January, 10 2017, 11:00am EDT

More than 50 Organizations Launch United Resistance Campaign as Trump's Cabinet Hearings Begin
Groups pledge to work across issues as Trump takes office
WASHINGTON
More than 50 progressive organizations sent a strong message of united resistance to the Trump administration on the same day his cabinet hearings begin on Capitol Hill. In a video and public pledge, movement leaders including NAACP President Cornell Brooks, Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard, and SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry pledged to defend everything they say that Trump most urgently threatens including civil rights, immigrants, women's reproductive rights, social equality, action on climate change, public health and safety, public dissent, and access to information.
https://www.unstoppabletogether.org/
As part of the United Resistance campaign, groups pledge to work together across issues, unify respective networks, and function in a multilateral fashion that provides a better future for America than Trump is offering. The campaign is launching the same week as the involved organizations are leading various initiatives to block Trump's cabinet appointees including Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson and Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions.
More than 50 organizations have signed onto the pledge and several are featured in the video.
Advancement Project (National)
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Brave New Films
Center for Biological Diversity
Climate Justice Alliance
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
Color Of Change
Common Cause
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Daily Kos
Democracy Initiative
Demos
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Every Voice
Food & Water Action Fund
Forward Together
Free Press
Friends of the Earth
Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Green For All
Greenpeace, Inc
Indigenous Environmental Network
Jewish Voice for Peace
Jobs With Justice
Labor Network for Sustainability
MoveOn.org
NAACP
NARAL
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
National Network for Arab American Communities
Oakland Institute
Oil Change International
OneAmerica
One Billion Rising
Our Revolution
People's Action
People For the American Way
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Public Citizen
Rainforest Action Network
Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United
RootsAction.org
Sierra Club
The Story of Stuff Project
United We Dream
Working Families Party
World Beyond War
V-Day
350.org
https://www.unstoppabletogether.org/
Quotes From Participating Organizations:
"Trump is not on the side of the American people. After promises of "draining the swamp, his cabinet is now full of more billionaire lobbyists and executives than any administration in history. This President will never know what it feels like to worry about the water his family is drinking, to wonder if his house will survive the next superstorm, or if his child will face hateful bullying at school. It is up to each one of us to protect each other, to fight for each other, and to resist the ways in which Donald Trump threatens America," said Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard.
"The American people elected Hillary Clinton president by a nearly three-million vote margin. The 48 Democrats in the new Senate received over 78 million votes combined, compared to the 55 million earned by the 52 Republicans. The American people have clearly rejected the GOP's values of hate, intolerance, greed and bigotry, and we are proud to stand with the American majority in fighting for inclusion, tolerance, compassion and hope."
- Markos Moulitsas, Founder and Publisher of Daily Kos
"Our movement to advance the fundamental values of justice and democracy, for the empowerment of immigrant and refugee communities, for Muslims and other religious minorities in the United States is ready to protect our families, to assert our presence, and to challenge our nation to live up to its values as a nation built by immigration. I'm heartened by the energy to resist in our own communities, and by the broad coalition of movements coming together to stand and defend each other, whatever the Trump Administration throws at us. At stake is a vision for our nation and world grounded in racial and social justice, committed to improving the lives of every American, and realizing a healthy and diverse future where everyone can thrive. We stand with our sisters and brothers in the intersections of racial, economic and climate justice."
- Rich Stolz | Executive Director | OneAmerica
"Solidarity forever must include solidarity now -- intensive, sustained and determined to defend past gains as well as make future ones possible. Everything that we hold dear is at stake." -Norman Solomon, Coordinator, RootsAction.org
"Green For All stands against Trump's effort to auction off our air, water, and climate to the highest bidder. We resist efforts to prioritize profit over human life and stand with frontline communities, those in small towns and urban areas who face the brunt of pollution, to fight for climate solutions that put them first. We will fight alongside the underdogs, those most ignored, to ensure that their voices are heard because we all deserve clean air, clean water and a healthy environment to raise our kids."
-Vien Truong, Director of Green For All
"The corporate cartel that works to wage wars, pollute the planet, concentrate the wealth, and restrict the rights of dissenters finds a way to all work together. Those of us seeking a better world -- a sustainable world at all -- must work together to resist the path the U.S. government is on and to project and push forward a better one. Our collective numbers give us power, and our interlocking issues give us a persuasive alternative. Shifting military spending to human and environmental needs makes a world beyond our dreams perfectly achievable."
