SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
marjorie taylor greene
Ilhan Omar Slams Latest Trump Attack on Venezuelan Boat as 'Egregious Violation'
"There is NO legal justification," the progressive congresswoman said. "It risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes."
Sep 16, 2025
US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Tuesday condemned the Trump administration's attack the previous day on a second boat allegedly transporting drugs off the coast of Venezuela as blatantly illegal, highlighting her introduction last week of a war powers resolution in a bid to stop the aggression.
President Donald Trump announced Monday that the US destroyed what he said was a boat used by Venezuelan drug gangs, killing three people in what one Amnesty International campaigner called "an extrajudicial execution."
The strike followed a September 2 US attack on another alleged drug-running boat that killed 11 people, which Omar (D-Minn.) called a "lawless and reckless" action.
Responding to Monday's attack, Omar said on the social media site X that the Trump administration "is once again using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law."
"There is NO legal justification," she said of the attack. "It risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes. I have a war powers resolution to fight back."
Introduced last Thursday, the measure aims to stop the US attacks, which coincide with Trump's deployment of a small armada of warships off the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, a country that has endured to more than a century of US meddling in its affairs.
"All of us should agree that the separation of powers is crucial to our democracy, and that only Congress has the power to declare war," Omar said at the time.
The War Powers Act of 1973—enacted during the Nixon administration at the tail end of the US war on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—empowers Congress to check the president’s war-making authority. The law requires the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours and mandates that lawmakers must approve troop deployments after 60 days.
Also last week, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) led a letter signed by two dozen Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asserting that the Trump administration offered “no legitimate justification” for the first boat strike.
Omar's condemnation of the US attacks followed Monday's announcement by US Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) of separate resolutions to strip Omar of her committee assignments and, in the case of Mace's measure, censure the congresswoman after she reportedly shared a video highlighting assassinated far-right firebrand Charlie Kirk's prolific bigotry.
Trump also attacked Omar on Monday, calling her a "disgraceful person," a "loser," and "disgusting."
Omar is no stranger to censure efforts, which critics say are largely fueled by Islamophobia—and haven't just come from Republicans. In 2019, she was falsely accused of antisemitism by leaders of her own party and was the subject of an anti-hate speech resolution passed by House lawmakers after she remarked about the indisputable financial ties the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and members of Congress.
In February 2023, Omar was ousted from the House Foreign Affairs Committee for years-old comments that allegedly referenced antisemitic tropes.
Last year, Congressman Don Bacon (R-Neb.) introduced a censure resolution after Omar said of Jewish students at Columbia University, "We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they're pro-genocide or anti-genocide."
The measure failed to pass, as did another put forth earlier last year by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after she mistranslated remarks Omar made in Somali.
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Flood Deaths Rise, Texas Officials Blast Faulty Forecast by DOGE-Gutted National Weather Service
"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.
Jul 05, 2025
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 what they said were 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.
[image or embed]
— 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."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Senate Democrats Urge SEC Probe of Possible Trump Market Manipulation, Insider Trading
"Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos?" asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Apr 11, 2025
Amid mounting concerns over possible stock market manipulation by President Donald Trump and members of his inner circle, Democrats in the U.S Senate on Friday joined their House colleagues in urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate potential insider trading and other violations related to the chaos caused by the administration's mercurial global trade war.
After slapping sweeping tariffs of 10% or more on almost every country in the world last week, Trump abruptly paused some of the levies for most nations. These moves prompted a stock market plunge, followed by a robust rally that saw over $5 trillion in value added to the market in just hours on Wednesday—a day the president proclaimed that "this is a great time to buy" stocks and openly boasted about enriching his billionaire buddies.
"In any administration this corrupt it is more than necessary to ask, were people personally profiting from insider information?"
According to a Bloomberg estimate, Wednesday's bounceback bonanza added $304 billion to the collective wealth of the world's top billionaires, with Elon Musk, the world's richest person and the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, adding an estimated $36 billion, or about 10%, to his net worth.
"We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public, and whether any insiders, including the president's family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the president's announcement," six Democratic senators—Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.)—wrote Friday in a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins.
Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos? Today with @schumer.senate.gov and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings.
[image or embed]
— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) April 11, 2025 at 6:08 AM
"It is unconscionable that as American families are concerned about their financial security during this economic crisis entirely manufactured by the president, insiders may have actively profited from the market volatility and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public," the senators continued. "At this critical moment, the SEC must do its part to restore Americans' faith in the rule of law and to preserve the integrity of the financial system, in accordance with its statutory mission."
In a video posted on social media Wednesday, Schiff asked, "The question is, who knew what the president was going to do, and did people around the president trade stock knowing the incredible gyration the market was about to go through?"
"This is a president who is trading in his own meme coin even as he's president, his kids are trading in their own cryptocurrency, you've got people like Elon Musk who are doing their own conflicted self-dealing in the administration, and in any administration this corrupt it is more than necessary to ask, were people personally profiting from insider information while peoples' savings, their retirement accounts, are being torched," he added.
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain."
The senators' letter follows a similar missive led by House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and sent to Atkins, SEC Inspector General Deborah Jeffrey, and U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro on Thursday requesting an "immediate" investigation into "possible insider trading and market manipulation violations that took place between Sunday, April 6, 2025, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited President Trump at his Florida resort, and Wednesday, April 9, 2025, when the president announced the pausing of the tariffs—and whether such unlawful activities are ongoing."
"Insider trading by federal officials and their friends or family is not only a breach of trust of the American people, but erodes the integrity of government institutions and raises concerns about corruption and fairness in the political system," the letter states. "There should be zero tolerance for this kind of corruption in our society, let alone from those we entrust to lead us in the public sphere."
In yet another letter sent on Thursday, six Democratic representatives—Joe Neguse (Colo), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Seth Magaziner (R.I.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Dave Min (Calif.), and Steven Horsford (Nev.)—asked House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to "call on every member of the House of Representatives to immediately file and release their periodic trading reports for any transactions conducted between April 2, 2025 and April 9, 2025."
"The American people deserve to know if any representatives took advantage of their positions for personal gain," the letter states.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during an interview with Spectrum News NY1 that "I don't think that Trump just coincidentally said buy stocks and then shortly later made an announcement that dramatically inflated and dramatically raised a lot of these asset prices."
"I do not care if you're a Democrat, I do not care if you're a Republican: If you are trading individual stock when the market is being manipulated in this way, you need to answer for it," Ocasio-Cortez added.
On Wednesday, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) also called for a probe of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-Ga.) stock purchases during this week's market drop, and "whether any K Street lobbyists or other big firms were tipped off by Donald Trump's actions."
In an interview with Meidas Touch published Friday, Casar said that "it's just remarkable how much a culture of corruption has completely infected and taken over the entire Republican Party."
Casar: At the end of the day, this is about taking your hard-earned money and giving it to themselves—or funneling it to their friends. That’s all this is about.
[image or embed]
— Acyn ( @acyn.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:23 AM
"This is all part of the same story. They crash the market and then open it up to insider trading so that... members of Congress, K Street lobbyists, the billionaire donor buddies of Donald Trump can cash in after everybody's retirement accounts got screwed over," Casar continued.
"At the end of the day," he added, "this is all about basically taking your hard-earned money and giving it to themselves or funneling it to their buddies."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular