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Like every authoritarian before him, Trump is working to co-opt news sources and control what the public sees and hears. Too many corporate outlets are bending the knee—but not Common Dreams. We will never be intimidated, and we will never compromise the core values that define our community: social justice, universal human rights, equality, and peace. Because we are funded by ordinary people like you, our editorial freedom is guaranteed.
In a perfect, ghastly metaphor for the state of our "democracy," J.D. and Drunken Pete just oversaw an "artillery fiasco" at a Marine Corps celebration where a live shell detonated over a highway and hit their motorcade - Lesson #1: "Morons Are Governing America" - and Trump abruptly began a demolition of the East Wing of The People's House for "his fucking ballroom," though he claimed construction "wouldn't interfere" with it. Lesson #2: They "lie like they breathe," bulldoze history and wreak havoc as they go.
On the same day as No Kings but definitely not to distract anyone even though the actual date they're marking isn't until November 10, repulsive bros J.D. Vance and manly "We Are The War Department" Pete Hegseth went to California for the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton to watch a training exercise that included firing live 155mm M777 shells out of howitzers from the ocean over Interstate I-5, an action Gavin Newsom decried as "an absurd show of force" that threatened public safety. Just in case, being a grown-up, Newsom shut down 17 miles of the highway. Vance, in turn, ridiculed his move as "consistent with a track record of failure," sneering the governor "wants people to think this exercise is dangerous" when of course it's "an established safe practice" and anyway he's a big boy who knows stuff.
So. What happens "when the commander-in-chief is an idiot and the head of the Pentagon is a blackout drunk?" In Chap. 874 of Adventures of the Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight But Still Hit Enough, after Marines began firing live rounds over the highway, one shell prematurely exploded - some "saw the artillery round fail to clear the highway and explode near the southbound lane" - raining burning shrapnel onto a Highway Patrol car and motorcycle in Vance's security detail in what officials called "an unusual and concerning situation" that surely nobody could have predicted. Except maybe Gavin Newsom, who I-told-you-so raged, "Next time, the Vice President and the White House shouldn’t be so reckless (with) their vanity projects (and) put lives at risk to put on a show. If you want to honor our troops, open the government and pay them."
Vance, who's evidently hated wherever he goes - his family's summer vacation in the English countryside was met by residents holding a "Dance Against Vance Not Welcome" party complete with Go Away banner, insults, memes, and a staff mutiny at a pub where he wanted to eat - told reporters he had "a great visit" with the Marines. His team declined to comment on his "artillery fiasco," but others had thoughts. They suggested he'd probably say "it was just kid pieces of shrapnel doing normal kid pieces of shrapnel stuff," or locker room shrapnel, or antifa, thus representing the most destruction seen on No Kings Day. Also, "Nothing says 'Warrior Ethos' like firing live ammunition across a busy Southern California freeway on a Saturday afternoon," "MAGA stands for Morons Are Governing America," and, "This is a whole new level of dipshitery."
Then, on Monday, came Trump's backhoes and destruction crews suddenly, methodically ripping through the historic, stately, 1902 East Wing of the White House to build a garish $250 million, "beautiful, beautiful ballroom like I have at Mar-a-Lago" - "the remodel no one asked for" - despite his earlier adamant claim the project "wouldn’t interfere” with the former structure: "It’ll be near it but not touching it (and) pay total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of...It’s my favorite place. I love it." Shockingly, he evidently lied. Announcing the boondoggle in July, he also said it would be 90,000 square feet and seat up to 650 people - now grown to 999 people - making it the largest room in the White House. And it will ostensibly be funded by "many generous patriots" who also happen to be billionaires seeking deregulation and access to his gilded power.
Trump claims America's masses have long been yearning for a glitzy ballroom - it took so long because "there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms" - and he is "honored to finally get this much-needed project underway," especially now during a government shutdown, when wealth and income inequality is at a record highs, SNAP benefits are being slashed, millions of people are struggling to buy groceries, health care and Medicaid are threatened, special ed and veterans' services are in jeopardy, farmers and small businesses are suffering, federal workers are either losing their jobs or not getting paid, he is sending billions to Argentina for no discernible reason and he is giddily spending millions on golf and new jets and fake gold slathered feckin' everywhere while demanding his let-them-eat-cake cult members keep tightening their gullible belts.
