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Kristen Voorhees, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, voorhees@civilrights.org, 202.548.7166
Derrick Robinson, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil and Human Rights Under Law, DRobinson@LawyersCommittee.org, 202-662-8317
Natalia Garzon, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., ngarzon@naacpldf.org, 212.965.2200
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund issued the following statement regarding the unresolved ballot crisis in Georgia:
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund issued the following statement regarding the unresolved ballot crisis in Georgia:
"This election presented Georgia voters with unnecessary and manufactured obstacles to the ballot, including voter purges, poll closures, long lines, and broken machines - all of which disproportionately harmed communities of color. The state also attempted to block 53,000 registration applications, most of which were from African Americans, a community too familiar with systemic barriers to voting.
"At every turn, the civil rights community has fought these attempts to silence voters - including successful litigation brought by the Lawyers' Committee and advocacy efforts by NAACP LDF to monitor and keep voting precincts open to allow residents to vote. We urge officials to ensure every ballot is counted. Voters must know that our elections are free, fair, and equally accessible to all. This is not just about Georgia; if voters cannot trust that their voices will be heard, then the system has failed them."
There is still time to ensure that all votes cast in Georgia are counted. Voters who cast a provisional ballot must cure their provisional ballot by producing the required information, identification, or proof of citizenship to their county registrar's office by 5:00 p.m. EST, Friday, November 9 to ensure their vote is counted. Some offices will accept the necessary information by fax, by email, or in person. Voters with questions or who encounter any problems are asked to call the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE or visit https://866ourvote.org/information-for-Georgia-provisional-voters/.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. Through advocacy and outreach to targeted constituencies, The Leadership Conference works toward the goal of a more open and just society - an America as good as its ideals.
(202) 466-3311One critic called Trump's social media post following the murders "the most disturbing, deranged, and demented post you'll ever see from a US president."
"Fucking grotesque." "A monstrosity." "A real post by the president of the United States, who has the nuclear codes." "DESPICABLE."
This is but a sampling of the reaction to President Donald Trump's Monday morning response to the apparent double murder of iconic film director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner—who were among Hollywood's most vocal critics of the president and the threat he posed to US democracy.
Trump took to his Truth Social network to make the deaths about himself:
A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!
"Nobody celebrates the murder of perceived enemies quite like Trump—whose celebration of the murder of Rob Reiner is the most disturbing, deranged, and demented post you'll ever see from a US president," singer-songwriter and activist Bill Madden said on social media.
If the New York Times was waiting for a news hook to write a long-overdue story about how Trump is mentally unfit to be president, Trump has provided one today with his post saying Rob Reiner got murdered because he was mean to Trump.Write it, NYT. End the normalization. @nytimes.com
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— Mark Jacob (@markjacob.bsky.social) December 15, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Even Trump's supporters could not believe the president actually posted the message, with some seeking confirmation from Grok, the generative artificial intelligence chatbot on Elon Musk's social media site X, that the post was "fake." Grok obliged, replying falsely that "the statement attributed to Trump is not real" and "appears fabricated."
Invoking the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk—the far-right firebrand known for purveying racist, xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynistic rhetoric from behind a shield of "free speech"—Democratic strategist Max Burns said, "I don't want to hear another sanctimonious word from the Republicans who accused Democrats of not showing enough sadness when Charlie Kirk died."
"Trump is dancing on Reiner's body and blaming Reiner for his own murder—but remember, they demanded people be FIRED for not dropping down in tears to praise Charlie Kirk after his death," Burns added. "It's all an act. These people only have compassion for their own."
Some also pointed out that in contrast to Trump's comments, after Kirk's killing, Reiner called the assassination an "absolute horror" and condemned political violence.
"It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized," said the advocacy group VoteVets.
Before the end of the year, the Trump administration is planning to eliminate up to 35,000 healthcare jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a chronically understaffed agency that has already lost tens of thousands of employees to the White House's sweeping assault on the federal workforce.
The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the targeted positions—many of which are unfilled—include doctors, nurses, and support staff. A spokesperson for the VA, led by former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), described the jobs as "mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary."
