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
todd lyons
Rights Group Demands US Investigation Into Reported Bombing of Ecuadorian Fishing Boat
“The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said an advocate at Amnesty International.
Jul 21, 2026
Amnesty International is calling for a full investigation by the US government into the alleged bombing of an Ecuadorian fishing boat, the Fiorella, last January, as the family members of eight disappeared fishermen have spent months demanding answers about what happened to their loved ones in the midst of the Trump administration's boat bombing campaign in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
In "Operation Southern Spear," which the Trump administration has said is aimed at stopping drug trafficking from Latin America and in which at least 221 people have been killed in more than 60 bombings, US Southern Command has frequently announced strikes in the region since they began in September.
In the case of the Fiorella, the US military did not issue an announcement of a bombing after the boat "went up in smoke" on January 20, after which eight fishermen who were on board went missing in the midst of Operation Southern Spear.
Amnesty noted on Monday that in the case of two other Ecuadorian fishing vessels, Negra Francisca Duarte II and Don Maca, which were reportedly struck by drones in March and whose surviving crew members said they were captured and tortured by US forces, US Southern Command also did not publicly acknowledge the strikes, "despite reports from survivors stating that both vessels were allegedly sunk by unmanned aerial vehicles bearing markings attributed to the United States."
"If it were confirmed that the United States was responsible for the strike on the Fiorella, as well as for the strikes against the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca, the total number of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and other serious human rights violations associated with these operations could be much higher than previously estimated," said Amnesty.
The group's Evidence Lab used a vessel monitoring system to reconstruct the route covered by the Fiorella, finding the boat set sail from Jaramijó with 10 crew members on January 15.
The boat lost its internet connection shortly after setting out and went in and out of international waters, also sailing in the Galapagos Exclusive Economic Zone, between January 15-19.
"During the first days of the trip, no major incidents were reported," said Amnesty. "However, from the fourth day onwards, the Fiorella was allegedly subjected to sustained monitoring by aircraft, patrol boats and drones bearing United States markings. Juan Carlos Valencia, the fishing boat’s captain, sent daily satellite messages to his family expressing his growing concern about the surveillance."
On the morning of January 20, the boat sent two skiffs out with baited hooks, and at around 1:00 pm the two crew members on one of the boats saw "a large column of smoke in the distance in the direction of the Fiorella." The two crew members on the skiff were rescued by another fishing boat two days later, but "nothing more has been heard of the Fiorella or the second skiff since," said Amnesty.
Three months after the Fiorella disappeared following the apparent attack, the local organization Standing Committee for the Defense of Human Rights reported that the 36 crew members who had been aboard the Negra Francisca Duarte II and the Don Maca had been detained by US personnel after their boats were struck by drones, before being eventually returned to Ecuador.
Amnesty International, which met with the families of the disappeared crew members from the Fiorella, said the relatives suspect their loved ones may also have been captured and transferred to another country by the US.
“The families of the eight individuals whose whereabouts are unknown fear that this is a case of enforced disappearance at the hands of the United States," said Ana Piquer, Americas director at Amnesty International. "The US and Ecuadorian authorities must confirm or deny whether state agents from either country were involved, take all necessary steps to ascertain the fate and whereabouts of the victims, and provide reliable evidence showing what happened to them."
Family members reported that Ecuadorian officials have alluded to allegations that their loved ones were involved in drug trafficking and were therefore attacked by the US as part of Operation Southern Spear.
“The commander said to us: ‘You know what they went to do, so why are you looking for them?’" the daughter of one missing fisherman told Amnesty. "This made me really angry, and I said to him: ‘I’m here to look for my dad, all they did was go fishing. You should show some compassion and tell us the truth.’ The next day we went again [to the port authority] and they simply closed the door on us.”
The Ecuadorian Public Prosecutor's office has not submitted a formal request to the US for information to complete an investigation into the Fiorella's disappearance, said Amnesty.
“It’s as if the ship simply vanished and no one cares how it happened or what became of the people on board. Perhaps it just flew away? More than six months on from the disappearance, the Ecuadorian authorities must provide a clear account of what actions they have taken to establish the facts, what they know, what they do not know, and how they intend to address the legitimate demands of the families of those disappeared. The criminal investigation into these events must continue until those potentially responsible are identified and brought to justice,” said Piquer.
She added that "the Department of Justice and the investigative authorities of the US armed forces must investigate and establish possible criminal responsibility not only in relation to the Fiorella, but also for all other strikes on vessels on the high seas."
"Similarly, the US Congress must drive a parliamentary inquiry into this serious incident, with hearings and reports designed to establish the facts and determine the possible involvement of public agencies or private entities under its authority," she said. "In addition, all states must suspend international cooperation on intelligence and military equipment that could be used in such illegal operations."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Piketty Offers a Vision for Sharing What We Have Left, But How Do We Convince the 1%?
It’s inspiring to see the World Inequality Lab researchers directly engage in the post-growth debate with a grand vision of global economic convergence. We can only hope it spurs a peaceful mass citizens’ movement to overcome the inevitable opposition of the ultra rich.
Jul 21, 2026
At the World Inequality Conference in June, the renowned economist Thomas Piketty and a team of 45 researchers from the World Inequality Lab unveiled the Global Justice Report. It’s a highly impressive and eloquent proposal to achieve "equality and prosperity within planetary boundaries" by the end of the century. Based on a fully quantified road map derived from extensive macroeconomic analysis, the 135-page report sets forth an ambitious vision: to construct a global economy that shares global wealth and achieves high well-being for all while rapidly decarbonizing energy systems, thereby maintaining emissions within the relatively safe limits of 1.8°C.
This hopeful outlook provides a welcome antidote to our times, in which the world is already reeling from climate breakdown, geo-economic confrontation, and a widening structural economic divide.
The core aim of the proposal is to achieve full income convergence across all countries by 2100, centered around a target level of €5,000 (about $5,700) per month for every person. To achieve this, the bottom 50% of humanity need to increase their global wealth share from 2-30%. The top 0.001%, in contrast, would see their wealth fall from 6% to 0.05%—a "striking redistribution," to quote the report, which would essentially abolish the billionaire class.
A Global Justice Fund serves to administer this immense effort at international economic sharing, financed by a global wealth tax and a top income tax levied on the richest 1% of the world’s population. Some of the revenue raised would go into a World Sovereign Fund, which is projected to accumulate assets equivalent to 60% of world GDP and replace tax revenue as the main source of financing. Country dividends are designed to be distributed on an equal per-capita basis, therefore providing more resources to poorer than richer countries and vastly more resources than currently allocated to development aid. These funds also come with strong conditionalities in terms of climate investments, inequality targets, and health and education expenditures.
A Vision of Sufficiency
The main novelty of the report is to put the concept of sufficiency at the center of its analysis, rightly arguing that we cannot stay within a 2°C carbon budget if the entire human population adopts a rich-world lifestyle of high private consumption. Sufficiency, as the report defines it, therefore requires more than halving average working time to 1,000 hours, roughly the equivalent of a two-and-a-half-day standard week.
This needs to be accompanied by a significant shift from material to immaterial sectors, such as health and education, which in turn would help refocus the economy toward low-consumption activities. A substantial change in food habits and reduced meat consumption could also allow for a strict deforestation ban, freeing up arable land while scaling down high-emitting agricultural practices. At the same time, sufficiency in production and consumption patterns must be combined with rapid decarbonization of the energy system, as spurred and enabled by the Global Justice Fund.
All this can read, at times, as a wish list of sustainability concepts and policies long espoused by environmental thinkers. But the work of the Global Justice Project is far wider in scope than Piketty’s best-selling tome, Capital in the 21st Century, which famously used vast historical and economic data to argue the case for a progressive global tax on wealth. Back in 2015, we at Share the World's Resources and others criticized the book for failing to take seriously the ecological limits to growth and planetary boundaries. So it’s inspiring to see the World Inequality Lab authors directly engaging in this debate, fully denouncing the rhetoric of "green growth" that assumes we can address environmental challenges by indefinitely increasing the size of the pie without reducing inequality, consuming less, or sharing resources globally.
Sharing Environmental Space
Their new report argues that technology alone is not enough to achieve rapid decarbonization. They acknowledge that to manage the green transition globally within a strict carbon budget, it will be necessary for today’s richest countries to radically downscale their resource and energy demands with near-zero growth in GDP. This will clear the ecological and carbon space needed for poorer countries of the Global South to continue growing their economies, enabling a fast energy transition while guaranteeing essential public services and a decent standard of living to all people.
It is hardly a novel framing of the issue, but the report emphasizes how their Sustainable Convergence Scenario entails a form of "class-based reparatory justice," in that the very rich—who have benefited the most from fossil-based global economic growth in recent decades—will primarily fund the Global Justice Platform. What’s more, the proposal is somewhat aligned with the concept of climate equity, and effectively translates the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" into quantitative policies for addressing climate change.
Another strength of the report is how it connects macroeconomic and environmental projections directly to questions of international institutional reform. It centrally highlights the need for a broader overhaul and democratization of the global economic and monetary system, including the reconstitution of the International Monetary Fund into a United Nations Central Bank that issues its own reserve currency. This would eliminate the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar and other major currencies that can borrow at much lower rates, ending a massive reverse redistribution of wealth from Global South countries to the Global North.
All other international institutions would be governed by strict rules and equal voting rights, further eradicating the special privileges and veto powers of dominant nations. A new international order would include the reform of World Trade Organisation rules and a reset of dispute settlement mechanisms. And the large financial resources allocated to the Global Justice Fund would de facto underwrite a major restructuring of the entire UN system, strengthening its many agencies, human rights protections and international laws.
From Plutocracy to Democracy
As the report affirms, these proposals to transform global governance from "plutocracy to democracy" are closely related to many other existing frameworks and initiatives. The Bridgetown Initiative in 2022, for example, also stresses the complementary role of global wealth taxation and international monetary reform. The UN Tax Convention process also focuses on democratizing the international tax system and curbing illicit financial flows, while the G20 initiatives led by Brazil and South Africa also champion global wealth taxes to fund climate policies and green energy transitions.
There are numerous other networks and organizations that aim toward similar tax and governance reforms, such as the work of Progressive International with their Program of Action on the Construction of a New International Economic Order. The Stiglitz Commission of 2010 and Brandt Commission of 1980 are gladly cited by the Global Justice Report as complementary discussions surrounding the reform of the international monetary and reserve system.
Above all, the report authors deservedly mention the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth—a major project coordinated by the former UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Olivier De Schutter, that puts forward an exhaustive policy toolkit for building a global economy with human rights and ecological justice at its core. Thomas Piketty and many other prominent economists have put their names to this plan, which is one of the most comprehensive policy documents of recent years to define "living well within planetary boundaries" through increased South-South cooperation, reparative climate finance, and support for universal social protection floors. De Schutter’s pioneering proposal for a Global Fund for Social Protection is arguably a less utopian prospect for closing chronic financing gaps in low-income countries, building upon existing structures like the UN’s International Labour Organisation, and seeking more immediately viable sources of international financing.
The operative question, as always, is how the political conditions will arise to implement these policies as an alternative to the far-right techno-authoritarian vision being championed by reactionary political elites and their billionaire supporters. It’s certainly true, as Piketty and his team write in a Guardian op-ed, that technical impossibility is not what is standing in the way but rather “the absence of a shared vision of social progress, at once concrete and radical.” And both the Piketty and De Schutter road maps make clear that formidable forces will oppose any socioeconomic shift toward global sustainable convergence, with the fiercest resistance coming from the ultra rich.
Both reports also briefly outline the need to build countervailing power from the grassroots, explicitly supporting collective action from progressive political parties, labor unions, and civil society organisations. The Global Justice Report even gives its conclusion the subtitle: "A global citizen movement for social justice," and it modestly proffers its analysis to the broader collective mobilization that is already (if all too slowly) advancing at the world scale. So whatever limitations and shortcomings these reports may contain, we can only hope they spur the massive groundswell of popular support that is urgently needed to share the world’s finite resources before it’s too late.
Keep ReadingShow Less
A Question I'd Ask Jalen Brunson About the Patch on His Jersey
If I had the good fortune of meeting Jalen Brunson, I would urge him to learn about what the UAE is doing in Sudan, to educate others about it, and to ask the Knicks owner, James Dolan, to end the UAE deal.
Jul 21, 2026
A funny thing happened on the way to the NBA Championship Finals this season. Despite being die-hard Celtics fans, my six-year-old son and I fell in love with Jalen Brunson of the rival New York Knicks. We’ve risked excommunication from Celtics Nation for this sacrilege.
But let me state our case. First, and obviously, Brunson is one of the most fearless basketball players to have ever played the game. Driving the lane repeatedly in the face of Victor Wembanyama, the 7’4” consensus NBA defensive player of the year, was a wonder to behold. The guy has ice in his veins.
Second, we love the kind of humble teammate Brunson is: deflecting praise, not spending his time on social media battling critics like a certain ex-Celtic, being forever encouraging of his teammates, and living out his faith in God.