Architects have noted the fortuitous timing: The White House is a public property run by the National Park Service, but this carnage is purportedly exempt from review by multiple planning and preservation bodies Trump has dismissed, rendered toothless or effectively disappeared in the shutdown. "This is by design," said one. “The object of power is power." Whose very public abuse, in this instance, prompted cries of WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Many Americans watched in horror as an iconic White House built by slaves - where Nancy Reagan's new china, Jimmy Carter's solar panels, Obama's dog once quaintly sparked outrage - was blithely razed and pillaged. Joe Walsh called it "an utter desecration of the Peoples’ House," adding he'd gladly invite patriots, some weekend, "to bring their own sledgehammers & crowbars to help tear that abomination down."
The Bulwark's Mona Charen has called Trump "a walking wrecking ball of law, tradition, civility, manners, and morals." His tacky paved Rose Garden, fake-gold-drenched Oval Office, many crimes against good taste and now ballroom reflect "a low and shameful time" of transforming the graceful into the sordid (that) "will be both awful and fitting." Now, the metaphorical has become literal in a defacement one historian calls "like slashing a Rembrandt painting.” "This is Trump's America," said one patriot of the dusty devastation. "And that was our history." Many felt sickened by the grisly manifestation "of the entire Trump administration": "It is not his fucking house," "Holy mother of God, this is horrifying," "Jesus fucking Christ, somebody stop him," "That was our democracy." "Breaking News: Antifa destroys the White House," said one. "Correction: It was Trump."
Update: Aceco, the company doing the demolition, is being savaged on Yelp with a flood of one-star reviews for "taking one of the most sacrilegious dem jobs in American history." "We all make choices in this life," read one, "and this was a bad one." Others: "How dare you destroy part of OUR house for that pedo dictator?", "Oops. Bad move tearing down the People's House. And you probably won't get paid," and, "May karma prevail."
Updated update for a surreal timeline: Wednesday night, the mad king said, Ok, fuck it, we'll just take down the whole thing: "We determined that, after really a tremendous amount of (non-existent) study with some of the best (imaginary) architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down, trying to use a little section — you know, the East Wing, was not much.”
American children and young adults suing over President Donald Trump's anti-climate executive orders plan to keep fighting after a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed their case, citing a previous decision from the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Eva Lighthiser, Rikki Held—of the historic Held v. State of Montana case—and 20 other young people filed a federal suit in Montana in May, taking aim at Trump's executive orders (EOs) declaring a "national energy emergency," directing federal agencies to "unleash" American energy by accelerating fossil fuel development, and boosting the coal industry.
"The founders of this country believed our rights to life and liberty were the fundamental tenets of a reasoned and just society, among the most sacred of rights to protect from government intrusion and overreach," said Daniel C. Snyder, director of the Environmental Enforcement Project at Public Justice, one of the groups representing the young plaintiffs.
"Not only should Americans be outraged by unlawful executive actions that trample upon those rights, but also because the harm these executive orders have inflicted was acknowledged by the court—showing the serious nature of plaintiffs' case," Snyder continued. "Allowing the burning of fossil fuels to continue will eventually render our nation unlivable for future generations."
"Allowing the burning of fossil fuels to continue will eventually render our nation unlivable for future generations."
US District Judge Dana Christensen "reluctantly" dismissed Lighthiser v. Trump on Wednesday, pointing to the 9th Circuit's 2020 opinion in Juliana v. United States, a constitutional climate case that the US Supreme Court effectively ended in March.
"Plaintiffs have presented overwhelming evidence that the climate is changing at a staggering pace, and that this change stems from the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, caused by the production and burning of fossil fuels," wrote Christensen. "The record further demonstrates that climate change and the exposure from fossil fuels presents a children's health emergency."
The appointee of former President Barack Obama also said that he was "troubled by the very real harms presented by climate change and the challenged EOs' effect on carbon dioxide emissions." Specifically, he noted, "plaintiffs have shown the challenged EOs will generate an additional 205 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually by 2027, an increase which plaintiffs convincingly allege will expose them to imminent, increased harm from a warming climate."
While Adam Gustafson, acting assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the US Department of Justice, cheered the dismissal of what he called "a sweeping and baseless attack on President Trump's energy agenda," the judge wrote that "if the 9th Circuit disagrees" with his decision, he "welcomes the return of this case to decide it on the merits."
