 state laws."
"For example," the outlet observed, "the Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents credit reporting companies like Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, is likewise arguing that federal laws void state-level regulations of their conduct as part of their effort to block Maine's medical debt law."
Chi Chi Wu, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, told Bloomberg Law that the Trump CFPB's assault on efforts to remove medical debt from credit reports adds "salt to the wound" as tens of millions of people face surging healthcare premiums.
Writing for MSNBC over the weekend, Century Foundation president Julie Margetta Morgan warned that "the spike in premiums won't just blow an even bigger hole in families' future budgets."
"It will pour gasoline on the already raging fire of medical debt in this country," she added, "and government leaders at all levels are not prepared for it."
DOJ Suspends Prosecutors Who Accurately Described January 6 as a ‘Riot’ by a ‘Mob’
In the Trump administration's latest attempt to rewrite the history of the January 6, 2021 insurrection attempt at the US Capitol, the Department of Justice has suspended a pair of federal prosecutors who referred to the attack as a "riot" carried out by a "mob."
The Washington Post reported that assistant US attorneys Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White were told they were suspended on Wednesday, "hours" after filing a sentencing recommendation against Taylor Taranto, a Washington state man accused of participating in the attack on the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of President Donald Trump's loss in the 2020 election.
Taranto allegedly entered the building and fought with Metro police officers as they tried to control the crowd, as well as other riot participants.
The case was not related to Taranto's actions at the Capitol in 2021—the charges against him were dropped after Trump issued blanket pardons to more than 1,500 people who took part in the riot.
Taranto was instead being sentenced for a "hoax" he perpetrated when he returned to Washington, DC two years later: He livestreamed himself making threats to several high-profile individuals, including former President Barack Obama, whose address he'd driven to after Trump had posted it to social media. He claimed—falsely, it turned out—that he'd outfitted his van with a car bomb that he planned to detonate outside the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The sentencing document recommended that Taranto serve a 27-month sentence. However, what appears to have drawn the ire of the DOJ and led to the suspension of the prosecutors is how the document referred to the events at the Capitol, which it mentioned in passing as part of the case's factual background:
On January 6, 2021, thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol while a joint session of Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Taranto was accused of participating in the riot in Washington, DC, by entering the US Capitol Building. After the riot, Taranto returned to his home in the state of Washington, where he promoted conspiracy theories about the events of January 6, 2021.
As Politico reporter Kyle Cheney noted on social media, this description of the events of January 6 is "flatly accurate." Numerous pieces of video evidence show rioters using physical force and violence in an attempt to occupy the Capitol building.
As the New York Times described at the time, it was "perhaps the most widely documented act of political violence in history." Participants were recorded bashing through doors and windows. They were shown beating police officers with objects from flagpoles to fire extinguishers and attacking them with chemical irritants. They were also heard chanting for the execution of members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence, who'd refused to take part in Trump's effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
A report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office released in 2023 found that the attack resulted in the injury of 174 law enforcement officers, while DOJ and Capitol administrators say it required over $3 million worth of cleanup and repairs.
According to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, White and Valdivia's description of these events as a "riot" and its participants as a "mob" resulted in their near immediate punishment.
They were told they were being furloughed due to the government shutdown and would be placed on administrative leave once it ended. According to ABC News, the pair of prosecutors was also locked out of their government-issued devices.
Notably, Trump's own handpicked US Attorney, Jeanine Pirro—a former Fox News host renowned for her undying loyalty to the president—also signed off on the document. However, unlike White and Valdivia, she has not reportedly received any punishment.
The DOJ has not issued a public comment on the decision, and it remains unclear whether the suspension of White and Valdivia will affect Taranto's sentencing. But it's not the first time the DOJ, headed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, has sought to punish those who prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists.
Dozens of the top prosecutors and FBI investigators who worked on cases against January 6 defendants and against Trump for inciting them have been fired.
Early in Trump's second term, the DOJ also demanded that the FBI turn over the identities of the more than 6,000 agents and other employees involved in investigating the attack. After Brian Driscoll, then the acting FBI director, attempted to resist the order, he was pushed out, and the identifying info was handed over.
Trump, meanwhile, has openly embraced the insurrectionists, describing them as "patriots," and attempted to push false theories attesting to their innocence—including that hundreds of agents placed by the "Biden FBI" started the insurrection, a claim that his own FBI director, Kash Patel, would refute.
On Wednesday, just hours before news broke of White and Valdivia's suspensions, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the "thugs" at the FBI who investigated Republican lawmakers over their roles in allegedly supporting the insurrection "should all be investigated and put in jail" and called Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who investigated the case against him for inciting the mob, "deranged" and "a criminal."
"The Trump administration is explicitly pro-January 6," wrote Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, on social media. "You can get suspended from your job as a federal prosecutor for even acknowledging that there was a riot at the Capitol."
'I'm Going to Fight': Progressive Candidate Kat Abughazaleh Defiant After Being Indicted by Trump DOJ
Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive candidate running for the US House of Representatives in Illinois' 9th Congressional District, struck a defiant tone on Wednesday after being indicted on federal charges by the US Department of Justice.
As MSNBC reports, the charges against Abughazaleh relate to her frequent protests outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, Illinois. She faces one count of conspiracy to impede or injure an ICE officer, and one count of assaulting or impeding that officer while he was engaged in his official duties.
According to MSNBC, the indictment accuses Abughazaleh and five other anti-ICE protestors of "banging aggressively" on an ICE vehicle's back windows and hood, as well as "pushing against it to 'hinder and impede its movement,' and etching the word 'PIG' on the car."
In a video posted on social media after the indictment, Abughazaleh labeled the criminal charges as baseless and an attempt to intimidate Americans out of exercising their First Amendment rights to protest.
"This is a political prosecution and a gross attempt to silence dissent," she said. "This case is a major push by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish anyone who speaks out against them. That's why I'm going to fight these unjust charges."
Abughazaleh proceeded to accuse ICE agents of physically assaulting peaceful demonstrators outside the Broadview facility "simply because we had the gall to say masked men coming into our communities, abducting our neighbors, and terrorizing us cannot be our new normal."
She then closed her video by asking that her supporters show courage in the face of attempts to intimidate them.
"As scary as all this is, I have spent my career fighting America's backslide into fascism," she said. "I'm not going to stop now. And I hope you won't either."
I have been charged in a federal indictment sought by the Department of Justice.
This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win. pic.twitter.com/szOSZa1h3z
— Kat Abughazaleh (@KatAbughazaleh) October 29, 2025
Abughazaleh has been a regular presence at protests outside the Broadview facility, and an ICE officer last month was caught on camera throwing her to the ground during a demonstration.
Federal law enforcement officials stationed in Broadview have faced numerous accusations of deploying excessive force, including from Rev. David Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, who was shot repeatedly with pepper balls while peacefully protesting outside the ICE facility.
UN Votes to Urge US to Lift Cuba Embargo for 33rd Time as Island Ravaged by Hurricane Melissa
As Cuba was among the Caribbean nations hit by one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution calling on the US government to end its 65-year-old embargo on the country.
The final tally for the resolution was 165 nations voting in favor, with just seven nations opposed. Twelve nations abstained from voting.
This now marks the 33rd consecutive year that the UN General Assembly has voted in favor of a resolution to end the US embargo, which has economically isolated Cuba for decades even as the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, which had long been used to justify the blockade, ended more than three decades ago.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told the assembly ahead of the vote that the US blockade was "a policy of collective punishment" that "flagrantly, massively, and systematically violates the human rights of Cubans." Nonetheless, Rodriguez vowed that "Cuba will not surrender."
The International Peoples' Assembly, a coalition of 200 trade unions and social justice groups, noted that the vote was taking place as Hurricane Melissa was "worsening the economic, structural, and living conditions of the Cuban people"—suffering that is likely to be compounded by the embargo.
Representatives from several other Latin American nations made the case for ending the US embargo during speeches delivered at the UN on Wednesday.
"The accumulation of economic suffocation imposed from abroad for generations is equivalent to the destruction caused by war," said Venezuelan UN ambassador Samuel Moncada. "Because the blockade is an act of economic war, aimed at subduing an entire population through hunger, disease, and death. This is the truth the US seeks to hide when they call this crime simply a political measure."
Walton Alfonsi Webson, Antigua and Barbuda's ambassador to the UN, described Cuba as a "vital partner" in the region and demanded that the US "remove the embargo and let the Cuban people breathe."
Colombian UN ambassador Leonor Zalabata noted that Cuba has played a crucial role in helping uphold a 2016 peace treaty between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla organization that agreed to disarm as part of a ceasefire deal that ended decades of violent conflict.
