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seth moulton
'Wow': Observers Surprised After Dem Moderate Rejects AIPAC Cash
"AIPAC's brand is increasingly, perhaps irredeemably toxic," wrote one observer.
Oct 16, 2025
A centrist Democratic lawmaker on Thursday surprised many political observers when he announced he would be returning donations he'd received from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who is running a primary challenge against Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), said that he was rejecting donations from AIPAC because it had aligned itself too closely with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last year was accused of committing crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
"I'm a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC's mission is to back that government," Moulton said in a social media post. "I don't support that direction."
As flagged by New York Times reporter Annie Karni, Moulton is now the fourth Democratic lawmaker who once received heavy support from AIPAC to reject their donations, following Reps. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.), Deborah Ross (D-NC), and Valerie Foushee (D-NC).
Hamid Bendaas, communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, observed in a post on X that Moulton appeared to be ignoring advice given by a prominent Democratic consultant over the summer to not focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict because polls showed it wasn't important to voters.
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, argued that Moulton's rejection of AIPAC cash showed how far the organization's reputation with the electorate has fallen over the past several years.
"AIPAC is now so toxic to Democratic voters that support from it is widely seen as a political liability," he wrote. "The NRA-ization of AIPAC is nearly complete."
Ishaan Tharoor, a Washington Post global affairs columnist, also reflected on how much AIPAC's brand has been damaged over the last two years of war in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 68,000 Palestinians.
"There was a time when people would refer to AIPAC as the gold standard in lobbying," he wrote. "So many in India and the Indian diaspora have talked about a future 'Indian AIPAC' one day influencing US politics in similar fashion. But AIPAC's brand is increasingly, perhaps irredeemably toxic."
Journalist Ryan Grim had a one-word reaction to Moulton's rejection of AIPAC cash: "Wow."
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'Deeply Un-American': Trump Tells Generals to Use US Cities as Military 'Training Grounds'
"Wake up, people, the US is fast approaching a point of no return," warned one critic, who said the president's alarming rhetoric "comes right out of the fascism playbook."
Sep 30, 2025
President Donald Trump told hundreds of senior military commanders Tuesday that the country is "under invasion from within" and that they should use American cities as "training grounds" to target domestic "enemies"—remarks that drew warnings of encroaching fascism as the president expands his invasion and occupation of US communities.
Speaking to nearly 800 US generals and admirals stationed around the world who were summoned to Quantico, Virginia by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a highly unusual assembly, Trump told military leaders they would be used against the American people.
"They're vicious people that we have to fight," the president said, referring in this case to critical journalists, whom he called "sleazebags."
(Trump begins speaking at the 1:09:45 mark in the following video)
"Just like you have to fight vicious people, mine are a different kind of vicious," he added.
Trump then said that cities "run by the radical left Democrats... San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles" are "very unsafe places, and we're gonna straighten them out one by one."
"And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room," he continued. "This is a war too. It's a war from within."
Referring to Hegseth, Trump said, "and I told Pete, "we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military."
Responding to this, Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the ACLU's Equality Division, told Common Dreams that when Trump said "the enemy within," he meant "those who disagree with him."
"We don't need to spell out how dangerous the president’s message is, but here goes: Military troops must not police us, let alone be used as a tool to suppress the president’s critics," Shah said. "In cities across the country, the president’s federal deployments are already creating conflict where there is none and instilling profound fear in people who are simply trying to live their lives and exercise their constitutional rights. Our country and democracy deserve far better than this."
Trump also said during his Tuesday speech that "only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within," a false assertion given centuries of US imperialism and colonization, first in the Americas and then around the globe.
"We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms—at least when they're wearing a uniform you can take them out; these people don't have uniforms," Trump said. "But we are under invasion from within; we're stopping it very quickly."
He then turned his attention to "radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it comes to common sense," falsely accusing the previous administration of opening US borders to Venezuelans after that country's government "emptied its prison population into our country."
In another lie, Trump said that "Washington, DC was the most unsafe, the most dangerous city in the United States of America, and to a large extent, beyond."
The president claimed that "we took out 1,700 career criminals" during his recently launched takeover of DC—almost certainly another false statement given that more than 80% of arrests made in the capital were for misdemeanor offenses, many of them immigration-related.
Trump said US troops are "following in a great and storied military tradition" of presidents who have deployed military forces against "domestic" enemies.
"Today, I want to thank every service member from general to private who's helped secure the nation's capital and make America safe for the American people," he said, adding in another blatant lie that "we haven't had a crime in Washington in so long."
"We're going into Chicago very soon," he said, although Operation Midway Blitz is already underway in the city.
"How about Portland?" he asked, adding in a comment utterly divorced from reality that the laconic Oregon city "looks like a war zone."
Trump ordered troops to invade Portland despite the city ranking 72nd in violent crime in the US, according to FBI data.
In an apparent moment of doubt, Trump asked during a Sunday NBC News interview, "Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?"
Recounting how Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek asked Trump to not deploy federal forces to Portland, Trump said during Tuesday's speech that "unless they're playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down."
Amid small-scale protests in Portland over Trump's authoritarian Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown, Fox News aired a report conflating video footage from 2020 protests against the police murder of George Floyd with the recent images. Anti-ICE protesters have burned an American flag and set small street fires in Portland, but no structures have been burned down.
Trump also said that any anti-ICE protesters who throw objects at federal vehicles or agents can be met with unlimited force.
"You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do," the president said.
Critics swiftly pushed back on Trump's suggestion of using American cities as military "training grounds."
Congressman Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a former Marine Corps combat veteran who served multiple tours during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, said on the social media site X that "today’s speeches by Trump and Hegseth were weak portrayals of 'leadership' by two small, insecure men."
"US cities should never be 'training grounds' for the military," Moulton added. "There is no 'enemy from within.' The reputational and operational damage being done to our military will take years to undo."
The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State said on social media, "This is authoritarian, unconstitutional, and a direct threat to our democracy."
"Today’s speeches by Trump and Hegseth were weak portrayals of 'leadership' by two small, insecure men."
Chris Rilling, a former senior official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said on X: "Trump should be impeached for this statement alone. Period."
Some legal experts noted that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
Leaders of the Not Above the Law Coalition—which includes progressive groups such as Public Citizen, MoveOn, and Stand Up America—called Trump's remarks "deeply un-American."
“This dangerous rhetoric delivered during an unprecedented gathering reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of our military's purpose and the people it serves," the coalition co-chairs said. "Make no mistake: This isn't about public safety—it's about turning our own military into a force to be used against Trump’s perceived political opponents or anyone who questions his administration."
“Americans cannot stay silent when our leaders express plans to use our military against us," they added. "We must reject any attempt to normalize this outrageous and unlawful directive.”
Observers abroad also expressed shock at Trump's remarks.
"In Trump’s speech today, Trump mentioned something very dangerous: using US cities (Democrat-run, I bet) as US troops training ground," said José Antonio Salcedo, a professor at University of Porto in Portugal. "This is definitely contrary to the US Constitution."
"It comes right out of the fascism playbook that Project 2025 and its fringe lunatic authors have been advocating and planning," he added. "Wake up, people, the US is fast approaching a point of no return."
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Massachusetts Dems Urge Biden to Take Cuba Off US Terrorism List
"Removing Cuba from this list is one thing that the U.S. can do immediately to ease the daily hardships facing so many Cuban families," wrote seven lawmakers.
Jan 02, 2024
Following a private briefing on Capitol Hill in which a U.S. State Department official angered Democratic lawmakers by revealing that the Biden administration has not yet begun a lengthy review process to remove Cuba from the government's list of "State Sponsors of Terror," Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern led other Massachusetts Democrats in demanding that the White House expedite the process.
The letter sent to President Joe Biden was written in mid-December, a week after the closed-door meeting took place, but was not released on until Tuesday.
Pressley and McGovern were joined by Reps. Lori Trahan, Stephen Lynch, and Seth Moulton, as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey in calling on Biden to reverse the "vindictive action" taken by former Republican President Donald Trump just before he left office in January 2021, when he added Cuba to the SSOT list.
The Democrats noted that while there are numerous reasons for Cuba's economic crisis, "without a doubt a significant contributing factor is the restrictions and penalties facing international financial institutions and other entities because Cuba is on the SSOT list."
"From the poorest and most vulnerable to the struggling private sector to religious, humanitarian, and cultural actors, the Cuban people are enduring the most dire deprivations in recent memory—everyone is suffering," the letter reads. "Removing Cuba from this list is one thing that the U.S. can do immediately to ease the daily hardships facing so many Cuban families, including its struggling private sector."
Inclusion on the SSOT list limits Cuba's participation in international financial markets, as other countries are forced to choose between doing business with the wealthiest country in the world and the small island nation that it claims supports terrorism.
Trump claimed the designation was necessary because Cuba was aiding terrorists in Colombia—reasoning that the lawmakers called "specious."
"During his most recent visit to the United States, Colombian President Gustavo Petro appealed personally to you for Cuba to be removed from the list to facilitate peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas," wrote the lawmakers.
The December meeting on Capitol Hill left several Democrats "furious," a lawmaker who was granted anonymity told The Intercept last month, particularly because McGovern had reportedly been told that the review process, which takes about six months, was ongoing.
In the letter the lawmakers pointed out that on the campaign trail, Biden pledged to "address re-engagement with Cuba" and lift Trump's punishing economic sanctions, returning to the normalized relations introduced by the Obama-Biden administration.
As William Leogrande wrote at the The Nation on Monday, Cuba's foreign exchange earnings have been "drastically reduced" by the sanctions.
"The impact of the economic crisis is visible everywhere," wrote Leogrande. "There are fewer cars on the streets and long lines at gas stations because of the fuel shortage. Tourist hotels stand half-empty and the once bustling streets of Old Havana are quiet. The shelves in state stores are mostly bare, often lacking even the limited basket of goods that Cubans receive at subsidized prices on their ration book. Garbage is accumulating on street corners. Street crime is rising."
Alleviating some of the suffering by removing Cuba from the SSOT list, said the Democratic lawmakers in their letter to Biden, "is the only option worthy of the United States."
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