Lawyers for the youth plaintiffs have already set their sights on the higher court. Lead attorney Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust stressed that "Judge Christensen said he reached his decision reluctantly and invited the 9th Circuit to correct him so these young Americans can have their case heard—and the 9th Circuit should do just that."
"Every day these executive orders remain in effect, these 22 young Americans suffer irreparable harm to their health, safety, and future," she noted. "The judge recognized that the government's fossil fuel directives are injuring these youth, but said his hands were tied by precedent."
"We will appeal—because courts cannot offer more protection to fossil fuel companies seeking to preserve their profits than to young Americans seeking to preserve their rights," Olson added. "This violates not only the Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, but the most basic principles of justice."
US states accounting for roughly a third of the nation's gross domestic product are currently in recession or on the verge of one as the federal government shutdown enters its fourth week, with congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump refusing to support an extension of key healthcare subsidies that are set to lapse at the end of the year.
A recent analysis by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi estimates that 22 states are experiencing an economic downturn or are at serious risk of recession, a nascent crisis fueled by Trump's tariffs, mass deportations, and sweeping attack on the federal workforce—an assault that has intensified since the federal government shut down at the beginning of October.
States currently in or on the brink of recession include Maine, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and Georgia. Among the states “treading water” are California and New York, according to Zandi, whose analysis was based on figures that predated the government shutdown.
Leor Tal, campaign director at the progressive advocacy coalition Unrig Our Economy, said Monday in response to the analysis that "Republicans in Congress are holding the US economy hostage, and working families are paying the price."
"At a time when costs are rising and tariffs are wreaking havoc on people's pocketbooks, Republicans are doubling down on their agenda of raising healthcare costs on millions of Americans," said Tal. "It's time for congressional Republicans to reopen the government, extend the healthcare tax credits, and start lowering costs for working families."
The shutdown, which Trump has embraced and exploited to advance his far-right agenda, began at a time when the country's economy was already on uneasy footing, with food prices continuing to rise despite the president's campaign promises, GOP Medicaid cuts causing chaos across the nation, and the labor market flashing signs of distress.
With no end to the shutdown in sight, The Associated Press noted Sunday that the "the U.S. Travel Association said the travel economy is expected to lose $1 billion a week as travelers change plans to visit national parks, historic sites, and the nation's capital, where many facilities such as Smithsonian Institution museums and the National Zoo are now closed to visitors."
If the government remains shut down in November, tens of millions of Americans could see cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—which boost the economy while reducing hunger—and other aid.
Meanwhile, even as the Trump administration withholds federal labor market data amid the shutdown, economists say private and state-level figures signal escalating pain for workers that is sure to intensify the longer the closure persists.
"The fingerprints of Trump policy decisions are most clearly found in the distinct rise in federal [unemployment insurance] claims—claims filed specifically by workers laid off from federal agencies," Elise Gould and Joe Fast of the Economic Policy Institute wrote last week. "However, we are also seeing troubling trends in UI claims in regular state programs, particularly in the Washington, DC metropolitan area."
"The shutdown (and potentially the attempted politicization of key government data-collection agencies) could leave policymakers flying blind just as the economy encounters real turbulence," they cautioned.
John Diamond, director of the Center for Public Finance at Rice University's Baker Institute, warned earlier this month that the shutdown "could be a tipping point to recession."
"If it is resolved quickly, the costs will be small," Diamond argued, "but if it drags on, it could send the US economy into a tailspin."
The Trump administration has launched what advocates, parents, and Democratic members of Congress are calling an unlawful and immoral attack on programs that provide education services to millions of children with disabilities across the United States.
Earlier this month, the administration announced mass firings at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), terminations that would hollow out the agency tasked with administering and overseeing programs that support students with disabilities—part of President Donald Trump's effort to abolish the Education Department without congressional approval.
"This reckless and illegal action is another step toward the administration's goal of dismantling the Department of Education," Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote Tuesday. "With this latest action, the Trump Administration is effectively shuttering [the Office of Special Education Programs], which distributed $15 billion in federal grants to schools in 2025."
"These grants," Romig noted, "pay for special education teachers and aides, speech and occupational therapists, assistive technology, screening and early intervention for infants and toddlers, and other critical services and supports that millions of families rely upon."
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said it is "appalling" that the Trump administration is exploiting the ongoing government shutdown to escalate its destruction of the Education Department.
"No one is forcing Donald Trump to fire the people who make sure students with disabilities can get a good education—he just wants to," said Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
While a federal judge paused the OSERS firings with a temporary restraining order last week, reports and public comments from Trump officials indicate that the administration's assault on programs that aid students with disabilities is just beginning.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the administration is considering placing the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act program under the purview of the Health and Human Services Department, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
More than 15% of students in the US receive special education services. IDEA also provides support to hundreds of thousands of infants and toddlers each year.
Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy for AASA, the School Superintendents Association, told the Post that "moving special education out of the Department of Education demonstrates a disregard for the educational needs of students with disabilities."
"America's special education students are embedded at every level, in every program that the department oversees," Pudelski added. "It's a step backward for education and for our country."
The National Education Association (NEA), the country's largest teachers union, published an article on Tuesday featuring comments from parents alarmed by the administration's targeting of programs that their kids rely on.
"I'm a proud parent of a neurodivergent student, and I'm heartbroken,” Kim Pinckney, the mother of a child with autism, ADHD, and speech disorders, told NEA Today, the union's news publication. "I am one of those parents with the audacity to love my child and to believe he deserves a free and appropriate education. I am one of millions of parents who have the audacity to believe our children are worthy and that they have their own unique genius that deserves to be unearthed."
Two federal judges are giving President Donald Trump the green light to send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon on Monday.
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit granted the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) request to put a hold on US District Judge Karin Immergut's earlier order blocking deployment of the National Guard to Oregon's largest city.
The two judges who ruled in the DOJ's favor were appointed by Trump, while the lone dissenter in the case, Judge Susan Graber, was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.
The court's majority ruled that the protests outside the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were sufficiently disruptive to justify deploying the National Guard, despite the fact that demonstrations outside the facility in recent weeks had not disrupted operations.
Judge Ryan Nelson, one of the Trump appointees, went so far as to issue a concurring opinion stating that the president's right to deploy the National Guard, even over the objections of state and local officials, cannot be reviewed by the judiciary.
In a scathing dissent, Graber noted that "the record contains no evidence whatsoever that, on September 27... ICE was unable either to protect its Portland facility or to execute the immigration laws it is charged with enforcing." This is relevant, she said, because the law states that the president may only deploy the National Guard "to repel a foreign invasion, quell a rebellion, or overcome an inability to execute the laws."
Graber then accused her colleagues of eroding "core constitutional principles, including sovereign states’ control over their states’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions."
Graber's argument echoed a ruling made earlier this month by Immergut, who was also appointed to the bench by Trump and who said his declarations that violent protests at the Portland ICE facility prevented the enforcement of the law were "untethered to facts."
Sandy Chung, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon, said in a statement responding to the ruling that "we are very disappointed that the majority on this 9th Circuit panel were unable to see through President Trump's political theater, divisive rhetoric, and extreme abuse of power and misuse of our military."
"The fact remains that Portland is peaceful," Chung added. "Portland protesters have shown a remarkable level of humor, creativity, and community care in the face of this administration's persistent and violent abuses of power. Inflatable frog and unicorn costumes, bike rides, and musical events are hardly a threat or reason to take the extremely dangerous and anti-democratic action of sending American troops into our communities."
In addition to Portland, Trump is also seeking to send National Guard troops to Chicago over the objections of both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. The administration has appealed that case to the US Supreme Court.
This article has been updated with comment from the ACLU.
The United States carried out another deadly attack on a boat it claimed was being used by a left-wing Colombian revolutionary group to transport drugs in the Caribbean Sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, hours after President Donald Trump alleged without evidence that Colombia's president "is an illegal drug dealer."
Hegseth said the strike, which took place on Friday, targeted "a vessel affiliated with Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), a designated terrorist organization."
The ELN is Colombia's last-standing far-left guerrilla group. Founded in 1964, the group fought to liberate Colombia from longtime right-wing rule, end foreign influence—especially from the United States—and achieve social justice and equality for the poor. ELN has been accused of using proceeds from drug trafficking to fund its insurgency.
"The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was traveling along a known narco-trafficking route, and was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics," Hegseth said without offering evidence. "There were three male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel during the strike—which was conducted in international waters. All three terrorists were killed and no US forces were harmed in this strike."
"These cartels are the al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, using violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will, threaten our national security, and poison our people," the defense secretary added. "The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are—they will be hunted, and killed, just like al-Qaeda."
Hegseth's announcement followed a post by Trump on his Truth Social network calling leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro "an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs."
Trump offered no evidence to back his baseless claim. The US itself has a long history of involvement in the international drug trade, from American capitalists profiting immensely from opium trafficking in the 19th century to the Central Intelligence Agency working with narcotrafficking anti-communist groups in Southeast Asia and Central America during the Cold War, helping to fuel first the heroin and later crack cocaine epidemics in the United States.
The US president further alleged that drugs have "become the biggest business in Colombia, by far, and Petro does nothing to stop it, despite large scale payments and subsidies from the USA that are nothing more than a long-term rip off of America."
Trump added:
AS OF TODAY, THESE PAYMENTS, OR ANY OTHER FORM OF PAYMENT, OR SUBSIDIES, WILL NO LONGER BE MADE TO COLOMBIA. The purpose of this drug production is the sale of massive amounts of product into the United States, causing death, destruction, and havoc. Petro, a low-rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.
According to The Associated Press, Colombia received an estimated $230 million in US aid for the budget year that ended on September 30.
Trump has ordered attacks on at least seven alleged drug-running boats without providing concrete evidence to support his claims. At least 29 people have been killed in the attacks.
In a series of posts on the social media site X, Petro said that "US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters," repeating claims that some victims of the US strikes, including Thursday's, were fishermen.
"I respect the history, culture, and people of the USA," Petro wrote in a subsequent post. "They are not my enemies, nor do I feel them as such. The problem is with Trump, not with the USA."
Refuting Trump's accusation that he has "done nothing to stop" drug trafficking, Petro noted that "we have reduced the coca leaf crop growth rate to almost 0%. In past governments, there were years with nearly 100% annual growth. Today, half of the total coca leaf crop area has crops that have been abandoned for three years."
The Trump administration said Thursday that survivors of one recent strike, a Colombian and an Ecuadorean, would be repatriated to their respective countries, possibly as a way to skirt concerns over the legality of the attacks.
On Thursday, Hegseth said that US Southern Command chief Adm. Alvin Holsey—who is overseeing the boat attacks—will step down at the end of the year. Holsey's resignation reportedly stems from concerns over the strikes.
"If Commander Alvin has resigned for refusing to be complicit in the murder of Caribbean civilians by US missiles deliberately launched against them from comfortable offices, I consider him a hero and a true officer of the armies of the Americas," Petro said in response to the news. "I said in New York, on one of its streets, that I asked the officers of the US military forces not to aim their weapons at humanity."
The Trump administration revoked Petro's US visa following his speech.
"I believe that Commander Alvin has proven himself to be a man of worth by refusing to aim his weapons at humanity. Perhaps Commander Alvin does not know it, but he is a true officer of the armies of Washington and Bolívar," Petro added, referring to George Washington and the great South American liberator Simón Bolívar.
On his first day back in the White House in January, Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Last month, the president reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat drug cartels abroad, sparking fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US attacks, invasions, occupations, and other interventions since the issuance of the dubious Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
Trump has also deployed a small armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, which has endured more than a century of Washington's imperialist meddling, raising fears of yet another US war of choice and regime change.
"Every second we spend talking about a tattoo I got in the Marine Corps is a second we don't talk about Medicare for All," said Platner ahead of a town hall. "It's a second we don't talk about raising taxes on the wealthy."
As Politico and other news outlets reported over the past week on old posts written by progressive US Senate candidate Graham Platner and a tattoo he got while in the military, pollsters with the University of New Hampshire were speaking to Mainers about their views on the state's Democratic primary, in which Platner is now facing Gov. Janet Mills along with several other candidates.
Despite the media onslaught, UNH's Pine Tree State Poll revealed on Thursday that voters in Maine heavily favor Platner, who has spent the past two months since his campaign launch speaking to overflow crowds about his platform—one that is focused on making life more affordable for Maine families, shifting the Democratic Party away from corporate interests and toward the needs of working people, and ensuring corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share to provide for the needs of all Mainers.
The poll, taken between October 16-21, found Platner with 58% of the vote. Twenty-four percent of respondents said they support Mills, who announced her campaign on October 14 after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged her to run, while other candidates each had less than 2% of the vote.
Politico reported on Platner's old Reddit posts on October 16, generating national attention in the following days, and on Monday the oyster farmer and former Marine spoke on the popular podcast Pod Save America about his tattoo that was visible in a video—one that critics said resembled a Nazi symbol, but which, he noted, didn't prevent from from being approved to reenlist in the US military after he got it. Platner this week covered the tattoo and denounced Nazism.
"In other words, they were in the field as all the [opposition] hit," Democratic consultant Rebecca Katz said in response to the polling. "Mainers have Graham Platner's back because they know he has theirs."
Progressive observers said the polling showed that recent efforts to damage Platner's working class-focused campaign—which, one attendee at the candidate's town hall on Wednesday night noted, coincided with Mills' entrance into the race—have been no match for voters' palpable anger over a political system that has left millions struggling to afford healthcare, groceries, and other essentials while the wealthiest Americans are handed tax breaks.
The survey, said journalist David Sirota, provides "today's evidence that people are really pissed at the status quo, and also despise the national Democratic leadership and the media that so often run interference for them."
Ryan Grim of Drop Site News added that, judging from the temperature-check in Maine, the "Democratic Party leadership could not be more disconnected from the party base if they had lived on the moon the past decade."
Tommy Vietor of Pod Save America said that the poll served as a "good reminder that the DC pundit class has no fucking clue what actual Maine voters think or how they will vote."
The poll results were released the morning after Platner spoke to a crowd of about 600 people at a town hall in Ogunquit, Maine, following a video he posted on Instagram addressing the controversy surrounding his tattoo.
"This has come up because the establishment is trying to throw everything it can at me," said Platner, who also showed a new tattoo he got to cover up the old image. "It is terrified of what we are trying to build here. Every second we spend talking about a tattoo I got in the Marine Corps is a second we don't talk about Medicare for All. It's a second we don't talk about raising taxes on the wealthy. It's a second we’re not talking about the material struggles of Mainers as they try to scrape through a system that at its core is trying to rob them."
"And that's why tonight, I'm just going back right out on the road," he said. "Going around the state of Maine, making myself accessible to Mainers in their communities, so I can listen to them, I can hear about what it is they need to change in our political system, and that is what I'm going to continue dedicating my time to."
At the town hall in Ogunquit, Platner emphasized his political and personal evolution as he turned the attention back to his platform—one focused on passing a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United ruling and ban "billionaires buying elections," rebuilding the US healthcare system by extending Medicare to all, breaking up corporate monopolies and ensuring corporations pay a fair tax rate, and defending the rights of immigrants and other marginalized groups.
"I'm not going to minimize what has come out," he said. "I used to hold different opinions... I also grew. I met new people. I learned of other people's experiences. I realized... that the more open I could be to listen to other people's stories, the more open I was willing to be—to extend compassion and empathy to others."
If they thought that any of this would stop us or deter us: they clearly don't understand our movement, and they don't understand Marines. pic.twitter.com/fXukXG2nVT
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) October 23, 2025
"The establishment is spooked," he reiterated. "And if they thought that this was going to scare me off, if they thought that ripping my life to pieces and trying to destroy it was going to make me think that I shouldn't undertake this project, they clearly have not spent a lot of time around Marines."
"Yet another Israeli government lie—slavishly repeated by Western media—collapses," said one policy expert.
The commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said Wednesday that he welcomed an "unambiguous ruling by the International Court of Justice" affirming that the organization has not been infiltrated by Hamas, as Israel and its allies have persistently claimed, and that Israeli officials must cooperate with the UN to ensure Palestinians receive sufficient aid after nearly two years of starvation policy.
In an advisory opinion, the ICJ ruled 10-1 that as the occupying power in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel is responsible for providing aid to Palestinians and allowing the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to operate in Gaza.
Israel has sought to ban UNRWA from Gaza since January 2024, when it alleged without evidence that a small number of staffers at the agency had participated in a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023.
Multiple investigations found that Israel had not provided supporting evidence of the allegations, and the ICJ on Wednesday said that the country had “not substantiated its allegations that a significant number of UNRWA employees were members of Hamas.”
With the advisory opinion, said Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, "yet another Israeli government lie—slavishly repeated by Western media—collapses."
ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa said in the ruling, which is not legally binding, that Israel's first obligation is to "ensure that the population of the occupied Palestinian territory has the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies, and services."
The court also ordered Israel to "agree to and facilitate by all means at its disposal relief schemes on behalf of the population of the occupied Palestinian territory so long as that population is inadequately supplied, as has been the case in the Gaza Strip."
UNRWA has said it has roughly 6,000 aid trucks that are ready to enter Gaza.
"With huge amounts of food and other lifesaving supplies on standby in Egypt and Jordan, UNRWA has the resources and expertise to immediately scale up the humanitarian response in Gaza and help alleviate the suffering of the civilian population," said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the agency.
Israel began blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza following the Hamas-led attack in 2023, and intensified the blockade from March-May this year after breaking a ceasefire that began in January. More than 450 Palestinians have starved to death, and experts have warned that the many of the effects of starvation on those who have survived, especially children, may be irreversible. A famine was declared in August by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a UN-backed group.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the ICJ opinion "comes at a moment in which we are doing everything we can to boost our humanitarian aid in Gaza. So the impact of this decision is decisive in order for us to be able to do it to the level that is necessary for the tragic situation in which the people of Gaza still is.”
As it has with numerous other rulings by the ICJ, Israel immediately rejected the decision and claimed it was politically motivated. The US State Department also dismissed the ruling, saying it "unfairly bashe[d] Israel" and repeated the debunked allegations of UNRWA's "deep entanglement with and material support for Hamas terrorism."
Step Vaessen of Al Jazeera reported that "even if Israel ignores [the advisory opinion], as it’s done time and time again, all the UN countries are obliged to follow up on this court’s advice."
The ICJ is also considering a genocide case against Israel, brought by South Africa.
In September, a commission of independent experts at the UN said Western countries including the US must stop providing military aid to Israel as it found the country was carrying out a genocide in Gaza, citing several of the attacks that have killed more than 68,000 Palestinians since October 2023 and public statements made by Israeli officials demonstrating their intent to wipe out Gaza's population of 2.1 million people.
"This is illegal and endangers America," said one critic of Trump's boat-bombing campaign.
The Trump administration launched another military strike on a purported drug trafficking boat on Tuesday night, and for the first time expanded its campaign of extrajudicial killing to the Pacific Ocean.
In a social media post, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that President Donald Trump had authorized "a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel being operated by a designated terrorist organization and conducting narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific." Hegseth also said that the strike killed two passengers who were aboard the vessel.
This marks at least the eighth time the US military has attacked a purported drug-trafficking boat, although the previous seven strikes took place in the Caribbean. Collectively, the strikes have killed at least 34 people.
In the wake of the latest boat attack, many Trump critics once again slammed the administration for carrying out what they described as acts of murder.
Conor Friedersdorf, a staff writer at The Atlantic, described the attack as "another unlawful extrajudicial killing of a boat our military could have stopped and investigated."
Friedersdorf also emphasized that these killings would be unlawful even if the people on the boats were involved in narcotics trafficking.
"Even when convicted drug smugglers go to court, they don't get the death penalty," he wrote. "This is immoral."
Kenneth Roth, former executive director for Human Rights Watch, tore apart the administration's legal argument for treating alleged drug smuggling as an act of war by a hostile foreign power.
"Trump's rationale for his repeated murders at sea don't hold water," he wrote in a post on X. "There is no 'self-defense' because no one is attacking the United States. There is no 'armed conflict' because there are no hostilities approaching a war."
Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate prosecutor and US general counsel of the Army, warned in a post on Bluesky about the dangers of further widening Trump's bombing campaign.
"He must be stopped," she wrote. "This is illegal and endangers America."
Journalist Mark Jacob said he was highly skeptical that the administration was carrying out these attacks to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
"The Trump regime lies all the time," he wrote on Bluesky. "A more likely explanation for these attacks is US imperialism: Trump wants to overthrow Maduro in Venezuela (with vast oil reserves) and intimidate Colombia (which criticized previous attacks)."
Colombian President Gustavo Petro this past weekend said that the Trump administration had "committed a murder" after one of its boat attacks killed a Colombian citizen named Alejandro Carranza, who had been out on a fishing trip when the US military attacked his boat.
Trump responded by baselessly calling Petro "an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs," while also levying new tariffs against Colombia.