Third, perhaps strangely, we love Brunson’s dietary habits. My son is a carb and treat monster (wonder where he got that from?), but when we learned about Brunson’s incredibly healthy meals, we both got on board. Even Celtics like John Havlicek and Paul Silas couldn’t do that for me as a kid.
Fourth, since I’m always drilling my son to share his toys and be generous with those less fortunate, we were inspired to learn that Brunson took a pay cut so that there would be more money to—wait for it—win a championship.
Fifth and relatedly, Brunson has used his wealth to better the lives of others through his Second Round Foundation. He received an NBA Cares award for his community work, something we have prioritized with our son from a very early age.
Sixth, as on-and-off New York residents ourselves, Brunson is quintessential New York City. The comebacks, the underdog, the grit, the discounted. For all those who are doubted and dismissed, he is the patron saint.
Seventh, by every account, Brunson is an amazing father to his daughter Jordyn, a devoted husband to his wife Ali, and a loving son to his mom Sandra and dad Rick.
I could go on. The guy is the real deal, the kind of role model the sports world—and frankly, this country—needs right now for so many reasons.
But there is one problem, one outlier in this litany of goodness. It isn’t his fault by any stretch, but just maybe he could do something about it.
If I ever met Brunson, after telling him how much my son and I have admired and been inspired by him, I would raise this one uncomfortable truth with him: Right above his heart on his and his teammates’ Knicks jerseys is a patch with the words “Experience Abu Dhabi.” The New York Knicks have a marketing deal worth $30 million with Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is one of the most expensive uniform patches in the NBA.
Seems innocuous enough. There are lots of these kinds of ads all over uniforms and arenas throughout the sporting world globally. But this ad carries enormous baggage, and it’s unlikely that Brunson and most people even know why. Through this marketing deal, the Knicks are connected to the people of Sudan. But the Sudanese are not experiencing Abu Dhabi in the same way the tourists the UAE is wooing might be. The people of Sudan are experiencing Abu Dhabi through the killer drones the UAE government has been delivering to a deadly militia amid one of the most destructive wars globally this century. The United Nations and the US government have said the militia that the UAE supports is committing genocide, which is the deliberate killing of people on the basis of their identity, in this case, racial and ethnic.
If I had the good fortune of meeting Jalen Brunson, I would urge him to learn about what the UAE is doing in Sudan, to educate others about it, and to ask the Knicks owner, James Dolan, to end the UAE deal. The Knicks and Brunson have been the good news story of the sports world this year. Imagine the good news and hope the team could bring to the suffering people of Sudan if the team cut its connection to such horrific violence.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Ukraine: America's Enduring Proxy War on Russia
Eisenhower’s warning that US policy would be captured by a scientific-technological elite supplies a specific reason the US sustains the Ukraine war: Ukraine has become a unique, live-fire laboratory for AI warfare at scale
Jul 21, 2026
In his farewell address of January 1961, Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans against the "acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," and the danger that "public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." Sixty-five years on, Eisenhower’s warnings have been repeatedly and tragically vindicated. American democracy hangs by a thread, while the military-industrial complex, now including Silicon Valley, runs American foreign policy over the objections of the American people.
The aim is American primacy, meaning the unchallenged wealth, power, and prerogatives of American elites, unchecked by any other nation or group of nations. What this means in practice is that Wall Street, military contractors, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil control American foreign policy to maximize elite wealth and access to global resources, supply chains, and strategic choke points. The rest of the world is to fall in line.
The military-industrial complex deploys a toolkit that we summarize as “regime control,” directed at subordinating the rest of the world’s governments to the United States. The instruments used for regime control include the imposition or removal of trade barriers; the access to or denial of technologies; the introduction or removal of economic sanctions; the ownership and manipulation of foreign media; electoral interference of varying extent; political assassinations, color revolutions, CIA-backed coups; the instigation of overseas bank runs and the supply of emergency loans when states submit; the freezing and unfreezing of foreign assets; the targeting of foreign officials with corruption claims, extradition, or kidnapping; and, when none of these suffice for regime control, outright war. The US wars of choice (really, wars for regime control) are perpetual, and lucrative for the war industries, though the deep state typically prefers that other governments cave in without a fight.
Geopolitical Pivots and American Primacy
Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard (1997) laid out the goal of regime control with remarkable candor. Eurasia is the board on which America’s global primacy must be secured. To succeed, America should dominate “geopolitical pivots,” meaning states that are unimportant to America per se but useful for weakening another major power. Brzezinski named key geopolitical pivots, the most important of which was Ukraine. He repeatedly proclaimed that Russia without Ukraine ceases to be a great power. He identified Iran as another pivot. Control over Iran secures America’s hold on the Persian Gulf, Mideast oil, and the Caspian region. It is no surprise that US wars rage in both places.
The US does not want security with mutual respect. It wants primacy, which is an altogether different thing.
This is important to understand the decisions of six seemingly different presidents, who all pursued one consistent Ukraine policy. Bill Clinton set out to enlarge NATO to Ukraine and other border states of Russia, counting on Russia being too weak to object. He and subsequent presidents assumed that Russia would ultimately accept its diminished global status, accept the reality of NATO on its borders, and settle into a subordinate role of supplying raw materials to the West within an American-ordered Eurasia.
Clinton launched NATO enlargement in the 1990s, over George Kennan’s warning that it was "the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold-War era" and despite the legally binding assurances given by the US to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would move "not one inch eastward." George W. Bush withdrew from the ABM Treaty and, at Bucharest in 2008, committed NATO to membership for Ukraine and Georgia, crossing what William Burns, then ambassador in Moscow and later CIA director, privately called "the brightest of all redlines" for the entire Russian elite. Barack Obama’s administration backed the 2014 Maidan overthrow of Ukraine’s elected, neutral government (we know this through Victoria Nuland’s intercepted call where she discusses choosing the next prime minister), and then supported the new regime’s bid to join NATO. Donald Trump, in his first term, sent Javelin systems to the US-backed regime in Kyiv to fight the breakaway, Russian-speaking Donbas. Joe Biden brushed aside Russia’s December 2021 draft security treaties without negotiating and scuttled the near-agreement between Russia and Ukraine at Istanbul in the spring of 2022, which would have ended the war. And so the war continues to this day.
Trump's Vacuous Anti-War Campaign Promises
Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 as the man who would end America’s forever wars. This turned out to be far from the truth.
The year 2025 opened with theater including the Oval Office humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, the taunt that Ukraine had "no cards," and in March a week-long suspension of US intelligence sharing with Kyiv. That week proved two things. First, this is an American war: Deprived of US intelligence for only a few days, Ukraine’s deep-strike capacity and battlefield awareness visibly degraded. Second, the White House pressure was aimed not at peace with Moscow but at obedience from Kyiv. The US military spigot was reopened, and what followed, behind a proscenium of summits and phone calls, was the most systematic escalation of the American military role since 2022.
In June 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14307, "Unleashing American Drone Dominance," directing the rebuilding of the American drone industrial base and instructing that the Pentagon "must be able to procure, integrate, and train using low-cost, high-performing drones." In July, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth staged a drone demonstration at the Pentagon and stripped away procurement restrictions to "unleash" military drone dominance; the same month, on a call with Zelenskyy, Trump asked, according to the Financial Times’ later reporting, whether Ukraine could strike Moscow if given longer-range weapons.
From midsummer 2025, the US supplied the intelligence for Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign against Russian refineries, pipelines, and power stations, shaping route planning, altitude, timing, and mission decisions; by some officials’ account, setting the target priorities itself. In August came the Alaska summit, suggesting diplomacy, yet at the same time the sale of Extended Range Attack Munitions for Ukraine, with European allies paying. By October, Trump had formally authorized the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies to hand Ukraine targeting data for strikes on Russian energy infrastructure deep inside Russia, a step the Biden administration itself had refused as too escalatory, while Washington pressed NATO allies to do the same and openly debated Tomahawks with the range to reach Moscow. Through it all, CIA Director John Ratcliffe kept the agency’s presence in Ukraine at its highest level, increased funding for its programs there, coordinated Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries by sharing intelligence on infrastructure vulnerabilities, and patiently guided Trump toward blessing the campaign. The United States, it emerged, had spent billions building Ukraine’s drone program from the start, in an effort backed by the CIA throughout.
Trump lies constantly, and much of it is the improvisation of a vain and careless man. But the consequential lying is systematic, and in one direction: in the service of the military-industrial complex.
The Laboratory
Eisenhower’s warning that US policy would be captured by a scientific-technological elite supplies a specific reason the US sustains the Ukraine war. Ukraine has become a unique, live-fire laboratory for AI warfare at scale: millions of drone sorties, a continuous adaptation race against a peer adversary’s electronic warfare, and thousands of hours of combat data that constitute the most valuable military AI asset on Earth.
At the center of this sits Palantir, born of CIA seed money, running the Pentagon’s Maven targeting enterprise, and threaded through the British security establishment via a revolving door that includes a former MI6 chief among more than 30 UK officials hired or contracted by the company. Its chief executive openly boasts that Palantir software performs "most of the targeting" done by Ukraine. In January 2026 Ukraine’s defense ministry announced that Palantir was building the "Brave1 Dataroom" to feed real battlefield data into the AI brains of interceptor drones; by May, minister and CEO were discussing expanded cooperation in battlefield analysis and military planning, the ministry promising to "transfer the war onto Russian territory."
Nor is Iran a separate story from the Ukraine saga. Recall that in Brzezinski’s geography the arc from the Persian Gulf through the Caspian is the second great prize, with Iran as its keystone pivot. Ukrainian interceptor teams have deployed to Jordan against Iranian drones; the counter-drone systems proven against Russia are marketed to the Gulf. Two geopolitical pivots, one chessboard, and one ultimate source of these two wars of choice: the military-industrial complex.
Kissinger’s Admonition to Friends of the US
Henry Kissinger is famously credited with telling the truth to nations that the US would use and discard: To be an enemy of the United States may be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.
Ukraine is dying at American hands. Thirty years since Brzezinski pointed to Ukraine as the key geopolitical pivot for American primacy, Ukraine has been demographically hollowed and territorially truncated, with its energy grid pounded, its elections suspended, and its politics reduced to corrupted palace intrigues. This month’s rupture in Kyiv shows that in the midst of what Western coverage calls Ukraine’s great comeback, Zelenskyy dissolved his government for the fourth time in the war; dispatched his prime minister toward the Washington embassy to manage the "key partner;" and summarily sacked Mykhailo Fedorov, the popular minister celebrated as the architect of the drone ecosystem. A country truly winning its war does not behave this way.
The deepest cruelty is that Russia sought, repeatedly and for 30 years, a security arrangement with the US in which both countries and their neighborhoods would live in peace, mutual respect, and indivisible security. Yet the US does not want security with mutual respect. It wants primacy, which is an altogether different thing. In the process, it sacrifices Ukraine and Iran to its hubris. Peace in Ukraine requires only that the US relinquish the hubris it has maintained for decades that Russia can be pressured into surrender, and instead accept Ukraine as a neutral bridge between Europe and Russia rather than a geopolitical pivot to be used against Russia. Eisenhower foresaw why acceptance of peace would be so hard: The military-industrial complex does not merely influence policy; it defines it. Until the American people reclaim the democracy from Palantir, BlackRock, SpaceX, Chevron, and their ilk, the battlefield “laboratories” will stay open, and Ukraine will pay the fatal price for American “friendship.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Must Cut Off Funding': House Dem Readies Legal Action and New Bill to Halt Trump's Iran War
Rep. John Larson said members of Congress must "take every available legal action to end it before more Americans are killed."
Jul 21, 2026
Democratic Rep. John Larson said late Monday that he is preparing legal action against the Trump administration and a new bill to cut off funding for the US war on Iran, which was launched without congressional authorization nearly five months ago and has intensified in recent days following the collapse of a ceasefire deal.
Larson (D-Conn.) said he would file a lawsuit "challenging the administration’s continued prosecution of the war without congressional approval," pointing to President Donald Trump's cynical attempt to evade limits imposed by the War Powers Act of 1973.
"The administration’s claim that recent developments constitute a new conflict and restart what they consider to be a 60-day deadline under the War Powers Resolution is nothing more than a legally baseless attempt to evade Congress and circumvent the Constitution," Larson's office said in a press release.
The Connecticut Democrat, who has called for Trump's impeachment over the illegal war, said he would also introduce legislation aimed at prohibiting any additional federal funding for unauthorized attacks on Iran as the White House and congressional Republicans seek tens of billions more for the war—and as the Trump administration reportedly plans to widen its assault, potentially involving ground troops.
“While Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans continue to do Trump’s bidding instead of defending Congress' constitutional authority, more American servicemembers are paying the price with their lives," Larson said in a statement. "Congress cannot continue to sit on its hands. We must cut off funding for this illegal war and take every available legal action to end it before more Americans are killed."
Last month, the House and Senate—both controlled by Republicans—passed a resolution calling on Trump to remove US forces from conflict with Iran, but the measure lacked the force of law. The president has since reimposed a naval blockade on Iran and resumed a massive bombing campaign that, since its inception in late February, has killed thousands, wreaked havoc on the global economy, and driven up costs for Americans.
With Trump ignoring congressional war powers efforts, Democrats and advocacy organizations committed to stopping the war on Iran have shifted their focus to blocking military funding to exert pressure on Republicans and the Trump administration. Last week, Senate Democrats blocked the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) over the Iran war.
The House is expected to begin voting on its version of the NDAA as soon as Wednesday. Republicans on the House Rules Committee rejected a proposed Democratic amendment last week that would have barred future Pentagon funds from being used for the war on Iran.
"NOBODY in Congress that passed the historic Iran War Powers Resolution should vote to give ONE CENT to Trump and Hegseth's Pentagon without a signed Iran peace deal," the advocacy group Just Foreign Policy wrote in a social media post late Monday.
Keep ReadingShow Less
And Brush Therein: The Losingest Loser At Work or Play
Jul 20, 2026
In "almost Shakespearean grotesquery," our cringe Buffoon-In-Chief thrust himself into the World Cup final only to be unceremoniously booed, snubbed and cropped out of team photos. Then he again assailed Canada for smoke from their wildfires, though ours are much worse and they've often helped us with them. Still, our ever-gracious northern neighbor launched a new initiative to dutifully sweep the Rockies, vacuum the forests, hand-rake pine needles. Its acronym: F.U.C.K.O.F.F.
The headlines for Trump's Sunday gatecrash of another major sports event that really, really didn't want him there tells the vainglorious, mortifying tale: "Most Universally Hated President In History Mercilessly Booed," "Crowd Boos, Player Snub and Failed Photobomb: Trump's Big World Cup Day Out," and "Confused Old Fuckwit Imagines He's Won the World Cup." The Guardian also wins a Snark of the Year Award for the caption to its photo of FIFA's Infantino deep in conversation with a clueless Trump, both men standing under a blizzard of confetti, after he literally had to drag him off-stage: "Gianni Infantino carefully explains to Donald Trump he is not part of the Spanish team."
Some of the over 82,000 fans at New Jersey's Met-Life Stadium, where Spain trounced a listless, chaotic, often-thuggish Argentina 1-0, had earlier made their feelings clear when video briefly showed Trump ensconced in his glass-encased VIP digs and scattered boos rang out. By the time he finally lumbered stoop-shouldered onto the field at the end, it sounded like all 82,000-plus had reconsidered before joining in to jeer. Trailing behind him, looking like hostages trying to keep a safe distance to not catch any cooties, were Mexico's and Canada's leaders, the tournament's alleged, far-less-despised hosts. Illogically, thanks to Infantino's long, gross obsequiousness, Trump got to hand out awards.
And he did, though not without drama: Several players hesitated, recoiled or refused to shake his hand. Then it was time to hand out the (seductively gold) World Cup. Little needy Donnie, a malignant narcissistic lump who just can't help himself, swooped in to awkwardly "help" Infantino carry it like a five-year-old hungry for the ice-cream cone his dad is holding, "a lonely, grasping figure refusing to release a trophy he didn’t win." Once it was presented to Spain's captain Rodri, Trump, "malice wrapped in vanity," painfully lingered there in the limelight as Infantino struggled to yank him to the side for the iconic hoist photo. In the end, a patient Rodri gently nudged him out of the shot, but cringingly not off the stage.
Steve Schmidt noted the clumsy resulting image's era-defining power, its display of the "breathtaking psychological fragility" of a "President Norma Desmond...incapable of understanding that the greatest office in the world confers responsibility, not ownership." "The character has been devoured by the caricature," he wrote of "self-parody made flesh," the small man so consumed by the need for adulation that, "Every trophy is his trophy. Every triumph is his triumph. Every stage is his stage." Later, in photos released both by FIFA and the Spanish team, Trump had mercifully, miraculously disappeared from both shots, because this is why God and Al Gore invented photoshop.
The awkward bit of theater with Spain came, lest we forget, in the wake of Trump's weeks of vilifying the nation and their prime minister Pedro Sánchez - first, for their refusal to allow the U.S. military to use Spanish bases to help illegally bomb Iran, then for the alleged failure of "bad" and "hopeless" Spanish people to pay enough for NATO defense spending. Despite Trump's ugly threats to "cut off all trade" with a longtime ally unforgivably following the law, it all suddenly vanished before the cameras, where Trump congratulated "a great team," even though they speak Spanish, and claimed there was "no tension" with the country’s leadership. Actually, he smirked, "I have no tension with anybody."
Tell it to Canada, which Trump has been moronically berating for "Willful Negligence," aka inexplicably allowing smoke from over 800 wildfires raging across some of Canada's 347 million acres to drift over our pristine shores. A few days earlier, joined by equally stupid MAGA lackeys, he raged the U.S. "is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air" at an "incalculable" (a big word he probs didn't write) cost, and "maybe they should pay us some damages" or billions more in tariffs, and he'd call Carney "to find out what they are going to do about it." "We are holding Canada responsible," he thundered, "for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein."
Like his long-ago claim during California wildfires that Finland's president told him they rake their forests and have no such problems - Finland when asked: "WTF" - this is an idiot's fever dream. Facts owe: This year, America has seen over 40,000 fires burn roughly 3.9 million acres, 157% its ten-year average. There are now over 70 uncontained U.S. fires being fought by nearly 18,000 people, with much of the Northwest - Colorado, Oregon, Washington - at National Preparedness Level 5, the highest, and up to 58 new fires a day. Air quality alerts affecting a million Americans are due to those fires, to blazes across 70,000-plus acres in Minnesota, and to 3,600 fires across 1.8 million acres, below the five-year average, in Canada.
In the face of unnamed U.S. pols mindlessly "chirping away," notes Ontario Premier Doug Ford, he has already asked for firefighters or "anything they can send" to help fight nearly 200 fires, some of which have crossed into Canada from Minnesota, that have forced entire First Nations to evacuate and many residents to sleep in their cars. Rather than complain maybe send help, he adds, "because we have done the same thing for our American friends," again and again. Even as Canadian officials issue air quality warnings from U.S. fires drifting north, a 56-year-old Canadian helicopter pilot from B.C. just died in a crash battling a fire in Colorado, the fourth firefighter death there this summer.
Meanwhile, a science-denying MAGA has ended support for dozens of climate initiatives, dismantled our largest climate research center and pushed for more fossil fuel carnage. On Sunday, with much of his country on fire, Trump attacked the National Academy of Sciences - chartered by Abe Lincoln mid-Civil War "because even a nation shooting at itself understood it needed scientists" - because it's "run by Radical Left Dumocrats” who published costly, "fraudulent," “totally discredited” climate change manuals, which he ordered "Suspension and Debarment" officials to review. Also - cue dumbest timeline ever - Repubs jumped in to decry DEI-loving advocates who (gasp) may have tried to stop blessed oil and gas projects.