VA workers, veterans advocates, and a union representing hundreds of thousands of department employees disputed that characterization as the agency faces staff shortages across the country.
"We are all doing the work of others to compensate,” one VA employee told the Post. “The idea that relief isn’t coming is really, really disappointing.”
Thomas Dargon Jr., deputy general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees, said remaining VA employees "are obviously going to be facing the brunt of any further job cuts or reorganization that results in employees having to do more work with less."
The advocacy organization VoteVets cast the job cuts as another step toward the longstanding GOP goal of privatizing the VA.
"This is outrageous," the group wrote on social media. "It is abundantly clear that Republicans and the Trump administration want to strangle the VA until it all gets privatized."
"We must expand the VA, not hollow it out."
News of the impending job cuts came months after the Trump administration moved to gut collective bargaining protections for many VA employees and as recent staffing cuts continued to hamper veterans' services nationwide.
"Wait times for new mental health appointments have increased sharply since January in my home state, Connecticut," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said during a Senate hearing earlier this month. "For example, the most recent data shows the current wait time for a new patient mental health appointment at the Orange VA Clinic in Connecticut—an outpatient facility specializing in mental health—is 208 days."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a statement Sunday that "it is unacceptable that the US Department of Veterans Affairs plans to eliminate as many as 35,000 healthcare positions this month."
"This is especially outrageous given the reality that VA facilities in Vermont and across the country already face severe staffing challenges," said Sanders. "When someone puts their life on the line to defend this country in uniform, we in turn must provide them with the best quality healthcare available. These layoffs are unacceptable and must be reversed. We must expand the VA, not hollow it out. And I will do everything I can to make that happen."
"The 'Nobel Peace Prize' continues thanking the US for the maximum pressure against her own country," said one critic.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, is taking criticism for lending support to US President Donald Trump's campaign of military aggression against her own country.
In an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation," Machado praised Trump's policies of tightening economic sanctions and seizing oil tankers that had been docked at Venezuelan ports.
“Look, I absolutely support President Trump’s strategy, and we, the Venezuelan people, are very grateful to him and to his administration, because I believe he is a champion of freedom in this hemisphere," Machado told CBS News.
Machado elaborated that she supported Trump's actions because the Maduro government was "not a conventional dictatorship," but "a very complex criminal structure that has turned Venezuela into a safe haven of international crime and terrorist activities."
Trump's campaign against Venezuela has not only included sanctions and the seizing of an oil tanker, but a series of bombings of purported drug-trafficking vessels that many legal experts consider to be acts of murder.
Trump has also said that he would soon authorize strikes against purported drug traffickers on Venezuelan soil, even though he has received no congressional authorization to conduct such an operation against a sovereign nation.
Machado's embrace of Trump as he potentially positions the US to launch a regime-change war in Venezuela drew swift criticism from opponents of American imperialism.
SussexBylines columnist Ross McNally questioned whether someone who is going on the record to support military aggression against her own country was really the right choice to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
"The Nobel Committee's decision to give the Peace Prize to Machado is bizarre for several reasons," he explained. "Firstly, its description of Machado’s ‘tireless work promoting democratic rights’ ignores the fact that she supported the attempted coup against democratically elected President Hugo Chávez in 2002... Alongside her encouragement for Trump’s military escalation, this jars somewhat with the Committee’s description."
The Machado interview was also criticized by Venezuelan journalist Madelein Garcia, who argued in a post on X that it was ironic to see that "the 'Nobel Peace Prize' continues thanking the US for the maximum pressure against her own country."
Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi also excoriated the Nobel Committee for overlooking Machado's support of militarism when it decided to award her a prize intended for peacemakers.
"Nobel Farce Prize Winner Maria Corina Machado is not a freedom fighter, she’s a CIA asset and de facto spokeswoman for US corporations," he wrote. "Here she is smiling gleefully at the prospect of selling $1.7 trillion of infrastructure and resources should the US carry out regime change in Venezuela and install her in Miraflores, promising 'we have a massive privatisation program waiting for you.'"