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'Diplomacy, Not Catastrophe' Needed as Israel Appears Poised for US-Enabled War on Iran
"It would be a catastrophic mistake to be led into a war by the same neocons that claimed the Iraq war would be a cakewalk," warned one group.
Jun 12, 2025
Israel is likely preparing to bomb Iran even as the Trump administration works toward a nuclear deal with Tehran, stoking fears of Iranian retaliation against U.S. military bases and other American or allied sites in an already inflamed region, and prompting calls for urgent diplomacy to avoid war.
U.S. and European officials told Western media Thursday that Israel is preparing to unilaterally attack Iran as negotiations between Washington and Tehran draw closer to a preliminary framework for an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear development. The government of fugitive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes any such deal.
"If this escalates, innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire in Iran and across the region."
American intelligence agencies have periodically concluded over the past two decades that Iran—which has not started a war since the 19th century but supports proxy attacks on Israel—is not developing nuclear weapons.
While President Donald Trump—who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if a nuclear deal is not reached—has publicly opposed an Israeli attack on Iran, numerous observers are warning that Tehran and its proxies would very likely view the U.S. as complicit in any such action.
"If Israel does strike Iran in the next days or hours, and even if they do so in defiance of Trump's warnings, the likelihood that the Iranians will perceive it as an independent act by Israel in defiance of Trump is essentially zero," Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Wednesday on social media. "There is no plausible deniability."
Vahid Razavi, an Iranian American advocate for human rights and ethics in technology and founder of ParentsPlea.com, told Common Dreams Thursday that "Israel will only attack Iran with the support and blessing of the United States."
"The 'good cop/bad cop' game that Trump and Israel are playing in the region is a distraction," Razavi added. "There is no substantial difference in U.S. and Israeli policy toward Iran."
Iran has threatened an "unprecedented response" if Israel attacks.
"In case of any conflict, the U.S. must leave the region because all its bases are within our range, and we will target all of them in the host countries regardless," Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said Thursday during a televised address.
Nasirzadeh's remarks followed a Wednesday threat by an official from Ansar Allah that the Yemeni rebel group also known as the Houthis is "at the highest level of preparedness for any possible American escalation against us."
"Any escalation against the Islamic Republic of Iran is also dangerous and will drag the entire region into the abyss of war," the unnamed official toldNewsweek.
The Trump administration stands accused of war crimes in Yemen amid an escalation of the decadeslong U.S. bombing of the country as part of the so-called War on Terror. Successive U.S. administrations also backed a Saudi-led war on Yemen that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, while Israeli and British forces have bombed the country since 2024 in retaliation for Houthi missile attacks on Red Sea shipping and Israel.
Last October, Iran launched a limited missile strike on Israel in response to the assassinations of Hassan Nasrallah, who led the Lebanon-based resistance group Hezbollah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. This prompted retaliatory Israeli attacks on targets in and around Tehran, including the headquarters of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The prospect of another Israeli attack on Iran prompted the U.S. on Wednesday to order the evacuation of some diplomats from Iraq and call for the voluntary departure of American military families from the region.
Meanwhile, numerous observers stressed the need for a diplomatic resolution to avoid a wider war in the Middle East—and possibly beyond.
"We must face the reality: if this escalates, innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire in Iran and across the region, and at home there may be new, dire threats to the civil liberties of our community," the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said in a statement Thursday.
"We are working to ensure our leaders hear us loud and clear: We need diplomacy, not catastrophe," NIAC added. "We are organizing multiple actions in the coming days against a potential war and in support of peace and ask for your support to fuel this vital effort."
Former Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner succinctly said Wednesday: "No war with Iran. No war, period."Keep ReadingShow Less
Democratic Voters Choose Fighting Corporate Power Over Neoliberal Abundance 'Scam': Poll
"At a moment when U.S. democracy is threatened by MAGA authoritarianism and deep inequality, doubling down on private-sector solutions while ignoring redistributive policy is a dangerous distraction," said one critic.
May 29, 2025
Democratic voters overwhelmingly prefer a populist program that takes on oligarchy and corporate power over the so-called "abundance agenda" that's all the rage among many liberals as party leaders examine why they lost the White House and Congress in 2024 and strategize about how to win them back.
That's according to a new Demand Progress poll of 1,200 registered voters "to test the resonance of the 'abundance agenda' being promoted as a potential policy and political refocus for the Democratic Party."
"What these voters want is clear: a populist agenda that takes on corporate power and corruption."
The poll revealed that 55.6% of all surveyed voters said they were somewhat or much more likely "to vote for a candidate for Congress or president who made the populist argument," compared with 43.5% who said they were likelier to cast their ballot for a candidate promoting the abundance agenda.
Among Democratic respondents, 32.6% said they were somewhat or much likelier to vote for abundance candidates, compared with 40.6% of Independents and 58.8% of Republicans. Conversely, 72.5% of surveyed Democrats, 55.4% of Independents, and 39.6% of Republicans expressed a preference for candidates with populist messaging.
"To get out of the political wilderness, and win over not just Democrats but also Independent and moderate voters, policymakers need to loudly state their case for helping middle- and working-class Americans," Demand Progress corporate power program director Emily Peterson-Cassin said in a statement Thursday.
Our poll got some notable responses last night! We went out of our way to generously characterize abundance using language from that camp but they responded by nitpicking and moving the goal posts. Check out our poll to see for yourself why abundance is an electoral loser.
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— Demand Progress (@demandprogress.bsky.social) May 29, 2025 at 4:38 AM
"What these voters want is clear: a populist agenda that takes on corporate power and corruption," Peterson-Cassin added. "The stakes are too high for Democrats to fixate on a message that only appeals to a minority of independent and Democratic voters."
Inspired by San Francisco's YIMBY—or "yes-in-my-backyard"—movement to build as much market-rate housing as possible with scant consideration for the fact that only relatively wealthy people like themselves can afford to live there, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Atlantic staff writer Derek Thompson earlier this year published Abundance, which topped the Times' nonfiction bestseller list.
Klein and Thompson assert that well-meaning but excessive regulation in Democrat-controlled cities is thwarting progress, and that U.S. liberals' focus on blocking bad economic development has come at the expense of good development over the past half-century. They cite environmental and zoning regulations, as well as burdensome requirements attached to public infrastructure projects and housing construction, as some of the barriers to development.
The Demand Progress poll found that Republicans were much more likely to have a positive view of candidates embracing the abundance agenda. However, the movement has been gaining traction among centrist and even left-of-center Democrats in cities like San Francisco, where the Abundance Network, a YIMBY nonprofit, has become a major player in city politics and has bankrolled a tech-backed takeover of the local Democratic Party, as Mission Local's Joe Rivano Barros and others have detailed.
Leftist critics have pulled no punches in calling out the abundance agenda as neoliberalism dressed in progressive clothes.
"The abundance movement is a scam," Brandee Marckmann of the progressive San Francisco Education Alliance told
Common Dreams on Thursday. "It's a rebranded Trumpian movement that punches down on working-class families. The only abundance these guys want is for themselves, and they want to line their pockets through political schemes that steal money from our public schools, public housing, and public transportation."
The “abundance agenda” promoted by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is gaining traction among center-left Democrats, but it’s largely a rebranding of deregulation and market-first policies -- more Rockefeller Republican than progressive.
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— The Phoenix Project ( @phoenixprojnow.bsky.social) April 18, 2025 at 1:46 PM
As Phoenix Project, a grassroots San Francisco group fighting dark money in politics, recently noted, "Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance helped rebrand Reagan-era economics for a new generation, but behind the gloss lies a familiar web of tech, real estate, and right-wing influence."
"At a moment when U.S. democracy is threatened by MAGA authoritarianism and deep inequality, doubling down on private-sector solutions while ignoring redistributive policy is a dangerous distraction," the group added.
Pointing to the Demand Progress poll, The Lever's Veronica Riccobene wrote Thursday that "Democratic voters know who their real enemy is."
"A majority believe the 'big problem' in America is that corporations and their executives have too much economic and political power," she said. "It's not surprising, considering Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) are pulling huge crowds on their 'Fighting Oligarchy' tour, even in deep-red states."
"Meanwhile, fewer Democratic voters believe the country's big problem is regulatory bottlenecking, a core argument of the neoliberal 'abundance' movement," Riccobene added.
The “abundance” agenda will not make sense to the average American because yall can’t even explain it clearly on here. Fight to guarantee people healthcare, housing, education, and living wages. It’s that simple.
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 3:42 PM
As progressive political strategist Dan Cohen said in response to the new poll, "The voters are demonstrating that they understand the problem with quite a traditional view of American politics and economics: that there is too much power and influence in corporate hands and everyday Americans aren't getting their fair share."
"Democrats would be wise to listen to the voters and respond directly to those views with their rhetoric and actions," he added.
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Trump Admin Will Garnish Struggling Borrowers' Wages as Student Loan Payments Resume
"This is just cruel and doesn't have to happen," said the Debt Collective.
Apr 21, 2025
The Trump administration on Monday announced that it will resume involuntary collection measures against defaulted federal student loan recipients, including garnishing wages, tax refunds, and Social Security benefits and "other actions to help borrowers get back into repayment," as the U.S. Department of Education euphemistically said.
"Resuming collections protects taxpayers from shouldering the cost of federal student loans that borrowers willingly undertook to finance their postsecondary education," DOE said in a statement notifying the public that collections will resume May 5. "This initiative will be paired with a comprehensive communications and outreach campaign to ensure borrowers understand how to return to repayment or get out of default."
The DOE said the U.S. Treasury Offset Program will administer borrower garnishments, which are expected to resume this summer.
DOE continued:
While Congress mandated that student and parent borrowers begin to repay their student loans in October 2023, the Biden-Harris administration refused to lift the collections pause and kept borrowers in a confusing limbo. The previous administration failed to process applications for borrowers who applied for income-driven repayment and continued to push misguided "on-ramps" and illegal loan forgiveness schemes to win points with borrowers and mask rising delinquency and default rates.
"American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies," billionaire U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on Monday.
The repayment resumption is part of the Trump administration's three-pronged, $1.6 trillion overhaul of the federal student loan system. In addition to moving to collect on defaulted loans, the administration is looking to end former President Joe Biden's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, an income-driven repayment program currently blocked by a federal appellate court. President Donald Trump also signed an executive order narrowing eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
Last month, the American Federation of Teachers led a lawsuit against the Trump administration after the DOE cut off access to income-driven repayment plan applications and secretly ordered student loan services to stop accepting and processing such applications.
The government has not collected on defaulted student loans since March 2020, when the first Trump administration paused repayments due to the burgeoning Covid-19 pandemic. The reprieve, which was subsequently extended several times, was set to end in September 2023. Efforts by the Biden administration to forgive some or all loan debt for more than 45 million student borrowers were thwarted by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court in 2023.
"The Biden administration misled borrowers: The executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear," said McMahon. "Hundreds of billions have already been transferred to taxpayers."
"Going forward, the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Treasury, will shepherd the student loan program responsibly and according to the law, which means helping borrowers return to repayment—both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation's economic outlook," she added.
As McMahon and the Trump administration work toward ending the DOE—a key goal of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led plan to eviscerate the federal government—Trump has ordered the administration of federal student loans to be transferred to the Small Business Administration (SBA), which was headed by McMahon during Trump's first term.
Approximately 5.6 million student borrowers were in default at the end of 2024. The DOE warns that "there could be almost 10 million borrowers in default in a few months" after repayments resume. That's roughly 25% of the current student loan portfolio. Failure to make timely student loan repayments results in lower credit scores for borrowers, who in turn generate less economic activity—a domino effect with implications for the entire slowing U.S. economy.
"They bailed out banks, corporations, and airlines. But when it comes to student debt? Suddenly it's 'too expensive.'"
"Many of the households required to resume paying on their student loans are also struggling with credit card debt at near-record interest rates and high-rate mortgages they thought they would be able to refinance into a lower rate, but haven't," explained Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi in a Monday interview with The New York Times.
Some critics slammed the Trump administration for resuming student loan repayments amid an affordability and housing crisis during which a record number of people are unhoused.
"Parents delaying retirement. Grads postponing families. This isn't 45 million separate problems, it's one national crisis," the Student Debt Crisis Center (SDCC) said on social media. "They bailed out banks, corporations, and airlines. But when it comes to student debt? Suddenly it's 'too expensive.'"
SDCC executive director Mike Pierce said that "federal law gives borrowers a way out of default and the right to make loan payments they can afford. Since February, Donald Trump and Linda McMahon have blocked these borrowers' path out of default and are now feeding them into the maw of the government debt collection machine."
"This is cruel, unnecessary, and will further fan the flames of economic chaos for working families across this country," Pierce added.
Tuition-free college would help make America great. Those who need loans to attend college come from working class families, the elites don’t need loans. 40% of student debt holders don’t hold a degree. This will hurt the working class.
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— Nina Turner (@ninaturner.bsky.social) April 21, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Others offered solutions enjoyed by people in other countries, including simply not collecting the debt and making colleges and universities tuition-free—even if their chances of implementation under what many leftists call U.S. "late-stage capitalism" are next to nil.
"If the Trump/Musk administration really wanted 'government efficiency,' then they wouldn't be collecting on debts people cannot and will not pay,"
said the Debt Collective, a debtors' union, referring to Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency. "They would just cancel it and boost the economy."
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