Still, Canada is a tolerant, peace-loving nation that tries to accommodate all comers, even a nitwit who's never gotten any closer to a "forest" than Central Park. It also values its natural resources, including a 270-million-acre boreal forest, much of it roadless, whose vast ecosystem serves as a global carbon sink to purify air and water, regulate climate and offer breeding ground to billions of birds. And if a nitwit neighbor to the north chides its inadequate forest management, Canada seeks to rise to the occasion - to, as it were, Be Better. Thus was born a bold new initiative from the Department of Forest Tidiness, which is now "pleased to confirm the message has been received loud and clear."
Canada's Forest Undergrowth Clearing & Kindling Operation for Foreign Friends, aka F.U.C.K.O.F.F., renders every able-bodied person ages 16 to 65 responsible for removing leaves, twigs, moss, bark, branches, pine needles, deadfall and shrubs deemed "insufficiently tidy by Congressional observers." After receiving government-issued rakes, gloves and safety vests, they must arrange all debris "into neat bilingual piles," to be inspected by forestry officials. Further actions may include sweeping the Rocky Mountains, power-washing the Canadian Shield, vacuuming deserts, raking California, installing smoke-detectors across the Yukon and mandating all fires contain and respect clearly marked provincial borders.
In Ontario, workers will be assigned 6.7 acres (40 NHL hockey rinks) of dense untracked country and a 26-hour work week; elsewhere, shifts surge to 18.3 acres (110 rinks) and 70 hours a week. Morning commutes start with a three-day canoe trip and 15-km hike through swamp; on-site, workers will hand-groom 300 billion trees, hand-rake infinite pine needles, make local beavers submit environmental impact reports and dodge grizzlies as needed. Finally, it notes, "Canada thanks Congress for sharing their extensive knowledge of forestry, wildfire behavior, climate science, geography and upkeep of a country containing 9% of the world's forests, and looks forward to receiving further practical advice from Washington."
Online, many Americans, after snorting coffee through their noses, thanked Canada "for being great neighbors and allies," and apologized profusely for - hands held hopelessly wide - "all this." "We are so, so sorry," said one. Another: "We're so incredibly sorry." Canadians joined in: "I'm in Alberta - I'll send water," "In B.C., have to get my mountaineering gear first. Sorry. eh?" and an offer to add a new organization, Canadian Undergrowth, Nature, and Tree Services: "I believe that with your cooperation, F.U.C.K.O.F.F plus C.U.N.T.S could really show Americans we take their health and well-being seriously." Organizers estimate their work will be completed "somewhere between Thursday afternoon and the collapse of human civilization."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump 'Raising Prices on Americans Again' With 50% Tariff on Canadian Imports
"Americans have to pay high prices because Trump doesn’t understand how wind works," quipped one critic.
Jul 20, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Monday invoked an arcane legal provision to impose 50% tariffs on most imported goods from Canada, a move that critics said will hit US consumers already reeling from an unabated cost-of-living crisis and further strain relations with the nation's second-largest trade partner.
Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, an unprecedented move the White House said is aimed at "offsetting the burden and disadvantage on US commerce from Canada’s discriminatory treatment of US commerce" and "leveling the playing field for crucial American exports—cars, alcohol, and dairy."
The new tariffs exempt energy products, potash, fish, and critical minerals.
“While the administration continues to secure fair and reciprocal trade deals with our trading partners, Canada, unlike other partners and allies, continues to retaliate against the United States for its efforts to rebalance trade and protect US industry in national security-sensitive sectors,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement.
“Specifically, Canada has taken US alcohol products off Canadian shelves, given better market access to dairy products from the European Union, and has put a cap on US vehicle exports to Canada from companies reshoring to the United States," Greer added. "Today, President Trump took decisive action to hold Canada accountable for its retaliation and discrimination, delivering on his promise to correct trade imbalances and ensure fairness for American workers, farmers, and businesses.”
While the administration's official communications cite economic reasons for the new tariffs, Trump in recent days has repeatedly cited the Canadian wildfires as justification for the move.
“I told them. I mean, you got to stop these fires from coming in, and you know poisoning our air," Trump said of Canada on Sunday evening. "Our air has been poisoned. Maybe they should pay us some damages or something, or we should do some tariffs."
The president's linkage of the wildfires and tariffs drew widespread ridicule, with Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posting on X, "Only Donald Trump could see wildfire smoke and decide the answer is more tariffs."
Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer said on social media, "Americans have to pay high prices because Trump doesn’t understand how wind works."
According to We Pay the Tariffs, a small business coalition, Trump’s capricious tariffs have cost American businesses and consumers upward of $317 billion since March 2025.
That month, Trump imposed 25% tariffs on many Canadian goods and 10% on Canadian energy products. The administration later modified or paused some of those tariffs.
Ottawa has criticized the tariffs and rejected the US justification that Canada is unfairly restricting American products.
"I’ll never stop fighting to protect Ontario," Doug Ford, the province's right-wing premier, said in response to Trump's move. "If these tariffs proceed, Canada should respond tariff for tariff, dollar for dollar."
Some Democratic US lawmakers blasted the new tariffs.
"Trump is raising prices on Americans, again, by jacking up tariffs by 50% on Canadian goods bought by Americans," Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said on social media. "Democrats will flip the House. And on day one of next term, Democrats will introduce legislation to repeal Trump’s disastrous tariffs. And we will pass it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Mamdani Cites ICC Warrant, Trump Says 'Netanyahu Will Not Be Arrested' in NYC
New York City's mayor reiterated Monday that his administration will "follow all applicable local laws" as he considers legal options to take against the fugitive Israeli prime minister.
Jul 20, 2026
US President Donald Trump declared Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza—will be safe from arrest in the United States after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he was exploring whether he could apprehend the fugitive during his planned visit to the United Nations in September.
"Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America," Trump said on his Truth Social network.
"He is fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52,000 innocent protestors, and has spent the last 47 years killing American Soldiers, and others," the president continued, citing a protest death claim made by opponents of the Iranian government, which said that 3,117 people were killed.
"The only ones that should be arrested," Trump added, "are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents!"
The US and Israel are currently waging an illegal war of choice against Iran.
Trump's post followed weekend remarks by Mamdani, who told The New York Times that Netanyahu "belongs in The Hague," the Dutch city that's home to both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice, where a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa in 2023 is pending.
“He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” the mayor said. “I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city.”
"Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end," he added.
Mamdani was asked about his remarks during a Monday press conference.
"We're speaking about someone who's the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant," he said of Netanyahu. "And he's the subject of this arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity, for war crimes, and he's the architect of the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as Israel's prime minister. These are not facts of my personal assessment; they are facts of public record."
"And I believe that when someone is charged with an International Criminal Court warrant, it's something that should be taken seriously, whether it's Benjamin Netanyahu or it's [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, or whomever else," Mamdani added. "What I've also made clear is that my administration will follow all applicable local laws. That is our commitment."
🚨Mamdani on why he ordered review re: Netanyahu arrest:
“He's the architect of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza as Israel's prime minister...
“If someone is charged with a warrant for by the International Criminal Court for these kinds of crimes, that's something I… https://t.co/6OfJPRJQ4u pic.twitter.com/Wee0mbID9S
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) July 20, 2026
Although neither the US nor Israel is an ICC member, Palestine is a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty governing the tribunal, Articles 12 and 13 of the document say that individuals from nonsignatory nations can be held liable for crimes committed in the territory of a member state.
Article 27 of the Rome Statute also says that serving as a head of state or government, or as any elected official, "shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility" before the court.
However, Article 98 of the treaty may limit governments' obligation to execute an ICC arrest warrant in certain circumstances involving officials of nonparty states.
Netanyanu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are accused of murder and forced starvation in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the deadliest in that country's history.
Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, over 21,500 of them children, in Gaza since October 2023, while wounding over 173,500 others, according to Palestinian officials. More than 2 million other Gazans have been forcibly displaced—often multiple times—starved, or sickened by the US-backed war, which UN and other experts say is a genocide.
While numerous Global South nations—particularly members of the Hague Group—and US allies including Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Spain have publicly said they would enforce the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, other nations including France and Hungary have said they would not try to arrest the Israelis if they entered their territory.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'McCarthyite' Rubio Report Ripped as Attempt to Justify Trump Invasion of Cuba
Critics panned the publication for not only its warmongering but also "unfounded claims seeking to tar domestic movements for social change as agents of a foreign government."
Jul 20, 2026
While some Republicans in Congress cheered the US Department of State's Monday report titled "Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism," American and Cuban critics blasted it as part of both President Donald Trump's push to invade the island and his authoritarian crackdown on domestic dissent.
"For nearly seven decades, the Cuban regime has waged a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States," the report begins, "that has infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists, backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil, and carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history."
Sharing the document on social media, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime advocate of regime change on the island—similarly claimed that Cuba's government "has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States. The State Department is exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country. The American people deserve to know."
Some of the critics responded directly to Rubio, calling the report "justification for the military invasion of Cuba and the new COINTELPRO," a reference to the Federal Bureau of Investigation program targeting US organizers over half a century ago.
Defense Priorities fellow and Chicago Tribune foreign affairs columnist Daniel DePetris wrote: "This report actually states, in all seriousness, that Cuba's main goal is to conquer the United States. It's about as dumb as dumb gets. Don't be fooled: This is the State Department trying to build the foundational case for US military action, should Trump decide to do it."
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King's College London and fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, urged Rubio, "Before building another casus belli for Cuba, try to solve the strategic disaster that is the Iran War you started but cannot win."
Trump in recent months has ramped up the United States' decadeslong and deadly economic assault on Cuba and suggested that he may try to take over the island. However, he's also signaled such action may come only after an end to his illegal war on Iran, which has been revived in recent days following a failed ceasefire.
In an apparent show of support for Trump taking military action against the island nation, Congressman Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) declared on social media Monday, "Cuba is next!"
Meanwhile, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said in Spanish that "the latest fallacy from the US Department of State against Cuba forms part of the construction, by the secretary of state, of a pretext for sustaining its cruel and criminal economic war that punishes every Cuban family, and its aspiration to militarily aggress Cuba, for which it desperately seeks the support of US citizens. It is further evidence of the macabre plan designed by that US politician from South Florida, who only satisfies the interests of those who have always paid him."
US Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), who recently traveled to Cuba to hear firsthand accounts of the humanitarian crisis, said that "Secretary Rubio's deranged 'analysis' leaves out the fact that for more than six decades, the United States' policies have destabilized our neighbors in Latin America—including Cuba—through sanctions, embargoes, military coups, land control, and colonization."
"Today, the Trump Department of State, led by Rubio, continues that imperialist tradition while doing what authoritarians do by criminalizing dissent," she continued. "US foreign policy is responsible for death, destruction, and destabilization. We can change that. We CAN become good neighbors."
About halfway through the State Department report, it complains about a "constant stream of Western left-wing activists, influencers, and organizers" participating in "solidarity delegations" as well as events such as the March 2026 "Nuestra América Convoy," which delivered humanitarian aid to everyday Cubans suffering due to the Trump administration's intensified blockade.
"Participants included a suite of influential progressives from the United States and across the world, including Hasan Piker; Amazon Labor Union founder Christian Smalls; a delegation from the Democratic Socialists of America; former UK Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn; former Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias; several other current and former members of European Parliament; and Isra Hirsi, campus activist and daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)," the report states. Elsewhere, it takes aim at groups including the peace organization CodePink, Communist Party USA, the National Lawyers Guild, and others.
Some targeted individuals and groups responded to what CodePink called a "conspiracy theory that masquerades as a report on Cuba," full of "baseless smears and imaginary, contrived links to Russia, China, and Iran."
"The report attempts to paint the tiny island as a threat but says nothing about the US blockade that starves and punishes 10 million people," CodePink said. "This latest attempt by the State Department is just one of many politically motivated witch hunts designed to silence anti-war voices who dare to challenge US militarism. It's about justifying even more aggression against Cuba while turning advocates for peace into suspects. We've seen this playbook before. It's McCarthyism, plain and simple."
"CodePink is currently under investigation by the Treasury Department simply for bringing medical supplies to serve children's hospitals in Cuba. We live in a world where, sadly, the people delivering medicine—not those who are enforcing the policies that deprive Cubans of medicine, food, fuel, and electricity—are under investigation," the group noted.
The organization also nodded to the dozens of United Nations General Assembly votes against the decades of American sanctions, saying that "we stand proudly with the global majority, including 187 UN member nations, who oppose the inhumane US blockade of Cuba. We will not be intimidated for delivering humanitarian aid and advocating for diplomacy over war."
"End the blockade. End the sanctions. End the economic warfare. End the threats of military intervention," CodePink declared. "Let Cubans determine their own future. Hands off Cuba."