"Cuba has been, and continues to be, a trusted partner in efforts to consolidate peace in Colombia and across the region," she said.
At the UN, Latin American and Caribbean leaders demanded an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba — calling it “an act of economic warfare.” Dozens of nations condemned Washington’s sanctions and urged the U.S. to let Cuba breathe.
Watch what they said.#Cuba #UN #Embargo #LetCubaLive pic.twitter.com/Qr4up0dc4i
— Belly of the Beast (@bellybeastcuba) October 29, 2025
Despite overwhelming support at the UN for lifting the embargo, the resolution's passage will have no real-world impact on US foreign policy since ending the decades-old blockade would require an act of US Congress.
The latest vote to lift the US embargo came as Hurricane Melissa was causing massive devastation in Cuba and countries throughout the Caribbean. According to CNN, the hurricane was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall in Cuba early Wednesday morning, and it forced at least 735,000 Cubans to evacuate their homes.
A Secretive Program Has Let Cops Spend Hundreds of Millions on Weapons of War, Report Shows
“Our tax dollars are being weaponized against us,” said the head of the Center for International Policy.
State and local governments have spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars helping cops wage “war” against their own residents under a secretive and opaque program that allows the police to purchase discounted military-style equipment from the federal government.
Over the past three decades, the obscure 1122 Program has let states and cities equip local cops with everything from armored vehicles to military grade rifles to video surveillance tech, according to a report published Thursday by Women for Weapons Trade Transparency, part of the Center for International Policy.
Using open records requests, which were necessary due to the lack of any standardized auditing or record-keeping system for the program, the group obtained over $126 million worth of purchasing data across 13 states, four cities, and two counties since the program's creation in 1994. Based on these figures, they projected the total spending across all 50 states was likely in the "upper hundreds of millions of dollars."
“The 1122 Program diverts public money from essential community needs and public goods into military-style equipment for local police,” said Rosie Khan, the co-founder of Women for Weapons Trade Transparency. “The $126.87 million spent on militarized police equipment and surveillance technology could have instead provided housing support for 10,000+ people for a year, supplied 43 million school meals, or repaired roads and bridges in dozens of communities.”
Congress created the 1122 Program at the height of the War on Drugs, authorizing it under the 1994 National Defense Authorization Act to provide police departments with equipment to carry out counter-drug operations. It was not the first program of its kind, but followed in the footsteps of the more widely known 1033 Program, which has funneled over $7 billion of excess military equipment to police departments.
But there are a few critical differences: 1033 is subject to rigorous federal record-keeping, while 1122 has no such requirement. And unlike 1033, which transfers equipment that was already purchased but not needed, 1122 allows states and cities to spend money to purchase new equipment.
The program's scope ballooned dramatically in 2009 after another NDAA added "homeland security" and "emergency response" missions to its purview. As the report explains, "no regulatory mechanisms are ensuring that equipment is used for counter-drug, homeland security, or emergency response purposes. In fact, the scope of these missions was never defined."
Increasingly, it has been used to provide police with equipment that has often been deployed against protesters, including $6.2 million for weapons, weapons training, and riot gear. Among the equipment purchased in this category was pepper spray, batons, gas masks, and riot shields.
By far, the largest expenditures under the program have been the more than $85 million spent on various armored trucks, vans, and sedans.
Police departments have spent an additional $6 million to purchase at least 16 Lenco BearCats, which cost around $300,000 apiece. These were among the military vehicles used by police to suppress the racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020.
As recently as October 3, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were documented aboard a Bearcat in full military garb and menacing protesters with sniper rifles outside the notorious immigrant detention facility in Broadview, Illinois.
In July, Los Angeles ICE agents were filmed using a vehicle to run over multiple protesters who attempted to block their path.
Another $9.6 million was spent on surveillance equipment, including license plate readers, video and audio recording devices, and subscriptions to spying software that uses sophisticated facial recognition and social media monitoring technology to track people's movements and associations.
The report highlights the increasing use of this technology by college police departments, like Northern Virginia Community College, which spent over $2.7 million on surveillance tech through 1122. College police departments have used this sort of technology to go after student protesters and activists, especially amid last year's nationwide explosion of pro-Palestine demonstrations across campuses.
At Yale, which has made "surveillance cameras, drones, and social media tracking... standard tools in the police department's arsenal," one student was apprehended last year and charged with a felony for removing an American flag from its pole using the school's surveillance system.
The report's authors call for Congress to sunset the 1122 Program and direct its funding toward "a version of public safety that prioritizes care, accountability, and community well-being rather than militarized force."
“Lawmakers, including federal and state legislators and city council representatives," it says, "must act with the urgency that this moment requires to prevent a catastrophically violent takeover of civil society by police, federal agents, and corporations profiting from exponentially increasing surveillance, criminalization, and brute force.”
They note the increasing urgency to end the program under President Donald Trump, who—on the first day of his second term—reversed an executive order from former President Joe Biden that restricted the sale of some of the most aggressive weaponry to local police forces.
“Local police have been given more avenues to arm themselves with military-style equipment during an era of heightened arrests, forced removals, and crackdowns on free speech. These disturbing political shifts have undermined the crucial work of coalitions for police accountability," the report says.
Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Center for International Policy said: "Our tax dollars are being weaponized against us under the guise of ‘domestic terrorism.'”
"As talk of a ‘war from within’ grows louder," she says, the new report "exposes how this rhetoric fuels real assaults on democracy and civil rights.”
Dems Failed to Scrap Filibuster Under Biden. Now Trump Wants 'Nuclear Option' to End Shutdown
"I hate to say I told you so but... I fucking told you so," wrote progressive journalist Mehdi Hasan, who repeatedly urged Senate Democrats to end the filibuster during Joe Biden's presidency.
US President Donald Trump late Thursday urged Senate Republicans to scrap the legislative filibuster to end the prolonged government shutdown without Democratic support—the kind of scenario progressives warned about when imploring Democrats to eliminate the 60-vote threshold during former President Joe Biden's term.
In an all-caps post to Truth Social, Trump wrote that "THE CHOICE IS CLEAR—INITIATE THE 'NUCLEAR OPTION,' GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Trump noted Democrats' failure to terminate the filibuster when they controlled Congress under Biden, pointing specifically to the central role that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—both of whom have since left office and the Democratic Party—played in obstructing filibuster reform.
"Just a short while ago, the Democrats, while in power, fought for three years to do this, but were unable to pull it off because of Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Never have the Democrats fought so hard to do something because they knew the tremendous strength that terminating the Filibuster would give them," Trump wrote. "Now I want to do it in order to take advantage of the Democrats."
With the filibuster intact, 60 votes are required to pass most legislation in the Senate. Republicans currently hold 53 Senate seats.
Progressives warned repeatedly during Biden's presidency that Republicans wouldn't hesitate to scrap the filibuster in the future should the 60-vote threshold become a severe hindrance to their agenda. Abolishing the legislative filibuster to end the shutdown would clear the way for other Republican policy proposals to get through the Senate with simple-majority support.
"I spent the entire Biden presidency warning idiotic establishment Senate Dems and Biden who opposed getting rid of the filibuster that Trump and the GOP would come back to power and do it themselves," journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote Thursday in response to the president's demands. "I hate to say I told you so but... I fucking told you so."
Adam Jentleson, former chief of staff for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and a vocal advocate of ending the filibuster, noted that "it's pretty easy" to initiate the "nuclear option" on the filibuster "because despite everything, the Senate is a majority rule institution, per the Founders' design."
"The rule that overrides all other rules is that a majority of senators can vote at any time to change the rules—including getting rid of the filibuster, which the Founders abhorred anyway," Jentleson wrote late Thursday. "They could do it tomorrow! No preparation needed."
Trump's demand comes as millions of people across the US are set to lose federal nutrition assistance due to the shutdown and the administration's illegal refusal to tap emergency funds to pay out the benefits.
Millions of Americans are also facing the prospect of skyrocketing health insurance premiums as Trump and congressional Republicans decline to support extending Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said earlier this month that he would oppose scrapping the filibuster to end the shutdown, but he could change his position amid Trump's pressure campaign.
One progressive, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), has called for a filibuster carveout that would allow senators to keep the government open with a simple-majority vote.
"I've been consistent on this," Khanna said in an interview in early October. "I said this when Biden was president, and I'm now saying it when Trump's president."
Trump Ripped for 'Absurdly Low' and 'Racist' Refugee Cap Prioritizing White South Africans
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," said the head of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
After months of reporting, President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday officially announced that it is restricting the number of refugees for this fiscal year to 7,500, with most spots going to white South Africans—a policy swiftly denounced by human rights advocates and Democrats in Congress.
"This decision doesn't just lower the refugee admissions ceiling. It lowers our moral standing," said Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge. "For more than four decades, the US refugee program has been a lifeline for families fleeing war, persecution, and repression. At a time of crisis in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Venezuela to Sudan and beyond, concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the program's purpose as well as its credibility."
The Trump administration's notice in the Federal Register doesn't mention any groups besides Afrikaners, white descendants of Europeans who subjected South Africa's majority Black population to a system of apartheid for decades. Multiple rich Trump backers—including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Palantir founder Peter Thiel—spent time in the country during those years.
The 7,500 cap, initially reported earlier this month, is a significant drop from both the 40,000 limit that was previously reported as under consideration by the Republican administration, and the more than 100,000 allowed under former Democratic President Joe Biden.
Four congressional Democrats who serve as ranking members on related committees—Reps. Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), along with Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Alex Padilla (Calif.)—issued a joint statement condemning the new cap, which they noted is "an astonishing 94% cut over last year and the lowest level in our nation's history."
"To add insult to injury, the administration is skipping over the tens of thousands of refugees who have been waiting in line for years in dire circumstances to come to the United States, and it is instead prioritizing a single privileged racial group—white South African Afrikaners—for these severely limited slots," they said. "This bizarre presidential determination is not only morally indefensible, it is illegal and invalid."
The four lawmakers continued:
The administration has brazenly ignored the statutory requirement to consult with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before setting the annual refugee admissions ceiling. That process exists to ensure that decisions of such great consequence reflect our nation's values, our humanitarian commitments, and the rule of law, not the racial preferences or political whims of any one president.
The reason for this evasion is evident: The administration knows it cannot defend its egregious policy before Congress or the American people. While nearly 130,000 vetted, approved refugees—men, women, and children fleeing persecution and violence—wait in limbo after being promised a chance at safety, Donald Trump is looking to turn refugee admissions into another political giveaway for his pet projects and infatuations.
We reject this announcement as both unlawful and contrary to America's longstanding commitment to offer refuge to the persecuted. To twist our refugee policy into a partisan straightjacket is to betray both our legal obligations and our moral identity as a nation.
"Let's call this what it is—white supremacy disguised as refugee policy," declared Guerline Jozef, executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. "At a time when Black refugees from Haiti, Sudan, the Congo, and Cameroon are drowning at sea, languishing in detention, or being deported to death, the US government has decided to open its arms to those who already enjoy global privilege. This is not just immoral—it's anti-Blackness codified into federal policy."
This week alone, Hurricane Melissa killed more than 20 people in Haiti, and health officials said that the Rapid Support Forces, which are fighting against Sudan's government, killed over 1,500 people—including more than 460 systematically slaughtered at a maternity hospital—in the city of el-Fasher.
"We reject the idea that whiteness equates to worthiness," Jozef said of Trump's new refugee plan. She also took aim at the president's broader anti-immigrant policy, which has included deporting hundreds of people to El Salvador's so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
"From Del Rio to Lampedusa, Black migrants and other immigrants of color have been criminalized, beaten, caged, and disappeared in CECOT camp in El Salvador—while their humanity is debated like a policy variable," she said. "This moment demands our humanity, our resistance, not silence."
Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director for refugee and migrant rights, also tied Thursday's announcement to the broader agenda of the president—who, during his first term, faced global condemnation for policies including the forcible separation of families at the southern border.
"Setting this cap at such an absurdly low number and prioritizing white Afrikaners is a racist move that will turn the US's back on tens of thousands of people around the world who are fleeing persecution, violence, and human rights abuses," said Fischer. "Refugees have a human right to protection, and the international community—including the United States—has a responsibility to uphold that right."
"This announcement is yet another attack by the Trump administration on refugees and immigrants, showing disregard for international systems meant to protect human rights," she added. "The Trump administration must reverse course and ensure a fair, humane, and rights-based refugee admissions determination."
The announcement came just days after Trump's nominee to be ambassador to South Africa, far-right media critic Brent Bozell, faced intense criticism for refusing to say whether he would support or oppose repealing laws allowing Black Americans to vote during his Senate confirmation hearing.