- David Swanson, Director of World Beyond War
"The Sierra Club's mission is to protect both the natural and the human environment. That is why we stand in solidarity with organizations fighting for a fair and safe America that protects everyone. We stand with workers and working families, for women's rights and LGBTQ rights, with people of all faiths and backgrounds, for public health and economic fairness, and on the side of racial justice and immigrant families. To change everything it takes everyone, and that's exactly why we're going to stand up together over the next four years and fight to protect the people and places that we love.
- Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director
"Democracy is strengthened by welcoming people of all backgrounds and views in building a country that recognizes the self-worth of every individual and every voice," said David Donnelly, President and CEO of Every Voice. "Unfortunately, Donald Trump has repeatedly shown that he has no interest in doing what's necessary to expand and protect our democracy--and in fact, in policy and words, he has done the opposite. We are committed to fighting everyday, united with allied organizations and millions of Americans, for a political system that works for all of us and we fill fiercely defend the rights of our fellow citizens to be heard, respected, and counted."
"Trump's presidency represents an existential threat to an open internet and an adversarial press," said Free Press CEO and President Craig Aaron. "Based on its appointments and actions so far, the Trump administration appears committed to undermining everyone's rights to connect and communicate. We're dedicated to fighting Trump's agenda on media and technology while supporting the resistance efforts of groups doing important work elsewhere. Trump has named numerous people to his administration and transition team with long histories of support for dangerous and often racist policies and actions. Many others have openly campaigned to gut essential public safeguards in every area from worker safety to the environment to telecommunications. All must be resisted from day one."
"The Trump administration promises to roll back our environmental laws, gut civil rights protections, and enrich the pockets of Wall Street at the expense of everyone else," says Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Action Fund. "We can't let this happen--and together, we can resist the worst effects of his presidency. We'll keep the pressure on our elected officials to represent the majority of Americans that want safe food, clean water, a stable climate, and a democracy that works for all of us."
"As the chief law enforcement officer, the attorney generally has far-reaching decision making power over issues that impact every person in the U.S." said Kalpana Krishnamurthy, Policy Director at Forward Together, a national advocacy organization. "If appointed, he will be the final decision maker on if the FBI can profile Muslim members of our community, whether or not to sanction stop and frisk policies, oversight of our prisons, the Department of Justice and drug enforcement. He has a track record of disregarding civil rights, denying racism, and promoting a radical agenda that would undo many of the laws that have given voice to communities of color historically shut out of our democracy. His values don't reflect an America where all people can thrive and we are united in opposition to his nomination."
"The blueprint for failure is division and ambivalence in the wake of a united conservative agenda that is intentionally undermining our democracy and threatening our communities," said Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director of Advancement Project's national office. "Our power to resist and reclaim our democracy is rooted in our shared commitment to dismantling interwoven systems of oppression. We are putting the new administration on notice: every day of the next four years, be prepared to confront powerful organized communities who refuse to be silenced."
"At Rainforest Action Network, we stand for people and planet. But today, we need to stand firmly in opposition to a systemic assault on our values from the incoming administration. We are pledging to oppose those who would deny science and deny climate change. We are pledging to oppose those who would gut environmental protections in the name of corporate profits. We are pledging to stand for civil rights, to stand for human and labor rights, and to stand with those directly impacted by global forest destruction and climate change." - Lindsey Allen, Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network
"We have witnessed one of the most contentious and emotional political races in our country's history. What we have learned is that, now, more than ever, we need to come together to uphold our shared values of freedom and equality for all. Arab and Muslim Americans have long dealt with xenophobia, Islamophobia, racism and bigotry. Throughout the presidential election, we were faced with many unprecedented obstacles, and yet we persevered and remained committed to improving and empowering our communities. We know we must maintain our spirit of advocacy and become stronger leaders for a more hopeful future." - Nadia El-Zein Tonova, Director of the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC)
"America is great when it becomes more inclusive, more democratic and more just. The Trump administration threatens these values, and democracy itself. Against this threat, We the People will protect our democracy and the values we most cherish by exercising our democratic rights. We will stand together to reject efforts to denigrate, injure or exclude Muslim Americans, immigrants or any other targeted community. We will reject Trumpism and assert the central importance of love and solidarity, kindness and decency to who we are a country and a people." - Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
Dan Cantor, National Director, Working Families Party: "Donald Trump is a dangerous narcissist. We need to block his agenda of greed and division, and and we need to stand together to do it. That's the only hope for building a nation that works for all of us."
"Trump's presidency threatens immigrants, African Americans, Muslims, workers, women, children, the elderly, the disabled, LGBTQ people, and many others. Indeed, it threatens all that holds us together as a society. We the people - society -- need to defend ourselves against this threat and bring it to an end. Resisters to repressive regimes elsewhere have called such resistance to tyranny "Social Self-Defense." The struggle to protect our people and planet against the Trump agenda requires such a strategy. Therefore we are proud to join the United Resistance Campaign as a form of Social Self Defense." -Michael Leon Guerrero, Labor Network for Sustainability
"If Trump thinks this wave of opposition and resistance will burn out quickly and die, he's dead wrong," said Kieran Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "We'll be there every day, every week and every year to oppose every policy that hurts wildlife; poisons our air or water; destroys the climate; promotes racism, misogyny or homophobia; and marginalizes entire segments of our society."
"We live in a global world where our lives are intertwined. An act of hate against one is an act of hate against all. So we stand here united with all voices of peace, tolerance, racial equity, and justice. We gain our unity from the diversity of our religions, of our sexual preferences, women's rights, and of our racial diversity. We allege to speak for all who are voiceless, marginalized, and criminalized. We are one force, united together for the betterment of humanity." -Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute Executive Director
"It's time to get back to the basics: everyday people with a plan, through everyday acts of courage, will eventually make history." - Ai-jen Poo, Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Greenpeace is a global, independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
+31 20 718 2000LATEST NEWS
'Authoritarian Theater' Meets 'Pure F*cking Idiocracy' as Trump Promises White House UFC Match
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP," said one critic. "But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn. America F-Yeah!"
Jul 05, 2025
Critics of President Donald Trump's announcement of a planned Ultimate Fighting Championship event on White House grounds to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial next year took to social media Friday to call the proposal something "straight out of 'Idiocracy'"—the comedy cult classic about a dumbed-down 26th-century America—and condemn what one detractor called "authoritarian theater."
"Every one of our national park battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250," Trump said at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Thursday. "We're going to have a UFC fight—think of this—on the grounds of the White House."
Yearning for a time when every new day isn't exponentially dumber than the day before.
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— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
While Octagon aficionados cheered the prospect of a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue fight card, many observers couldn't help but notice parallels with the plot of Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy," a satirical skewering of issues including the erosion of White House decorum in a future when IQs have plummeted and a sports drink corporation owns the country, whose voters elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, "five-time ultimate smackdown champion and porn superstar," as president.
"If anyone defends Trump saying there will be a UFC fight on the White House lawn never listen to them again," former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois wrote on the social media site X Friday, adding that Trump's announcement was like the "plot to 'Idiocracy' with an equally stupid-ass president."
Another X user fumed: "This is what happens when a failed empire hits rock bottom and throws a party about it. UFC fight on the White House lawn to celebrate 250 years of what used to be a country with brains. This ain't strength, this is pure fucking Idiocracy. Straight out of Rome before it burned, give the mob a fight and some burgers while the world collapses around them.
Yet another social media critic joked that "'Idiocracy' was actually a documentary from the future, sent back in time as a warning to us all."
Some critics pointed to the decadeslong business ties between Trump and UFC President and CEO Dana White, who has donated at least $1 million to Trump's campaign coffers.
Others noted the "bread and circuses" vibes of Trump's proposed event, which some called a cynical ploy meant to distract from the devastating impact of policies like Friday's signing of a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations, while ballooning the deficit and leaving millions of Americans without desperately needed health insurance coverage and food assistance.
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP. But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn," New York Times opinion contributor Wajahat Ali wrote on Bluesky. "America, F-YEAH!"
Writing for The Guardian Saturday, Karim Zidan asserted: "Donald Trump's UFC stunt is more than a circus. It's authoritarian theater."
"It carries shades of fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, particularly its obsession with masculinity, spectacle, and nationalism—but with a modern, American twist," he wrote. "Fascist Italy used rallies, parades, and sports events to project strength and unity."
"Similarly, Trump has relied on the UFC to project his tough-guy image, and to celebrate his brand of nationalistic masculinity," Zidan continued. "From name-dropping champions who endorse him to suggesting a tournament that would pit UFC fighters against illegal migrants, Trump has repeatedly found ways to make UFC-style machismo a part of his political brand."
"There was once a time when the U.S. could point to the authoritarian pageantry of regimes like Mussolini's Italy and claim at least some moral distance. That line is no longer visible," he added. "What was once soft power borrowed from strongmen is now being proudly performed on America's own front lawn."
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"Experts warned for months that drastic and sudden cuts at the National Weather Service by Trump could impair their forecasting ability and endanger lives during the storm season," said one critic.
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As catastrophic flooding left scores of people dead and missing in Texas Hill Country and President Donald Trump celebrated signing legislation that will eviscerate every aspect of federal efforts to address the climate emergency, officials in the Lone Star State blasted the National Weather Service—one of many agencies gutted by the Department of Government Efficiency—for issuing faulty forecasts that some observers blamed for the flood's high death toll.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that flooding caused by a powerful storm killed at least 27 people, with dozens more—including as many as 25 girls from a summer camp along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County—missing after fast-moving floodwaters rose 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour before dawn on Friday, sweeping away people and pets along with homes, vehicles, farm and wild animals, and property.
"Everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service... It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw."
"The camp was completely destroyed," Elinor Lester, 13, one of hundreds of campers at Camp Mystic, told the AP. "A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary."
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said during a press conference in Kerrville late Friday that 24 people were confirmed dead, including children. Other officials said that 240 people had been rescued.
Although the National Weather Service on Thursday issued a broad flood watch for the area, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd—noting that the NWS predicted 3-6 inches of rain for the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches for the Hill Country—told reporters during a press conference earlier Friday that "the amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts."
After media reports & experts warned for months that drastic & sudden cuts at the Nat Weather Service by Trump could impair their forecasting ability & endanger lives during the storm season, TX officials blame an inaccurate forecast by NWS for the deadly results of the flood.
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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 3:19 AM
"Listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service," Kidd reiterated. "You all got it; you're all in media. You got that forecast. It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw."
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice also said during the press conference that the storm "dumped more rain than what was forecasted" into two forks of the Guadalupe River.
Kerr County judge Rob Kelly told CBS News: "We had no reason to believe that this was gonna be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever."
Since January, the NWS—a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—has reduced its workforce by nearly 600 people as a direct result of staffing cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as part of Trump's mission to eviscerate numerous federal agencies.
This policy is in line with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for a far-right overhaul of the federal government that calls for "dismantling" NOAA. Trump has also called for the elimination of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arguing that states should shoulder most of the burden of extreme weather preparation and response. Shutting down FEMA would require an act of Congress.
Many of the fired NWS staffers were specialized climate scientists and weather forecasters. At the time of the firings, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, was among those who warned of the cuts' deadly consequences.
"People nationwide depend on NOAA for free, accurate forecasts, severe weather alerts, and emergency information," Huffman said. "Purging the government of scientists, experts, and career civil servants and slashing fundamental programs will cost lives."
Writing for the Texas Observer, Henry D. Jacoby—co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change—warned that "crucial data gathering systems are at risk."
"Federal ability to warn the public is being degraded," he added, "and it is a public service no state can replace."
On Friday, Trump put presidential pen to congressional Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a $4 trillion tax and spending package that effectively erases the landmark climate and clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2022.
As Inside Climate News noted of the new law:
It stomps out incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and efficient appliances. It phases out tax credits for wind and solar energy. It opens up federal land and water for oil and gas drilling and increases its profitability, while creating new federal support for coal. It ends the historic investment in poor and minority communities that bear a disproportionate pollution burden—money that the Trump administration was already refusing to spend. It wipes out any spending on greening the federal government.
Furthermore, as MeidasNews editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski noted Saturday, "rural areas hit hardest by catastrophic storms are the same areas now in danger of losing their hospitals after Trump's Medicaid cuts just passed" as part of the budget reconciliation package.
At least one congressional Republican is ready to take action in the face of increasing extreme weather events. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—who once attributed California wildfires to Jewish-controlled space lasers—announced Saturday that she is "introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity."
"It will be a felony offense," she explained. "We must end the dangerous and deadly practice of weather modification and geoengineering."
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Muhannad al-Lili's killing by Israeli airstrike came as the world mourned the death of Portugal and Liverpool star Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva in a car crash in Spain.
Jul 04, 2025
Muhannad Fadl al-Lili, captain of the Al-Maghazi Services Club and a member of Palestine's national football team, died Thursday from injuries suffered during an Israeli airstrike on his family home in the central Gaza Strip earlier this week, making him the latest of hundreds of Palestinian athletes killed since the start of Israel's genocidal onslaught.
Al-Maghazi Services Club announced al-Lili's death in a Facebook tribute offering condolences to "his family, relatives, friends, and colleagues" and asking "Allah to shower him with his mercy."
The Palestine Football Association (PFA) said that "on Monday, a drone fired a missile at Muhannad's room on the third floor of his house, which led to severe bleeding in the skull."
"During the war of extermination against our people, Muhannad tried to travel outside Gaza to catch up with his wife, who left the strip for Norway on a work mission before the outbreak of the war," the association added. "But he failed to do so, and was deprived of seeing his eldest son, who was born outside the Gaza Strip."
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Overall, Israel's war—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case—has left more than 206,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and around 2 million more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to Gaza officials.
The Palestine Chronicle contrasted the worldwide press coverage of the car crash deaths of Portuguese footballer Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva with the media's relative silence following al-Lili's killing.
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