Although not mentioned in the administration's new document, Defending Rights & Dissent joined the organizations publicly lambasting it, with policy director Chip Gibbons saying that his group "objects to the State Department's McCarthyite report on Cuba, which makes unfounded claims seeking to tar domestic movements for social change as agents of a foreign government."
Throughout its 100 pages, the publication "goes so far as to cite reports from the long-discredited House Un-American Activities Committee, in order to revive absurd Cold War conspiracy theories and update them for the present," noted Gibbons the author of The Imperial Bureau: The FBI, Political Surveillance, and the Rise of the US National Security State.
"The report smears activists, organizations, and even elected officials using guilt-by-association techniques. It appears designed to justify both domestic political repression and regime change in Cuba," he added. "Congress must not only condemn the report but hold hearings examining its authorship and to determine if the claims behind it have been used to facilitate the surveillance of American activists."
This article has been updated with comment from Congresswoman Delia Ramirez.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'An Unmistakably Chilling Message': Trump DOJ Subpoenaed Phone Records of Journalists' Relatives
"Every American who values a free and independent press should see this for what it is: an abuse of power designed to silence scrutiny."
Jul 20, 2026
Attorneys representing The New York Times have revealed that the Trump administration's subpoenas of the newspaper's journalists are far more aggressive than what had been previously reported.
In a letter sent to US District Judge Arun Subramanian on Saturday and unsealed by the court on Monday, attorneys David O'Neil, Douglas Zolkind, and Julie Edelstein said that the US Department of Justice was engaged in an "alarming pattern of conduct" beyond its recently revealed efforts to compel Times reporters to testify before a grand jury for a probe related to unspecified national security leaks.
The attorneys said the administration had gone so far as to subpoena phone companies for subscriber information and toll records for phone numbers used by one reporter's mother and by two reporters' spouses, among others.
They also revealed that two administration subpoenas seek records going back as far as January 1 this year, "long before the events that are purportedly the basis for the department's investigation," suggesting that "the department is using this investigation... to forage for information about the journalists' source relationships more broadly."
The subpoenas of the Times journalists, issued earlier this month, came days after the paper published a story that detailed security concerns about the luxury jet the Qatari government gave to President Donald Trump.
The issued subpoenas did not specifically name the Times’ reporting on the Qatari jet as the reason for the grand jury probe, although they were given to all four journalists—Tyler Pager, Julian Barnes, Eric Schmitt, and Eric Lipton—who reported the story.
It is highly uncommon for government investigators to subpoena journalists when they are probing national security leaks, as such actions are generally seen as having a chilling effect on reporters’ ability to gather information.
Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, described news of the department seeking phone records of reporters' spouses and a parent as "an extraordinary escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign to intimidate the press."
"The Justice Department didn't stop at journalists—it went after their family members, too," Fallow noted. "That sends an unmistakably chilling message to anyone thinking about reporting on this administration. Every American who values a free and independent press should see this for what it is: an abuse of power designed to silence scrutiny."
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, was even more scathing in his denunciation of the administration's actions.
"Even the Mafia says families are off limits," said Stern. "It’s gross that the administration—in its never-ending effort to harass and intimidate reporters who reveal its incompetence—is going after the communications of journalists’ relatives."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'No to War': Iranian Civil Society Issues Call for Peace as US Assault Intensifies
"We believe that the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people desire peace and the right to live a dignified life."
Jul 20, 2026
As the US ramps up its assault against Iran with daily bombings and threatens a full ground invasion, hundreds of public figures from across Iranian civil society issued an urgent call for peace on Sunday.
Two hundred sixty-eight prominent Iranians—including political activists, academics, former members of Parliament, religious figures, labor leaders, and others—signed a joint declaration calling for a "complete and unconditional end of war, and the cessation of all threats, incitement to hatred, and warmongering."
"We believe that the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people desire peace and the right to live a dignified life," the statement says. "Therefore, since no decision should be imposed upon the country against the will of its people... we firmly remind all governments, military forces involved in the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, and all members of the international community that violating this fundamental right of the Iranian people is a grave injustice against a nation that does not want war and stands for peace."
"Despite all our differences, we raise our collective voice to say 'No to War,'" the letter continued. "We sincerely call upon all our fellow Iranians—regardless of gender, political or ideological beliefs, religion, ethnicity, or any other distinction—to join this call and strengthen its echo by adding their voices."
The declaration ends with a quote from the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi Shirazi: "Even if you possess the strength of an elephant or the claws of a lion, to me, peace is still better than war."
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) emphasized the "breadth of the signatories," which span large swaths of political opinion and reflect "a rare convergence across Iran’s deeply fragmented political landscape."
Among the signatories are Kak Hassan Amini, a Sunni activist; Faezeh Hashemi, a former member of Iran's Parliament and the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; teachers' labor rights activist Maryam Kabiri; former Parliament members Elaheh Koulaei and Parvaneh Salahshouri; and former Central Bank Gov. Valiollah Seif.
The letter comes as the US has conducted nine consecutive nights of bombings following a short-lived truce in June. Earlier strikes targeted areas around the Strait of Hormuz—which Iran again sealed off as June's memorandum of understanding collapsed.
In recent days, US strikes have begun to creep inland. In addition to military infrastructure, the US has attacked facilities relied upon by civilians, including bridges, roads, a train station, an airport, and energy infrastructure.
In retaliation for strikes that killed two US service members in Jordan over the weekend, the US launched another round of strikes on Monday that struck the construction site of a planned nuclear power plant, according to Iran's atomic energy agency.
Iranian authorities have said that at least 50 people have been killed and at least 517 wounded in the latest round of US strikes. At least 3,500 Iranians have been killed since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February, including more than 1,700 confirmed civilians, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
At least 17 US troops have been killed since the war began, with Iran's strikes in Jordan killing 25-year-old 1st Lt. James Feehan and 19-year-old Pvt. Isabella Gonzales over the weekend. Another soldier has also gone missing and has not yet been publicly identified.
President Donald Trump vowed in a social media post on Monday that "every time Iran kills an American Soldier” going forward “they will pay for that killing many times over.”
With Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz once again causing global oil prices to soar, the Trump administration is reportedly mulling a full-scale ground invasion of Kharg Island and areas of coastline near the strait, which experts have warned would require hundreds of thousands of American troops and likely lead to many more casualties.
Democrats in Congress responded to the deaths of two more US soldiers by renewing calls to end the conflict.
"These brave troops gave their lives in service to our nation," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "How many more must die for Trump’s war of choice?"
Trump's escalations come despite the US House of Representatives and Senate passing a war powers resolution last month that directed him to withdraw troops from hostilities with Iran unless Congress authorizes them.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More Stories
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy